This episode highlights the problem of dissent in any church-state mixture. Henry VIII separated England from the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the new Anglican Church. He was both head of the church and the state, and subsequent monarchs assumed these roles. Henry's daughter Mary eventually came to the throne, and her fervent Catholicism led to the martyrdom of many Protestants, some whose stories are recorded in Fox's Book of Martyrs. While her successor Elizabeth managed to quell religious violence, the problem of dissent remained: as long as the crown (the state) is tied to the church, purely "theological" disputes are necessarily "political." Disagreement in the "religious" sphere becomes rebellion against the ESTABLISHED church, i.e., the STATE church. The Puritan "city on a hill" escaped persecution in England, but not the problem of dissent. For barely starting anew in Massachusetts, the Puritans exiled Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, the latter objecting to the church-state blending of the Puritans. Williams insisted on the separation of church and state, a "wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world." Williams therefore embodies both the problem and solution to the problem of dissent. Up to this point the response to dissent among "Christian nationalists" was either persecution or exile. The episode finally cites Madison's condemnation of church-state mixing, leading to "inquisitions" among dissenters, second-class citizens.
