Hello and welcome to another episode of the Giants of the Faith podcast. My name is Robert Daniels and I'm the host of this show. This is the podcast where we focus on individuals from the age of the Church who have lived out their faith in a unique or interesting way. These are people who are giants in the history of Christendom and each has earned a spot in my personal Christian Hall of Fame.

Before I get into today's episode I want to take a moment to make a recommendation that might interest some of you. As I record this I'm watching through Francis Schaeffer's excellent 10 part video series How Should We Then Live on Amazon Prime Video. Francis Schaeffer was a 20th century American theologian and pastor that we'll be covering in an upcoming episode. In How Should We Then Live he walks through history from the early church to the modern age and discusses how Christians influenced and were influenced by each era with the goal of demonstrating the superiority of the Christian Biblical worldview over those based on humanism. It's an easy watch so if you have access to Amazon Prime I recommend you check it out.

Today's episode focuses on the man that is considered the Father of the Congregationalist Church as well as the Father of the Pilgrims and the Grandfather of the United States, Robert Browne also known as Trouble Church Browne. Browne is famous for being the first to set up a separatist church in England after the establishment of the Church of England.

Robert Browne was born in the 1550's - some sources guess 1550 while others prefer 1555 but none are certain - in Little Casterton, England to parents Anthony and Dorothy Browne. Robert was one of seven siblings and came from a very wealthy family.

Not much is known of Browne's childhood but in 1570 he headed off to Cambridge University to study at Corpus Christi College. There he met and became friends with fellow student Robert Harrison who will feature in this narrative shortly. Browne graduated in 1572 or 3.

After leaving Cambridge he went to the London area where he worked as a lecturer/preacher and sometimes as a school master.  It was during this period that Browne began to develop a disdain for the CofE and its structures, particularly the Puritan movement. The Puritans of the time wanted to purify the CofE from any residual Roman Catholic practices. Browne was not afraid to openly criticize the church and its bishops from the pulpit which didn't do much for his popularity. 

By 1578 Browne had returned to Cambridge to complete his studies and button up all that he needed in order to be ordained. Once that was accomplished he was offered the position of lecturer at St Benet's Church near Cambridge. He didn't last long, though. He was becoming firmly anti-Puritan and began to explore options for preaching and teaching outside of the legal national church.

In 1579 Browne's brother secured preaching licenses for them both from the local bishop in Cambridge in order to allow Browne to legally preach. Browne refused to accept the license and instead burned his in protest of its necessity. Browne continued his criticisms of the church and, eventually, that landed him in jail. Fortunately for him his family was wealthy and well connected. His family included wealthy merchants as well as politicians and administrators as well as the powerful William Cecil, Baron Burghley. Cecil was advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and worked to unify the British Isles and is the one that convinced the queen to execute Mary, Queen of Scots. With connections like that, he was quickly freed from jail. 

After suffering from and recovering from a bout of Plague Browne travelled to Norwich in 1581 to visit with his old college friend Robert Harrison. Harrison had, like Browne, been a school master and, like Browne, had become increasingly disenamored with the Church of England. 

Browne lived with Harrison and, while in Norwich, began to take an interest in the Anabaptist beliefs of the Dutch craftsman population there. He took to preaching and, with Harrison, set up his own church outside the bounds of the Church of England. His separatist congregation was setup in such a way that the membership had control of the church. They elected the pastor, which was Browne, and there was to be no centralized controlling agency.

Browne was said to be a fine preacher and began to draw the Dutch and others to hear him. This ticked off the local Puritans which led to Browne's arrest again. But, as before, his family secured his release. The persecution that Browne and his church faced persuaded them to move to Zealand in the Netherlands to establish themselves there.

In 1582, from the Netherlands, Browne published his most influential work 'A Treatise for Reformation Without Tarrying for Anie'. In it Browne acknowledge the rights of civil governments to rule over their citizens - but only in civil affairs. Church members were to submit to the authority of their governors but, at the same time, he believed the civil government had not authority in the realm of the church. "The Lord’s kingdom is not by force," he wrote, "neither by an army or strength, as are the kingdoms of the world." The government had not right to, as he wrote, "compel religion, to plant Churches by power, and to force a submission to ecclesiastical government by laws and penalties.” His ideas led to him being coined Troublechurch Brown by his opponents.

He also asserted that churches should have local governance. Churches were to be institutions of people that have come together to live under the authority of Christ as given in His Word and affirmed by His Spirit. The authorities were to have no say in who led churches. Pastors were given authority by God and appointed by the  “due consent and agreement of the church … according to the number of the most which agree.” Browne said that Christianity is “a matter of private conscience rather than public order, that the church is a fellowship of believers rather than an army of pressed men” He was laying the groundwork for the Congregationalist movement that was shortly to come.

Unfortunately Browne and Harrison had a falling out and Browne was voted out of leadership. He went to Scotland with a few followers but before he could fully establish a church there he was arrested again. After he got out of jail he traveled around Scotland looking for converts but had little luck. 

Browne then returned to England and began preaching again. He was eventually excommunicated by the Church of England. This must have shaken him badly because, with the help of his familial connections, he came to an agreement with the church. He'd follow the church's rules, attend services regularly, and publicly recant his views. In exchange, he would be restored to communion. Browne obeyed and in 1586 he was given a headmaster's position.

This sorely disappointed Browne's friends, and in truth it disappointed me too. But his recanting came too late. Browne and his writings had already lit a fire which would grow into the Congregationalist movement. Separatist churches began springing up in England. In 1593, the three leaders of the movement - Henry Barrow, John Greenwood, and John Penry - were all executed by the British government. A law was passed forcing everyone over 16 to regularly attend CofE services. Failure to comply would result in a month of jailtime. As a result, the Separatists we know as the Pilgrims left England for Holland and, eventually, ended up in Plymouth Colony in the New World in 1620.

In England the movement grew and, perhaps, peaked with the Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate which resulted in the execution of the English King, Charles I and civil war. Incidentally, did you know that Cromwell's body was dug up three years after his death so that he could be posthumously executed? His head was cut off and displayed on a pike before being sold and privately owned until it was finally reburied in 1960.

Anyway, Browne's ideas led many future churches and denominations to follow self-governance principles. In fact, his doctrine of the separation of church and state is well known to my American listeners even if we were unaware of its origins. Browne may have been, ultimately, a coward who caved to the religious and civil authorities of his day but he started a movement that has had enormous impact on the world we live in today. If not for him the movement toward independent churches would have been delayed, at least. And there would have been no Plymouth Colony in the Americas populated by the Pilgrims and who can fathom what historical changes that would have lead to. Browne may not have been a great man but his impact is outsized and definitely merits him inclusion in this podcast.

This wraps up another episode of Giants of the Faith. I hope you've enjoyed it and I hope that you, as I did when researching this episode, learned something new. If you have any comments or corrections please send them along to podcast@giantsofthefaith.com. I'd be very happy to hear what you think of the show. Until next time, God bless.

RESOURCES

Andrew Fuller Center: http://andrewfullercenter.org/articles/blog/2006/09/troublechurch-browne

Christian History Institute: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/browne

Lilford Hall: http://www.lilfordhall.com/ElmesFamily/Robert-Browne.asp

Intro Music: Country Strumstick Mountain Hop, by Andy Slater