Freedom For Religion, Not Freedom From Religion: What the Pilgrims Actually Sought

Freedom For Religion, Not Freedom From Religion

They did not cross an ocean to build a “neutral” nation.

Here is the thesis: the Pilgrims did not leave England to get away from religion, they left because they wanted to live, worship, and order a community under God without the coercion of a state church. They were not chasing a religion-free public square. They were chasing a place where public life could be honestly Christian.

And that difference matters today, because we live in an age that treats “religion in public” like smuggling contraband across the border. The Pilgrims would not recognize that world. They would call it a lie. Then they would pray, sing a psalm, and get back to building.

The modern myth: “They wanted freedom from religion”

You hear it constantly: “The Pilgrims came for freedom from religion.” Meaning, they wanted a public square scrubbed clean of God. They wanted law without Scripture, education without worship, and politics without any claim from heaven.

That is not what their own words say.

Before they even stepped onto shore, they drafted the Mayflower Compact, and they framed their mission in explicitly religious terms: “for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith.”

That is not secularism. That is not neutrality. That is a people saying, “God is not a private hobby. He is the One we answer to.”

Now, a sober note. The Pilgrims were not perfect. Their application of these convictions had limits and blind spots. But the point is simpler: their stated aim was Christian, not religionless.

What they were leaving: a compulsory church

The Pilgrims were Separatists, English Christians who believed the Church of England was not simply flawed, but unreformable, and that faithfulness required separation from it. That separation was not treated as a quaint preference. It brought real pressure, real risk, and real consequences.

So they fled first to the Netherlands, where they could worship without fear of persecution from the English government and church.

Notice what that means: they were not trying to escape “too much Christianity.” They were trying to escape a system where the state could compel the shape of their worship.

That is an important distinction we have forgotten. The alternative to “state-church coercion” is not “no public Christianity.” The alternative is the state staying in its lane while the church remains the church, preaching Christ and forming a people.

Why they still left Leiden

Here is where the story gets more honest, and more useful.

By the time they sailed, the Pilgrims already had a measure of religious freedom in Leiden. So why risk the Atlantic?

Because life is not only about whether you can hold meetings. It is also about whether you can build a stable, godly community across generations.

Sources repeatedly mention two pressures in Leiden:

Economic hardship. Many worked long hours for low pay and struggled to thrive.

Concern for their children. William Bradford lamented that many of their children were being “drawn away by evil examples,” tempted into “extravagant and dangerous courses.”

That is not the language of people who want freedom from religion. That is the language of people who believe a permissive culture catechizes the young. It disciples them, slowly and relentlessly, by what it normalizes.

You can call that strict. You can call it naïve. But you cannot call it secular.

What they were trying to build

The Mayflower Compact matters because it shows what they thought a civil society was for.

They “covenant and combine” into a “civil Body Politick,” and they speak of enacting “just and equal Laws” for the general good, tied to the “ends aforesaid,” the stated ends being God’s glory and advancement of the Christian faith.

In other words, they did not imagine law as a neutral machine. They imagined law as a moral instrument that must answer to God.

That is not “freedom from religion.” That is freedom for ordered worship, ordered community, ordered justice.

The Scripture underneath the story

This is where we should stop treating history like a political prop and start treating it like a mirror.

Psalm 2 is not a suggestion. It is a summons. Kings and rulers are commanded to learn wisdom and to honor the Son. Nations do not get a religious exemption. Christ does not accept a “private-only” crown.

And the Great Commission is not merely “make converts.” It is “disciple the nations,” teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28:18–20). That is slow work. It is generational work. It is church work before it is courthouse work.

So when Christians talk about a Christian nation, we should not start with flags. We should start with baptism, bread, and discipline, with households being taught to obey, with elders shepherding, with worship on the Lord’s Day.

What this means for us

Here is the either-or, plain as day:

Either Christ claims public life, or some other god will.

Neutrality will not save you. It will disciple your children.

So do not apologize for wanting freedom for religion. Do not accept the modern lie that faith must stay behind the eyes and between the ears.

But also, do not invert the order. The church does not become strong by winning court cases. The church becomes strong by being the church.

Start here, this week

Keep the Lord’s Day like it is allegiance.

Join yourself to a faithful church, not a podcast playlist.

Build a household liturgy: Scripture at the table, prayer, catechism, confession, forgiveness.

Tell the truth in public. No propaganda. No slander. No “ends justify the means.”

Pray for rulers by name, and then labor locally with clean hands.

Pastoral charge

The Pilgrims were not looking for a religionless nation. They were looking for a place where a community could be ordered under God without the tyranny of a compulsory church. Their own words say so.

So take the lesson and bring it home: stop treating Christianity as a private hobby. Christ is King. Worship is not a weekend accessory. It is the engine of a Christian people.

And if you want a Christian nation, begin where nations become Christian: in the church, at the table, and in the steady, postmillennial confidence that the King who reigns will not fail to disciple the nations.