BEFORE THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The time is October 5, 1573. The place, Antwerp, Belgium. Maeyken Wens, an Anabaptist, has been arrested and tortured. Her tongue screwed to her palate to prevent her witness, she is carted to the stake where her sentence is etched in flames. For what heinous violation of law did she die? She proclaimed the gospel as she understood it from her reading of the New Testament. And for that a tribunal of the Inquisition found her guilty of heresy, impiety, and disobedience to Mother Church. So it was when “God” directed affairs of government. So it was when no First Amendment separated church and state. So it was when doctrine was imposed by law. And so it was that they burned Maeyken Wens, Anabaptist and mother of nine. Paul D. Simmons in “A Heritage at Stake” in Liberty, November 12, 1992
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