NEWBERG, Ore. (ABP) — A tiny Baptist denomination has voted, narrowly, to remain part of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty despite disagreements over church-state relations.
Delegates to the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference voted 279-234 July 31 to remain part of the Washington-based watchdog group. However, in a later vote, the group approved a recommendation instructing Seventh Day Baptist leaders to send BJC leaders a letter conveying the “significant concerns among some Seventh Day Baptists about our continued involvement in the Baptist Joint Committee.”
The votes came during the group's 2007 annual meeting in Oregon. A denominational spokesman reported them to Associated Baptist Press Aug. 14.
“We are delighted at the outcome of the vote,” said Brent Walker, the Baptist Joint Committee's executive director, noting that the denomination has belonged to the coalition of national and regional Baptist bodies that support BJC for nearly 60 years. “I am very pleased that the BJC family remains distinctively Baptist — and joint.”
Seventh Day Baptists believe the Sabbath should be observed on Saturdays. Although a very small group, their history in Europe and North America dates back to the earliest days of the Baptist movement on both continents.
Kevin Butler, editor of the denomination's Sabbath Recorder news magazine and Seventh Day Baptists' representative on the BJC board of directors, said the dispute over supporting the organization centered on differing understandings of church-state separation.
“I would say it's the whole issue of representation and guilt by association — that they don't feel that the Joint Committee or any real body could represent Seventh Day Baptists on political or social issues,” said Butler, who opposed attempts to withdraw from the BJC. “They just don't feel that anyone could really speak for a group of independent thinkers.”
Some Seventh Day Baptists critical of BJC involvement have cited its support for rigorous church-state separation, saying many Seventh Day Baptists would not agree with such a view.
“The BJC has pursued a doctrinaire ‘wall of separation' position with respect to the [First Amendment's] establishment clause,” wrote James Skaggs, a retired Wisconsin teacher, in a June 5 entry on his “One Eternal Day” blog (www.one-eternal-day.com). Skaggs has been an outspoken opponent of continued Seventh Day Baptist affiliation with BJC.
“In alliance with a wide array of liberal religious and non-religious groups, it has filed briefs encouraging the courts to adopt that view,” Skaggs noted. “The cumulative effect of such court decisions is to reduce the ability of religion to influence government policy and to prevent government from using religious institutions for social good. It has also been a vehicle used by anti-religious groups in America to increasingly remove religion from the public square.”
Skaggs' arguments echoed those used by fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the 1980s, they began an effort — ultimately successful — to withdraw from the BJC. The move cut off the group's largest supporter, nearly crippling it. But the BJC has rebounded since.
The departure of Seventh Day Baptists would be much less damaging to the group, since the denomination contributes only $1,000 annually to the BJC budget and includes about 4,500 members in 85 congregations scattered across the United States and Canada.
But BJC leaders have actively attempted to keep the denomination from withdrawing, passing a resolution affirming the unique group's heritage, which stretches back to the late 1600s in the New World.
Seventh Day Baptist supporters of the BJC have noted that the organization is principally focused on extending religious freedom and believes supporting a strong interpretation of the establishment clause is essential to protecting religious liberty.
“I think an appropriate level of church-state separation is necessary,” said Butler. “And for us especially as sabbatarians, we have a lot at stake if the government wants to intrude or cause us employment situations because of our Sabbath beliefs.”
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