For Oâ??Donovan, the extraordinary events of that Pentecost day changed the world forever. Godâ??s people became open to mutual address.
â?¢ It eventually led to the â??conciliar movementâ?? in Christendomâ??a call upon the Pope to take seriously the Christian wisdom of others.
â?¢ In turn, there blossomed parliamentary movement in civil societyâ??a call upon the King to take seriously the wisdom, whether Christian or otherwise, of others.
â?¢ Threaded into this story is the Reformation, and the â??non-conformistâ?? movement among Christiansâ??a call by Christians upon each other to understand that claims for theological truth must be settled by words, not power, as the Bible is discussed freely among groups who freely meet together.
It comes as quite a surprise for many people to see the central role of Christianity in this historical story. In the popular alternative, secularism invented â??free speechâ??: while Christians were busily killing each other, the â??Enlightenmentâ?? saved the West by inventing free and rational enquiry. But that account is heavily mythological, and simply fails to notice all the developments in medieval Christendom that gave rise to the very possibility of free speech. A seed fell on the day of Pentecost, and sprouted in the soil of Christendom.
There was no political â??free speechâ?? in the Roman empire. But after Pentecost during the centuries that followed, political authority had â??to confront and accommodate the free discourse of a society which has learned to recognise authority also in the word spoken by God by manservants and maidservantsâ?? (Oliver O’Donovan The Desire of the Nations p. 269). If God could use anyone in his church to speak truth, then potentially, any voice could now address the society about the common good.
Andrew Cameron Freeing Speech
