Books like A Letter Concerning Toleration

Having read the text of the New Testament a fair number of times, I can see nothing that yields the conclusion that the purpose of Christianity is building theocratic nation states. A straightforward reading indicates Christianity occupies a subservient position to civil government while allowing for the possibility of civil disobedience in matters of conscience. When questioned, Jesus seemed to differentiate between the spiritual realm and the political realm. The historical pivot point where Christianity ceased to be a religion under a political system and instead became a religion as a political system occurred with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD. When the Reformation began in 1517, it was still very much tangled up with political power. National rulers would choose – for whatever reasons they each may have had – which particular flavour of Christianity they and by extension their citizens would adhere to. It is not an exaggeration on my part to say that if there was some point of disagreement between the beliefs of the individual and the country in which they lived – if, for example, you were a huguenot in a catholic country or an anabaptist in a reformed country – that the consequences could be very severe. It is in this particular historical context of imprisoning or killing people for not having the correct (ie - state sanctioned) metaphysical beliefs that John Locke wrote his plea for toleration.Locke provides a simple, straight forward argument that belief should be a matter of personal conviction, not state coercion. The purpose of the civil government is things like preserving order and protecting and securing the rights of the individual. I think Locke is entirely correct in the arguments he makes here. It is futile to think that coercion is a good method of promulgating Christianity or any other ideology, whether it be religious or not. People will say all kinds of words and emulate all kinds of behaviour if failure to do so entails loss of livelihood, liberty, or life. But do they believe it? As the old saying goes: 'Convince a man against his will, he's of the same opinion still.'Locke wrote his letter addressing a specific problem in a specific time and place and the way to understand historical documents is to read them with that in mind. However, it would be wrong to think that this issue is only something we can glimpse by glancing in the rear view mirror. The obvious examples of modern day theocracies are to be found in middle eastern countries and terrorist organizations like the Islamic State. However, it is worth noting that strains of Christianity like theonomy would be perfectly happy to transform the United States constitution into a variation of the Old Testament legal code.An excellent little treatise on the need for the separation of church and state. Probably one of the foundational documents in the formation of the western conception of a liberal democracy. Four stars for brevity and clarity.