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Note: This essay first appeared in the
March 2006 Baptist Studies Bulletin.
One would be hard pressed to argue against “freedom” as the primary
foundation of the American nation, despite historical shortcomings in
realizing this ideal. Baptists from the early seventeenth century
onward contributed significantly, and indisputably, to the ideal of
freedom on two fronts: religious liberty for all citizens (separation
of church and state) and freedom of conscience within the Baptist
family.
This dual rallying cry of freedom remained the staple of
Baptist belief in America from the early seventeenth century into the
1970s. Then something unprecedented took shape as more and more
Baptists backtracked on their heritage of freedom. Today, many
Baptists emphatically deny the historical reality of the separation of
church and state and freedom of conscience, choosing instead to
embrace myths and lies on a path to religious power and privilege
sanctioned by government.
For example, freedom of religion is now under attack in
Missouri with the blessing of Missouri Baptist leader David Clippard.
On March 3, 2006, the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee
approved a
resolution that advocates for official Christian prayer in public
schools and asserts that elected officials “should protect the
majority’s right to express their religious beliefs while showing
respect for those who object.” Clippard voiced his support: “The
foundation of this country started with Christianity, and this just
goes back and acknowledges where we started.” If our nation’s
founding fathers had sanctioned an official faith in the federal
constitution, Baptists, a dissident, liberal, trouble-making minority
in the eighteenth century, might yet today be whipped, beaten and
jailed for merely expressing their faith in public!
In addition, freedom of conscience is also under attack by
fundamentalist Baptists. Baptist Press of the Southern Baptist
Convention periodically trots out commentaries on the evils of freedom
of conscience, the
latest of which denies the Baptist heritage of freedom as nothing
more than a “moderate virus” which includes “a deficient view of
biblical authority, a radical view of individualism, a nigh unto
secularist view of religious liberty.”
Recently Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, mocked attempts by Presbyterians “to preserve
the freedom of conscience and the interpretation of Scripture,” a
proposal he labeled a conclusive “failure.”
To be certain, both religious liberty and freedom of
conscience are historically liberal ideals, and modern fundamentalist
Baptists are anything but amiable to that which smacks of liberalism.
Perhaps this is why some Baptists are committed to opposing freedom.
Mohler, speaking of the troubles within the Presbyterian denomination,
asserts “If individual conscience is allowed to invalidate the clear
teachings of Scripture, the denomination faces an unavoidable
disaster.”
Yet perhaps the following statement against freedom sums
up best the modern fundamentalist Baptist hatred of liberalism and its
corollary, freedom: “[liberalism] sets up a human standard, at the
bar, of which the inspiration of the Bible is tried, and … condemned
for coming in direct conflict with certain principles of human nature,
termed the ‘higher law’ … Freedom will become its watchword … freedom
to reject the Bible–free thinking, free loving, free acting, in a word
freedom from all the moral restraints which make society virtuous and
desirable.”
Although this anti-freedom diatribe echoes the voices of
today’s Baptist enemies of freedom, the author was Ebenezer W. Warren,
a Georgia Baptist pastor and leader during the mid-nineteenth
century. Speaking at the conclusion of his 1861 sermon entitled,
“Scriptural Vindication of Slavery,” Warren resoundingly condemned
Baptist and government anti-slavery voices in the North for allowing
the ideal of freedom to override the clear teachings of Scripture
which sanctioned the enslavement of African-Americans. Representing
the darkest chapter in the history of Baptists in the South, Warren
declared the bondage of African-Americans as “a vital element of the
Divine Revelation to man,” insisting that “Both Christianity and
Slavery are from Heaven; both are blessings to humanity; both are to
be perpetuated to the end of time.” Over 100 years after Warren’s
sermon, many white Baptists yet refused to acknowledge the ideal of
freedom for African-Americans.
Tragically, one of the greatest dangers to the ideal of
freedom today lies within the Baptist family and threatens both the
authentic Baptist faith of our ancestors and the very foundation of
our nation. The Apostle Paul, speaking nearly 2000 years ago to
Galatian Christians who were buffeted by enemies of freedom from
within, offers a timeless word to us today: “do not give in to them
for a moment, so that the truth of the Gospel might remain in you ….
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 2:5, 5:1). |
