Sherry Chandler

Freedom from a State Religion

The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever…Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.

— John Leland, Baptist

Last week when I made a post about Roe v. Wade, one of my correspondents asked me whether I had ever had to wrestle with the opposing dynamics of my Southern Baptist roots and my feminist leanings. The short answer to that is yes, and the Southern Baptists lost. Or at least the aspect of the church that is represented by the Southern Baptist Convention lost. The SBC is an obscenity.

And this raises an issue that has been worrying me for a while: the most ravening right-wing nuts have come to define evangelicism in this country. Among some of my liberal friends, I’m treated with scorn the minute I open my mouth to defend anything to do with the Southern Baptists. And though I haven’t set foot in a church as a worshipper since the early 1970s, this fact distresses me.

Historically, evangelicals have been associated with the most progressive causes in our country. In his article in the latest issue of The Washington Monthly, Steve Waldman, in an article called “The Framers and the Faithful,” makes the point this way:

The contemporary intellectual battle over the role of religion in the public square will be determined in part on who can own the history.

It is ironic, then, that evangelicals—so focused on the “true” history—have neglected their own. Indeed, the one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals. … In state after state, when colonists and Americans met to debate the relationship between God and government, it was the proto-evangelicals who pushed the more radical view that church and state should be kept far apart. Both secular liberals who sneer at the idea that evangelicals could ever be a positive influence in politics and Christian conservatives who want to knock down the “wall” should take note: It was the 18th-century evangelicals who provided the political shock troops for Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to keep government from strong involvement with religion. Modern evangelicals are certainly free to take a different course, but they should realize that in doing so they have dramatically departed from the tradition of their spiritual forefathers.

…

Most of Europe had for centuries operated under the theory that the state took its authority from God. It had both the responsibility and right to intervene in religious matters. Conversely, the religious institutions tended to rely on the state to help enforce its doctrine. More important, most of the colonies had imported the idea that an official “established” church was an absolute necessity for promoting religion. In the South, it was the Anglican church, while in the North, the Puritan-influenced Congregationalist church was dominant. In both cases, there was a broad acceptance among the colonial elites of the idea that established churches were traditional and sensible. By equating political and religious persecution, the evangelicals helped lay the foundation for a radical political shift in the colonies.

One of the fastest growing of the evangelical groups was the Baptists, the current heart of the “religious right.” As the Baptist influence grew, so did the Anglican backlash against it. …As a result of this persecution, the evangelicals were strong supporters of revolution, believing that their fight for religious freedom would rise or fall with the war against political tyranny. After the revolution, they pressed their opposition to the official church establishments and their support for separation of church and state.

It is a true irony (see below) that these so-called spiritual descendents of men like John Leland are trying to use the repressive power of a religious state to impose their view of morality. True, Baptists have always been a little crazy and many in the church are not a little hypocritical (not that Baptists have a lock on that trait) but democracy is written in to their very creed. No central authority, each church, each believer independent.

But it’s not really our spiritual health that concerns men like Richard Land and James Dobson. It’s their political power. And to maintain that, they seem to be selling their birthright.

Possibly related posts:

The Pope and Politics

Freedom of Expression?

Which view?

Frye on Poetry and Religion

“Just Us” Sunday

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