The speaker at the recent Sunday Lecture Series at Williamsburg’s Temple Beth El was Jacob Thiessen, an attorney who works for the U.S. government and teaches at William & Mary Law School. He also has a Ph.D. in history with focus on the modern British Empire.
Significantly, Thiessen’s family roots in Colonial Virginia go back to the 17th century.
Elijah Craig, Thiessen’s seven-times removed great-uncle, was the brother of Jacob’s six-times removed great-grandmother. She was born sometime after 1730, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Craig was born in 1738.
In 1764, at the age of 26, Craig was converted to Baptism by a traveling preacher and subsequently become a Baptist preacher himself. According to historical records, ever since then he conflicted with the established Church of England.
At that time, Virginia had an established church, the Church of England. It was supported by taxes. It had special legal privileges over other religions, including other Protestant sects. You couldn’t preach without a license. Your marriage wasn’t legal unless recognized by the church.
All this was anathema to Elijah Craig. He wanted to preach to a church of believers. Between 1764 and 1771, a lot of people in Virginia became Baptist. All of them had been baptized as adults by full immersion in a nearby river. They were fully aware that what they were embracing was opposition to the established church.
In 1771, near Blue Run Baptist Church, which Craig had founded, not far from Montpelier, the home of then 20-year-old James Madison, a meeting was held by the Separate Baptist General Association. Craig was one of the keynote speakers.
As a Baptist preacher, Craig made an appeal that the restrictions of the Church of England on freedom of conscience be not just relaxed but abolished outright. He called on the adherents of every other religion to join him. He invited especially Jews, who he called Hebrews, and Muslims, who he called Muhammadens, saying that government shouldn’t pick and choose among sincere expressions of conscience. People should be able to make up their own minds at their own pace.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 people attended the meeting of the Separate Baptist General Association. According to historians, it was the largest gathering in Virginia at that time. At the end of the meeting, Craig was elected one of the leaders of the Separate Baptists of Virginia.
According to Thiessen, despite all the efforts of Craig, his appeals didn’t work at first. The Church of England remained dominant. Craig was arrested at least once for preaching without license. Not until revolutionary times did cracks appear in the dominance of the Church of England. It was disestablished in Virginia in 1779, the year the Statute for Religious Freedom was introduced in the Virginia General Assembly.
Craig may have played some role in this. He decided to go into politics and lobbied the most prominent Virginia politicians of the day, hammering on the argument that it was inconsistent to throw off allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain and not to allow complete freedom of conscience.
Thomas Jefferson agreed with him. Jefferson may have been also influenced by his ally, James Madison, who had grown up with Baptists holding revivals near his family home.
No better example is needed to demonstrate religious freedom and tolerance in America than the fact that Thiessen, the descendant of Craig, a Baptist preacher, with his wife, Dr. Andrea Meyerhoff, an expert in tropical diseases who is Jewish, decided to become a member of the Temple Beth El in Williamsburg.
Frank Shatz is a Williamsburg resident. He is the author of “Reports from a Distant Place,” the compilation of his selected columns. The book is available at the Bruton Parish Shop and Amazon.com.
