WASHINGTON (ABP) — Eighty-seven years after George Truett thundered a call for separation of church and state to more than 10,000 Southern Baptists gathered in the nation's capital, a smaller but more diverse group of Baptists paid tribute to the legendary pastor's message and called for a renewed commitment to full religious liberty.
Sponsored by the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the speeches took place near the Capitol building, where Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, gave his May 16, 1920, address.
While George Washington laid the physical cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793, “its true foundation is on the first freedom — freedom of religion,” congressman Chet Edwards (D-Texas) said at the June 29 event..
Edwards said former Baylor University chancellor Herb Reynolds, who died last month, gave him a copy of Truett's sermon several years ago. The sermon “made an indelible imprint” on him and caused the defense of religious liberty to become his “political calling in life.”
“Our religious freedom must be protected by each generation,” Edwards said. “There are politicians in each generation, in the name of religion, who would do it great harm.”
Edwards and congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) addressed the crowd, composed mostly of those attending meetings of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches, USA. BJC Executive Director Brent Walker introduced Edwards and Scott as leading members of Congress committed to preserving religious liberty.
Scott spoke of current church-state challenges like President Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives program that “allows discrimination with federal funds.” He urged Baptists committed to full religious liberty to “continue to make your voices heard.”
Alliance of Baptists leader Stan Hastey referenced the “sunny May day” in 1920 when Truett, influenced by John Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress and Baptist newspapers that came to his North Carolina home, gave his famed address.
“By every account, it was a remarkable occasion,” said Hastey, whose introduction was followed by nine Baptist leaders reading excerpts from Truett's lengthy and influential sermon.
The readers included Amy Butler of Washington's Calvary Baptist Church; Steven Case of First Baptist Church of Mansfield, Penn.; Quinton Dixie of Indiana University-Purdue University; Pamela Durso of the Baptist History and Heritage Society; Jeffrey Haggray of the D.C. Baptist Convention; Robert Marus of Associated Baptist Press; Julie Pennington-Russell of First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga.; Bill Underwood of Mercer University; and Daniel Vestal of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
“Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right,” Vestal read from Truett's sermon. “…God wants free worshippers or no other kind.” Haggray echoed Truett's affirmation that religious liberty “was preeminently a Baptist achievement.”
Large sections of Truett's address, not read at the Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty, dealt with Baptist doctrines and even challenged Roman Catholic theology and practice. Yet Truett concluded that “a Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty for his Catholic neighbor, and for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else.”
At the rally's conclusion, BJC general counsel Holly Hollman said the religious liberty enjoyed by Americans today is worth the efforts of Truett and others before and since.
“Religious liberty is our right, and its protection our responsibility,” Hollman said.
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