The Parsons' Cause

I've always been intrigued by the life events leading up to Patrick Henry's stirring words, "Give me liberty or give me death."  And also interested in the place of his speech.  It was from the pulpit of St. John's Church (now Episcopal) in Richmond, VA.  Virginia's Second Convention met there to avoid the King's "attention" as they chose delegates to the Second Continental Congress.  One could say the meeting was all about independence.

Henry's turn was the result of a fairly short and charismatic career as a lawyer.  His father was a judge and prominent member to Hanover county's powerful interests.  Henry did not do well managing the family's interests, including a tavern and after a brief, self directed reading was made a lawyer.

Also interesting to me was his participation in the events of the Parson's Cause.  Forgive me but here is as brief an account as I can find:

The droughts of the 1750s had led to a rise in the price of tobacco. Hard currency was scarce in Virginia, and salaries in the colony were often expressed in terms of pounds of tobacco. Prior to the drought, the price of tobacco had long been twopence per pound (0.45 kilograms) and in 1755 and 1758, the Virginia House of Burgesses, the elected lower house of the colonial legislature, passed Two Penny Acts, allowing debts expressed in tobacco to be paid at the rate of twopence per pound for a limited period. These payees included public officials, including Anglican clergy—[The Church of England] was then Virginia's established church, and several ministers petitioned the Board of Trade in London to overrule the Burgesses, which it did. Five clergymen then brought suit for back pay, cases known as the Parson's Cause; of them, only the Reverend James Maury was successful, and a jury was to be empaneled in Hanover County on December 1, 1763 to fix damages. Henry was engaged as counsel by Maury's parish vestry for this hearing. Patrick Henry's father, Colonel John Henry, was the presiding judge.^[*] Wikipedia - Patrick Henry

I'm relearning all these things that were buried in my 1972 Essex County, Virginia high school brain.  And as I'm relearning them I'm also reliving a long interest in what is now an even more difficult relationship between church and state.

My father pastored a Baptist church in Tappahannock just 50 miles from Henry's Hanover that worshipped in what had been the second courthouse of the county.  Built in 1728, it was renovated in 1875 to add a steeple to what was a featureless exterior.  The current Essex courthouse looks broad shouldered and more like a church than its predecessor.

Not only all this but through other moments of my upbringing I'm now, it seems always of a mind uneasily managing my place as a parish priest and a public citizen.  And I can't but hear Henry's famous words as full of a spirit that is more than patriotism.   But "custom" warrants more restraint than the freedom loving citizen in me can exercise sometimes.   Do we mean the same thing when we say liberty now? What is this thing we call Christian in the United States in 2019? How do we honor those like Henry now?