Never was the Bible so accessible! (1)

That we are living in an exceptional time is a truth often emphasized on this website – especially as a prophetic fact. The term of this eon is nearing its end, and many developments of the past century confirm this approaching conclusion. In a pair of blogs I would like to draw your attention to the remarkable fact that the Bible has never been as accessible as it is in our day. In this first blog I want to highlight the first reason for this: the separation of church and state.

religion and politics

For many centuries, a deep entanglement existed between “church” and “state” in large parts of the world – regardless of which church one considers. In much of Europe and South America, it was the Roman Catholic Church. In England, the Anglican Church, and in the East, various Eastern Orthodox churches. Since the Reformation, many Protestant countries have also had their own state churches, as for example in the Netherlands, the Dutch Reformed Church. To this day, we still see remnants of this past in many nations, where religion and politics in many respects overlapped. For instance, the British monarch is officially still the head of the Anglican Church.

church and state

Since the time of ’the (so-called) Enlightenment’ in the 18th century, “church” and “state” have been separated worldwide. The extent to which this separation has been realized differs from country to country, but the fundamental idea behind it is that “the church” (as an institution) does not interfere with “the state,” and likewise, “the state” does not involve itself in ecclesiastical matters. Before the separation of church and state, it was common for secular governments to carry out sentences against people who opposed the church and its dogmas. For example, denying the dogma of the trinity could, in many cases, result in being burned at the stake. It is possible that the expression “to smoke like a heretic” traces back to this. The stake was, after all, the place where heretics (= those who rejected church dogmas) met their tragic end…

free Bible study was impossible

It goes without saying that in a society where church dogmas were imposed with authority, there could be no talk of free Bible study. Insofar as the Bible was studied, it was by definition under the control of the church. A message such as is proclaimed on GoedBericht.nl would certainly not have been tolerated, and I would have been forced to go underground. It is a bizarre notion that gatherings where people freely and independently study the Scriptures were, for many centuries, impossible—precisely within the Christian world.

benefiting from tolerance

It is true that the Enlightenment and secularization paved the way toward a world without God. The separation of church and state was certainly not driven by a desire to freely investigate the Bible. But because the state distanced itself from the church, space emerged to think, speak, and publish outside of church authority. As a result, a broad tolerance arose toward all kinds of minority groups—among which Bible-believing Christians must certainly be counted. In practice, Bible believers need not fear persecution from an indifferent society, but rather from a dominant orthodoxy.

freedom

Bible believers thrive in freedom. For as soon as a religion or philosophy is imposed by force, minority groups always suffer the consequences. It is therefore a great privilege to be able to benefit from the space that has been granted to us as believers since the separation of church and state: to be able to meet freely, to study the Scriptures independently, and to proclaim the truth of it. Let us cherish this privilege and be gratefully aware of it—especially now that in recent years, freedoms are being threatened from a very different direction. This time not from a church institution, but from supranational, globalist organizations moving toward total control. But however the latter may develop, as long as we can, let us seize the opportunities God gives us in the freedom granted!

In a next blog, I will discuss a second reason why the Bible is more accessible today than ever: information technology and the internet.

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