Four Centuries of Fighting for Religious Liberty

(Gen. 1:26-27; Gal. 5:1; Acts 4:18-20)

We just finished celebrating our fourth century of being Baptists —since John Smyth baptized himself and then others in 1609. These proto-Baptists were in Amsterdam, Holland, having fled England to avoid religious persecution at the hand of King James I. How ironic that we cherished the Bible translation named for him for so long. Yes, we “Baptizers” — so-called—were born in the struggle for religious freedom.

Despite our astonishing diversity and many disagreements on other issues, Baptists have always fought the fight for religious liberty— for others as much as for ourselves. We have taken seriously the liberty for which Jesus himself broke the yoke of slavery and set us free. This was our birthright in the early 17th century, our rallying cry today, and I pray, our legacy four centuries from now.

It’s important that we remember our Baptist heroes and retell their stories if our commitment to religious liberty is to remain passionate and vital for generations to come.

§ God Bless Thomas Helwys! After leading a break-away group back from Holland to England (thus starting another Baptist tradition: church splits!) Helwys established the first Baptist church on English soil. Helwys then authored a cutting edge treatise on religious liberty, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612), and sent a copy to King James himself. In his inscription, he wrote the audacious words that the King was a mortal man, not God, and had no power over the immortal souls of his subjects. For his trouble, Helwys and his wife Joan were thrown into Newgate Prison, where they languished and later died.

§ Hurray for Roger Williams! Called by some the “apostle of religious liberty,” Williams came from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. He preached the notion that faith cannot be dictated by any government authority, but must be nurtured freely and expressed directly to God. He advocated a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.” The Puritan theocrats in Massachusetts were so outraged they kicked Williams out of the colony. He trekked to what would become Rhode Island and began what he liked to call the “livlie experiment” of religious liberty. There he founded the first Baptist church on North American soil.

§ We Virginia Baptists love to cheer on John Leland! An evangelist preaching in Virginia during the heady 1780’s, Leland boldly advocated religious liberty and the separation of church and state. He played a pivotal role in convincing James Madison of the need for a specific guarantee protecting religious freedom. Madison made good on his promise to further ensure the rights of conscience, including these first sixteen words in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof.”

§ We at the Baptist Joint Committee revere J.M. Dawson, our first Executive Director, after serving as pastor of FBC Waco for 31 years. Dawson was instrumental in convincing the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 to adopt the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Article 18 of the Declaration proclaimed “the right of freedom of thought, conscience and religion” as the goal for all humankind around the world. That language has informed almost every national constitution adopted over the past 60 years.

§ For me to extol the memory of George W. Truett, indeed, would be preaching to the choir. Suffice it to say Dr. Truett collected up this heritage and articulated it forcefully time and time again but most notably from the East steps of the U.S. Capitol —two blocks from the BJC offices to an estimated crowd of 10,000 in May 1920.

We could name a dozen more. But it is not just about history. It’s also about theology. Our understanding of religious liberty involves no less than the freedom to worship God and to follow Jesus without efforts by government to advance or inhibit religion—someone else’s or our own.

The freedom that we enjoy is biblically based. The scriptures make clear that God created us with free will. God’s decision to make human beings in God’s image necessarily implies the freedom on our part to say yes or no – to choose for or against a relationship with God. (Gen 1:27) For that relationship to be genuine, it must be voluntary and based on love, not coerced and based on fear.

The New Testament, too. In Galatians 5:1, Paul writes “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” The Judaizers were attempting to require gentile converts to follow the Jewish law before becoming full fledged Christians. Yes, Paul was railing against attempts to deny freedom from theological and ecclesiastical strictures more than attempts on the part of the government to limit religious liberty. But, Paul’s clarion call to the Galatians has inspired generations of Baptist Christians to fight for freedom from state-imposed limitations on the free exercise of religion.

If Paul issues the call to freedom, Luke gives us a lesson on how that freedom is to be exercised. In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested for preaching the gospel of Christ. The Sanhedrin – a high court with civil, as well as religious, jurisdiction over the country’s internal affairs– was clearly threatened by the success of disciples. The Sanhedrin admonished them “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 4:18) But Peter and John repudiated civil authority because it sought to interfere with the proclamation of the gospel: “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20) The rights of conscience took precedence over the demands of governmental authority.

It is important to point out, however, that this freedom is not unlimited. We are to avoid license as well as legalism. Paul continues in the fifth chapter of Galatians:

“Brothers and sisters, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love, become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal. 5:13-14)

Our freedom in Christ can never be separated from – and must always be limited by – the responsibility that we have to one another. Freedom and responsibility must always be held in tension; they are two sides of the same coin. As Bill Moyers has aptly put it:

“[Our Baptist beliefs]… do not make for lawless anarchy or the religion of Lone Rangers… They aim for a community with moral integrity, the wholeness that flows from mutual obligation. Our religion is an adventure in freedom within the bounds of accountability.”

