NASHVILLE (ABP) — The strong commitment to religious liberty by the early Baptists who shaped American democracy is now at risk of disappearing, said several speakers during the third annual convocation of the Mainstream Baptist Network Feb. 27-28.
Participants in the Nashville meeting also adopted a resolution deploring the Southern Baptist Convention's proposal to withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance. The resolution implored messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention in June to defeat the proposal and urged individuals and churches to rally support for the 99-year-old worldwide fellowship of Baptists.
“I believe religious freedom in America is at great risk, ” U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) told nearly 200 convocation participants via video.
Edwards, a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, said Baptists have a responsibility to protect the principles of religious freedom they helped ensure in the formation of the nation. The wall of separation between church and state that Baptists helped erect, he said, is being “torn down brick by brick.”
The Democratic congressman cited the Bush administration's faith-based initiatives as an example of improperly blurring the roles of church and government. He said the programs allow for direct government funding of churches and permit religious discrimination in jobs funded with public money.
“People of faith must take a higher profile in the battle for religious liberty,” said Edwards.
Countering the heavily funded efforts to use government power to advance religious causes will require a stronger effort by those committed to the separation of church and state, he said.
Among his suggestions, Edwards called for educating the media on church-state relations, bringing together various groups to develop a long-term plan for advocating religious liberty, creating a grass-roots lobbying effort, and helping Baptists reassert their historic role as proponents of religious liberty for all Americans.
Educating the public is crucial, said Edwards, since the concept of church-state separation is now perceived negatively by most Americans. “We must be good stewards in protecting God's gift of religious freedom,” said Edwards. “Failure can simply not be an option.”
Speakers during the two-day meeting frequently referenced the historic role of Baptists who insisted that the religious freedom of all citizens be respected. During the nation's formative years, “Baptists were one of the small, annoying minorities,” said Carolyn Blevins, longtime religion professor at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn.
That same lack of power was indicative of the Christian church in its early history, said former Southern Baptist Convention president Jimmy Allen of Big Canoe, Ga. “There's nothing in the Bible about separation of church and state,” said Allen, “because the disciples and the early church didn't have any power.”
However, said Allen, the Baptist principle of soul freedom — “the opportunity for people to make decisions for themselves” — is a definite biblical concept. Soul freedom, he said, is the “mechanism” for religious liberty.
Allen warned of a “gravitational pull” away from traditional Baptist commitments to soul freedom and religious liberty. He said it is imperative for Baptists to pass these concepts along to the next generation. “If we slip away from our soul freedom,” said Allen, “we will have another kind of Dark Ages.”
Federal funding for churches is a sign of weakness rather than the strength of religious groups, warned Allen, noting that government funding can lead to an altered message. He called faith-based initiatives an oxymoron. “If it is faith-based,” said Allen, “then it would be paid for by faith groups.”
Randall Balmer, the only non-Baptist among the 15 speakers, titled his presentation, “Where have all the Baptists gone?” “Never in my life would I have thought I'd say this,” said the Columbia University professor, who has written extensively on evangelicalism in America, “but America needs more Baptists.”
Balmer specified the kind of Baptists he said are needed in America today, citing the contributions of such historic Baptist advocates of religious liberty as Roger Williams, Isaac Backus and George W. Truett.
“America needs more Baptists who understand the crucial difference between persuasion and coercion,” he said.
Balmer said Americans are an extraordinarily religious nation by any standard and that “religion has thrived … precisely because the state has stayed out of religion's business.”
Balmer expressed dismay that modern Baptists could “so determinately turn their backs on religious liberty.” He cited two developments — the rise of the Religious Right and the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention — as major factors in the shift from the historic commitment to religious freedom.
Balmer quoted George Truett, who famously affirmed the value of separation of church and state before thousands of Baptists gathered at the U.S. Capitol in 1920, as saying: “Christ's religion needs no prop of any kind from any worldly source.”
In contrast to this commitment of earlier Baptists, Balmer questioned why “every Baptist in Alabama didn't storm the judicial building and demand” the removal of Judge Roy Moore's monument placed in the state judicial building last year.
Balmer said the once “proud and defining tradition” of Southern Baptists in support of religious liberty for all has “withered beneath the onslaught of misguided individuals who seek to impose their own views on the rest of society.”
Balmer, who recounts his own faith pilgrimage beyond fundamentalism in the book, “Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith,” said the Baptist principles of separation of church and state have “all but disappeared” in Southern Baptist life.
Other speakers at the convocation included Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.; Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in Dallas; Charles Deweese, executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society in Nashville; Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists in Norman; Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville; and David Currie of San Angelo, Texas, director of the Mainstream Baptist Network and Texas Baptists Committed. Music was provided by D.E. Adams.
Leaders of the Mainstream Baptist Network met prior to the convocation to re-elect Bob Stephenson of Norman, Okla., and Bill Wilson of Dalton, Ga., as co-chairs. Joe Lewis, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Petersburg, Va., was elected secretary-treasurer. The next convocation is set for Feb. 25-26, 2005 in Orlando, Fla.
Seven individuals were inducted into the Mainstream Hall of Fame and honored for supporting Baptist principles. They were: Carolyn Blevins; Charles Deweese; Brent Walker; Tom Graves, president of Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond (Va.); Gary Burton, pastor of Pintlala Baptist Church in Hope Hull, Ala.; Becky Matheny, director of the Baptist Heritage Society of Georgia and education minister at Atlanta's Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church; and Walker Knight of Decatur, Ga., founding editor of Baptists Today.
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