Ranters was
a Commonwealth era sect that wasn’t necessarily Utopian or apocalyptic as such.
Some say it didn’t really exist either. I bring them up anyway, because
they held some interesting beliefs that suggest the idea of change unlike any
other during their time. Namely, that God wasn’t immutable.
Ranters
came about around 1649. They adhered to a notion similar to that of Quakers,
that Christ was present in every believer – or in all living creatures. While
Quakers took this to mean that the believer existed in a sinless state when
Christ was present in them, Ranters maintained that nothing could be sin while
Christ was in them. This led to a behaviour that was judged amoral by their contemporaries,
like cohabiting without marriage and multiple partners living in a
marriage-like arrangement. Mosaic laws didn’t concern them either when they
were in the state of grace.
Parliament
considered Ranters to be a highly disruptive force that had to be destroyed at
all costs. However, some modern historians argue that the group didn’t really
exist, that they were created by the conservatives as the other to be feared. The
middle view is that they were small disconnected groups without proper leaders.
Whatever the true scope, they disappeared soon after the Restoration when the
sects were being purged.
Even though
the sect was never large or powerful, some texts are attributed to them. A
Single Eye (1650) is a pamphlet by Laurence Claxton (1615-1667). In it, he questions the
immutability of God. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one reason why
Christians were unable to see the future different from the present was the
notion that God and His word – in this case, the end of the world – were
unchanging.
In the
letter to the reader, Claxton states that he has seen God being worshipped in
so many manners around the country that it isn’t possible He is the same for
all. According to him, God “thou pretends to Worship, whether he be Infinite,
or Finite; whether he be subject to passion and affection, … and whether he can
be changed by thy prayers, so us to expiate a judgement, or produce a
deliverance … is passionate, God is affectionate, and if either, then
changeable.”
For
Claxton, a god who could be one thing to one person, and completely different
to another, was changeable. In a culture that believed in the immutability of
God, the idea was radical. It’s also the kind of mentality that is prerequisite
for the modern concept of time. I haven’t run into similar examples, however.
As a unique text, it is intriguing, but doesn’t yet herald a new word view.
A Single Eye by Laurence Claxton, 1650. |