A Gradual Disentangling: Part III

Massachusetts Finally Ends Taxpayer funded Worship

Bullfinch Church Lancaster, MA. Photo by Author.

Read part I here.

A Gradual Disentangling: Part I

Read part II here.

A Gradual Disentangling Part II:

In 1810, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided a major case which explored the extent of religious freedom in the Commonwealth. Thomas Barnes was the ordained pastor of a Universalist Church in Falmouth, Maine (which was then a district of Massachusetts). He sued to recover the money which his parishioners had paid toward the support of the Congregational Church, claiming it should instead be directed toward him. One of the key issues in this case was whether Barnes was eligible to receive this money since his Universalist Church had not been granted a charter by the state legislature. Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons wrote the decision which described the philosophy and legal basis…