Religious liberty is the first freedom for Americans. Thomas Jefferson authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which since 1786 has provided a benchmark for the western world. James Madison, influenced by Virginia Baptists, reasoned that religious liberty would become the first of several amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which he had drafted sans any guarantee of freedom of conscience. And let us not forget others which came along even earlier.
Roger Williams, a sometimes Baptist, espoused religious liberty and separation of church and state in his colony of Providence Plantations. The struggling Baptists in Boston adopted a confession of faith which stated, in part, “Wee desire to give unto god that which is gods & unto Ceasere that which is Ceaseres.”
Unfortunately, “Ceasere” for awhile nailed shut the Baptist meeting house in Boston.
Fred Anderson
Our spiritual ancestors in Virginia faced tremendous and unrelenting persecution in the mid-1700s when the Anglican Church and Virginia government were one and the same. Some of their best preachers were jailed for daring to exhort with no authority. Many of their rank and file members were snubbed by their Anglican neighbors for failing to attend services of the established church. It was a testing by fire and our spiritual forefathers and foremothers were found worthy.
In some Virginia communities, Baptists and other dissenters were tolerated; but the Baptists never settled with passivity. They held to an active participatory freedom of conscience. They believed that God and God alone granted full religious liberty to all. It was not some favor left to the whims of humanity. They even went a step further. The Baptists believed that all were free to believe or even not to believe according to the dictates of personal conscience. And they held that even non-Christians in America had a right to their faith choices. It was bold and enlightened thinking.
Because of the first freedom, Baptists were able to flourish and to develop their own distinctive principles. As a complement to religious freedom, the prime principles were extensions of this high-blown interpretation of freedom. Indeed, from the concept of religious liberty stems all of the best qualities and defining characteristics of Baptists.
Soul competency was one of these principles. Carney Hargroves was pastor of Weatherford Memorial Baptist Church of Richmond and later president of the American Baptist Convention (now American Baptist Churches U.S.A.) and the Baptist World Alliance. He once stated: “[Baptists] have insisted that every individual is competent, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to read [the] Bible and interpret it in the light of background and in the face of needs. In the final analysis, the individual church member has a right to decide for himself what God is saying to him through the Bible. No man, nor church, nor priest, nor parent, nor teacher can stand between a human being and his God.”
Baker James Cauthen, the noted world missions leader, put it this way: “I am a Baptist because of the principle of soul competency. I believe that when an individual turns unto God by faith in Jesus Christ, he has direct access to the grace of Almighty God without dependence upon any intermediary, whether priest, ceremony, organization or creed.”
Ed Pruden, who served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., and president of the American Baptist Convention, stated: “We believe in the priesthood of the believers. Whenever and wherever an earnest Christian gets down on his knees before God, there you have a priest, an altar and an acceptable sacrifice.”
Related to the Baptist concept of religious liberty is a great respect for each individual. Baptists placed the high regard for the individual into their theology, believing that each one must make their own faith decision. Baptists placed the same principle into their polity, holding that each individual has a right of expression with a congregational form of church government. Whenever you witness a narrowing and restrictive church governance, moving from the full congregation involved in decision making to a selected few making the decisions for the many, you can observe an abuse of one of the key Baptist principles.
A pocket full of prime principles – soul liberty, freedom of conscience, priesthood of the believers, congregational democracy – are all outgrowths of our first freedom – religious liberty.
John A. Broadus knew Baptists. He grew up as a Baptist in the Culpeper area. He had heard about the era of the persecution of Baptists. He served as pastor in Charlottesville and pioneered in the establishment of seminary education for Baptists in the South. He wrote books for preachers which are still consulted to this day.
In reflecting upon his own people, Broadus once said: “The Baptists are one of the few religious denominations that have never persecuted. We cannot say they have been personally too good, seeing that some of them have shown great bitterness towards other religionists and even towards their own brethren who differed from them; but the immemorial principle of opposition to any union of church and state has always made it impossible that they should persecute. In so doing, they would at once cease to be Baptists.”
In our own times, we have witnessed threats to religious liberty and trampling upon all of the Baptist principles which stem from religious liberty. The threats have come from within and without the Baptist fellowship.
In the 1770s some 14 Virginia Baptists were imprisoned in the Culpeper jail for preaching and praying. A century later, in 1873, the rusty old lock and key from Culpeper jail was used as an object lesson at a great Baptist rally for the 50th anniversary of the General Association. Eye witnesses said that grown men and women wept. They knew the stories of the price for religious liberty. Another century and more has passed and few weep. Even fewer know the price that was paid or the value of the prize. The first freedom and the prime principles must never be forgotten.
Sunday, July 1, is Religious Liberty Sunday. It would be a good day to begin remembering.
Fred Anderson may be contacted at [email protected].