Separation of Church and State: An Important Baptist Distinctive
CO-CHAIR THOUGHTS FROM BILL BRIAN

A recent event in a Baptist church in my city helped me to decide what to write in this issue of the Texas Baptists Committed newsletter. Following early worship and Bible Study in my own church, I went to a sister church to hear David Barton deliver a message to the large congregation gathered there (his second such message of the day), that sounded un-Baptist on the subject of church/state separation.

Mr. Barton stated that he speaks to about 400 groups per year. I happened to tune in CSPAN on cable television, a few months ago, and saw Mr. Barton testifying before a Congressional committee.

The name of his organization is Wallbuilders, but his message is that church/state separation is a myth and that the framers of our Constitution never intended a “wall of separation” between church and state. This famous quote is from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. According to Mr. Barton, Jefferson’s view was far from reflecting the intent of the other founders of our nation.

Mr. Barton’s style is to move very fast through his presentation, to begin by showing slides and suggesting the deep religious commitment of the earliest English settlers in America specifically, those who settled in Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The April 1997 issue of “THEREFORE…”, newsletter of the Christian Life Commission of our BGCT, observes that Mr. Barton presents “[t]he appearance of… scholarly work. However, upon closer scrutiny, the fabrication begins to fall apart.”

Mr. Barton declared to his Amarillo audience that the Puritans left England, seeking religious freedom. While they did, indeed, flee England in order to establish a “new Israel” in America, the irrefutable record shows that they were no champions of religious freedom. They wanted religious freedom only for themselves. No mention was made by Barton that it was the Puritans who expelled Roger Williams, organizer of the very first Baptist church in America, because Williams’s teachings were “subversive and Williams would undermine the very foundations of the Puritan theocracy.”1

Neither did Barton mention Baptists like Isaac Backus, who said of Williams: “…[H]e overcame evil with good, while the advocates for the use of secular force in religion hath requited him and his friends evil for good ever since.” 2

Nor Baptist pastor John Leland, who joined Backus to help pull down establishment of the Episcopal church in our fledgling nation. Leland wrote to James Madison expressing his objections to the U.S. Constitution which then had no Bill of Rights. Leland wrote: “What is clearest of all— Religious Liberty—is not sufficiently secured…” 3

Mr. Barton summed up his remarks by calling for the election of public officials who are religious. We can agree with Barton that as followers of Christ we should never neglect to vote. We should also exercise our best judgment in doing so, but the framers of our Constitution saw the wisdom of prohibiting a religious test as a qualification for holding public office.4 Finally, Mr. Barton called America back to a “Hebrew republic.” 5 Compare that call to these words of Leland:

I now call for an instance, where Jesus Christ, the author of his religion, or the apostles, who were divinely inspired, ever gave orders to, or intimated, that the civil powers on earth, ought to force people to observe the rules and doctrine of the gospel. Mahomet called in the use of the law and sword, to convert people to his religion; but Jesus did not—does not.6

Responding to the Puritan notion of Israel as a model for church-state relations, Roger Williams said:

We know the allegations against this counsel [of mine]: the [archetype of such practice] is from Moses [not Christ], his pattern is the typical land of Canaan, the kings of Israel and Judah, etc. We believe [that this] will be found [to be] but one of Moses’ shadows which vanished at the coming of the Lord Jesus yet such a shadow as is directly opposite to the very testament and coming of the Lord Jesus. [It is] opposite to the very nature of a Christian Church, the only holy nation and Israel of God.

Listening to David Barton reminded me of the old adage that the best defense is a good offense. Mr. Barton went on the offense by claiming that there are those who would revise the history books. He claimed that the revisionists seek to erect a wall of separation between church and state.

Those who tell us of the deep roots of church-state separation planted by our Baptist forebears are certainly not the ones who are attempting to revise history. The late Herschel Hobbs, author of The Baptist Faith & Message, said in the section of that work on religious liberty:

Religious liberty does not rest upon a legal document of a political state. It is rooted in the Bible. Freedom is inherent in man’s nature as God created him. (Genesis 1:27).

Church and state are mutually related in the normal affairs of life. The state provides a favorable atmosphere in which the church can do its work (such as fire and police protection, national security, postal service, roads and streets, general social stability). And the churches, in turn, should produce through the gospel the type of Christian citizens which will contribute to a stable social order. At the same time church and state are mutually exclusive. Neither should seek to control the other or to use it in filling its peculiar role. Neither should propose to tell the other how to discharge its responsibility. The church should not seek to use the state for its purposes. The state should not commandeer the church for political ends. The state should not favor one religion above another. It is the opinion of this writer that no taxes should be levied against property used strictly for religious purposes. The churches should not receive tax funds for use in discharging their educational, healing, or spiritual responsibility. The church should be free to determine its programs of worship, evangelism, and missionary activities.6

Texas Baptists Committed seeks to uphold historic Baptist principles, including those of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Knowing that the views of David Barton are proclaimed from the pulpit of a large Baptist church in my city reminds me of the importance of understanding who we are and who we have been as Baptists. I am grateful for the steady focus of our BGCT Christian Life Commission and the Baptist Join Committee on Public Affairs, both proclaiming, year after year, the singular importance of religious liberty for all Americans. As we prepare to celebrate our nation’s independence on July 4, let us recall the sacrifices made by Baptists in the early days of our country, who knew first hand the tyranny of a religious majority and who gave to us what some observers have called the unique contribution of the American experience to world government —the separation of church and state—and religious liberty.

1Estep, Revolution Within The Revolution, 1990, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., p. 77

2Backus, Government and Liberty Described, in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets 1754- 1789. Ed. Wm. G. McLoughlin. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1968.

3John Leland’s Objections to the Constitution without a Bill of Rights sent to James Madison by Joseph Spencer, 20th February 1788, reproduced in L. H. Butterfield’s Elder John Leland, Jeffersonian Itinerant, New York: Arno Press, 1980, pp. 187-190.

4U.S. Constitution, Article VI

5If I misheard the phrase “Hebrew republic,” efforts to obtain an audio recording of Mr. Barton’s remarks have been unsuccessful at press time.

6Leland, The Writings of John Leland. Ed. L. F. Greene. New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1969.

7Williams, “Queries of Highest Considerations.” In Church and State in American History: The Burden of Religious Pluralism. 2nd ed. Ed. John F. Wilson and Donald Drakeman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987

June 1997