There is another limitation of sorts on our freedom. We also owe duties to Caesar. Jesus himself affirmed this dual allegiance when he talked about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. And in Romans 13, Paul declares not only allegiance to the state, but he plainly says that the authority of the state is divinely ordained. And if Paul’s teachings applied to the ham handed Roman rule in the first century, how much more should they apply to us today living in a robust constitutional democracy? We Baptist Christians have a duty to be good citizens.

So, yes, sometimes limitations on our freedom legitimately come from government. The old adage is true: my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. The First Amendment freedoms — including no establishment and free exercise — are not absolute; the wall of separation of church and state is not impenetrable. Sometimes it’s more like a chain link fence. You cannot exercise your religion in a way that harms or prejudices others. You don’t have a free speech right to shout fire in the proverbial crowded theater, or under the press clause to publish malicious lies in newspapers even about public figures. Your First Amendment right to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances is subject to reasonable time, place and manner of restrictions. And, shall we all say it, more than a year after that terrible day at Sandy Hook, in Conn. all of this goes for the Second Amendment too.

We Baptists, more often than not over the past four centuries, have gotten this about right. For example, Article XVII of the Baptist Faith and Message of 1925 (amended 1963) succinctly captures the historic Baptist understanding of religious liberty and the proper relationship between church and state. In rapid fire, staccato fashion:

“God alone is Lord of the conscience… Church and state should be separate. The state owes every [house of worship] protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no denomination should be favored by the state more than others… The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work… The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal….” Thankfully, the Southern Baptist Convention a decade and a half ago did not change this article when it took a meat ax to others.

But today these lofty principles are often observed as much in the breach as in the following, not just by some Baptists but by the culture at large.

You know, I love living and working in Washington, D.C. I even enjoy driving to and from work — believe it or not. After nearly 25 years I have yet to become jaded as I drive down Constitution Avenue past the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and the Washington Monument, and the Capitol to the BJC offices across the street from the Supreme Court. One thing that always captures my attention is the fact that the longest lines you see for tourists any place in town, including the Smithsonians, is in front of the National Archives. There is always a huge line to see the original documents of our nation’s founding: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I then think how strange the archives are that popular when so many people in our country either take our freedoms for granted, or don’t know much about them, or think we have too much freedom! For example, only three in ten of the American public knows that religious freedom is protected by the First Amendment. A recent study showed that more people can name all five of the Simpsons than can name the five liberties protected in the First Amendment. Can you name them? About half the American public thinks that church-state separation is either a bogus concept or has been applied too rigorously. About 25 percent would like to set up a single state church! Theirs, of course!

The Baptist Joint Committee continues to educate about our tradition of religious freedom and fight to apply that heritage in the crowded intersection of church and state in contemporary American life.

We work hard to ensure that government maintains a healthy distance from religion. The theological principle of soul freedom—a God-infused liberty of conscience – and its ethical expression in society – religious liberty for all—are protected by the constitutional constructs of no establishment and free exercise, which are contained in the First Amendment.

These twin pillars of our constitutional architecture — no establishment and free exercise —require that government neither help nor hurt religion. Rather, government must be neutral toward religion, turning it loose to flourish or flounder on its own. In other words, government should accommodate religion without advancing it, protect religion without promoting it, lift burdens on religion without extending religion a benefit.

So, how do we at the BJC balance this out? We for example, support voluntary student prayer, but oppose prayers delivered to a captive audience by a state actor like a teacher. We support efforts to teach about religion in the public schools, but deny the right of public school officials to read the Bible devotionally or otherwise lead in religious exercises in classrooms. We applaud tax exemption for religious and other non-profit organizations, but reject vouchers and other forms of governmental financial aid to support the teaching of religion. We recognize the obligation of churches and other religious bodies to serve the poor, but dispute the propriety of subsidizing those ministries with government funds. We understand government may require churches to comply with reasonable building and safety codes, but reject attempts by zoning officials to micromanage church ministries. We believe in exemptions for churches, and accommodation for religiously affiliated groups that oppose contraception, but in a way that makes coverage available through insurance for opting in female employees. We accept the responsibility of government to ensure the civil rights of all citizens while defending the autonomy of houses of worship to govern their internal affairs differently. And on and on we could go balancing these dyads. In short, every establishment clause “no” we utter to keep government from promoting religion should be accompanied by a free exercise “yes” to ensure the right of citizens to practice religion in accordance with the dictates of conscience.

As Dean Kelley used to say, government may – and some times must – get out of the way of religion, but it should never get behind it and push. The best thing government can do for religion is simply to leave it alone. Eternal vigilance over government by the BJC and all freedom- loving Baptists is the best way to honor our Baptist heritage of religious freedom and to pass it on as a legacy for generations to come. May it be so for another 400 years, and more.

J. Brent Walker

September, 2015

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