Can Governments Bind Our Consciences?

Can governments bind a Christian’s conscience? They can clearly try. But that is not the question. I want to know if governments can bind our consciences. To answer this question (and many others), we need to return to the Reformation. The Reformation in large part centred on the freedom of the conscience. Martin Luther (1483–1546) famously claimed that his conscience is bound to God’s word. His work The Freedom of the Christian centred on a particular freedom that Christians enjoy. John Calvin (1509–1564) and William Perkins (1558–1602), the father of Puritanism, also wrote on Christian freedom and the conscience in...