State Of Grace - Anne Hutchinson

1591–1643

You might call it America’s first “trial of the century.” In 1637, the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts tried Anne Hutchinson on charges of “troubling the peace” and slandering ministers. The real problem was that she taught about God’s grace.

Hutchinson had grown up in England, where she married and bore a number of children. When her Puritan pastor, John Cotton, fled to America (escaping Anglican opposition to his evangelical views), Hutchinson gathered up her family and followed. Settling in Boston in 1634, Anne became a model citizen, working as a midwife and leading a small Bible study at her church. That small group, originally just for women, became a large group, including as many as sixty men and women.

Here’s where the problem arose. Hutchinson believed in salvation by grace, not by works. According to her reading of Scripture, the Holy Spirit lived within believers, setting them free from the law. Holy living came from the Spirit’s guidance, not from a fear of law breaking. This approach threatened the Puritans’ “holy experiment” in New England, which was based on personal faith but also collective adherence to God’s laws.

When John Winthrop became governor of Massachusetts, he cracked down on the anti-nomian (anti-law) views of Anne Hutchinson and other leaders. As a result of her 1637–38 trials, Anne was placed under house arrest and then banished. She took her family first to Rhode Island, which Roger Williams was establishing as a haven of religious freedom. When she heard that Massachusetts might take over Rhode Island, Anne fled west into Dutch territory. In 1643, she and most of her family were massacred in a territorial dispute with the Siwanoy tribe in what is now New York.

Anne Hutchinson understood something that baffled religious leaders in her day and still baffles many today: grace. It is an outrageous idea, but the Christian gospel is built on it. Intuitively, we expect religion to consist of rules for living, to force us to improve our behavior. But Jesus said that God’s Kingdom is not taken by force. Our improvement comes from within, where God’s Spirit counsels, challenges, and empowers us.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Ephesians 2:8-9