UnLocke the Church - Ideas On Church and State

An imposing statue of John Locke (1632-1704) looms near the top of the staircase that leads toward the main library at Christ Church, Oxford. For Lockean scholars, such a tribute aptly highlights the life and work of a philosopher responsible for much of modern thought regarding church and state. For the less philosophically inclined, it's a reminder that the patron saint of empiricism now holds sway over the university that was once led by another, less well-known figure whose ideas were entirely different.

Locke's life and work rise above the life and work of the obscure John Owen, who served as Dean of Christ Church and later Vice-Chancellor of the entire university. Although their lives overlapped, their ideas diverged sharply, and seventeenth-century England lived in the contested territory between their very different theological and political trajectories.

Owen sought to apply various texts from the Bible and conjoining theological doctrines rediscovered during the Protestant Reformation to political policies, thereby enabling various events in the life of the nation to be interpreted in the light of Holy Scripture. Preaching before Parliament in 1646 (two years after the civil war began between Parliament and King Charles), Owen was noticed by none other than Oliver Cromwell, who later appointed him his personal chaplain with the responsibility of preaching to the troops.