A One-Way Street: Baptists and Politics
It is easy, especially in an election year, for us to feel the tension between religion and politics. It seems that each election cycles this tension gets more and more intense as the temptation to bring the political world into the church context becomes more and more appealing.
In my area of the world, in 2016, it was not uncommon to see
churches in the area that I am living to hold different political events and
rallies, all taunting the need to save the US from sure destruction.
However, much it may seem, this is something that is not new.
Each generation of Baptists have had to struggle with how to relate to the
political culture around them.1
Baptist come to this with an especially interesting
perspective for a few reasons, but their belief in individual soul liberty is
the major the theological driver.
Soul competency speaks to the ability for all humans, regardless
of race, creed, or religion, ability to be individually accountable and
responsible to God. B.H. Carrol stated that it is, “The sole responsibility of
decision and action rests directly upon the individual soul. Each one must give
account of himself to God. This is the first principle of New Testament law—to
bring each naked soul face to face with God.”2
Baptist belief was that it was the individual’s right and responsibility
to be accountable for the decisions that they made and their beliefs concerning
God. Further it was the governments place to “leave them alone” so that they
could do just this. They believed that according to scripture it was the government’s
God ordained place to simply: maintain civil authority, protect individuals,
and punish violators of others’ rights. (Romans 13)
This belief, coupled with their persecution in the 18th
century, gave us many instances of politically active Baptist in the early days
of America (See Isaac Backus, John Leland, etc.). And while it was our Baptist
forebears that set a precedent for political involvement 3, this was
a one-way street.
Backus specifically saw the allowance to be involved in
politics, but not for politics to be involved in the church. While the
intensity in activity varied from Baptist to Baptist, keeping politics outside
of the church was widely the consensus.
Even in Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church &
State”4 was a separation of the government from the church, not
necessarily the other way around. By advocating for the separating of church
and state Baptists, “became the first Christians in modern times to preach a
thorough-going religious liberty: the right to join in worship with others of
like faith without state support and without state persecution.”5
Baptist's engaged in politics were actively engaged in securing liberty, not passively engaged in votes and rallies.
This demonstrates one of the areas that we have gotten the
cart before the horse. We ought to be leaving the charge, not just aligning to
a candidate to achieve what we want at the expense of convictions and our
witness.
Ultimately, our religious liberty is a means to a missional
end.6 We are not pursuing religious liberty so that we can, after
gaining it, step away and isolate ourselves from culture. Our actions in pursuit
of religious liberty are to gain the ability to freely proclaim the gospel and
give others the liberty to be able to hear it.
Our Baptist forefathers would be like to warn us of mingling
the church and the government, no matter the end, knowing that the effect of
this often ended in the persecution that they had experienced themselves. They
would also likely draw back from the idea that we can just “elect” our way into
spiritual dominance.
"Early America’s Baptists did not expect politicians to do heavy lifting for the church. They just wanted the government to protect religious liberty, so the church could be the church".7
1.) R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a
Baptist Church (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2005). Pg. 177.
2.) Carroll, BH, Baptists and Their Doctrines (Fleming H.
Revell Company, 1913). Pg. 18.
3.) R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a
Baptist Church (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2005). Pg. 170.
4.) Jefferson, Thomas (1802). [Letter to the Danbury Baptist
Association, dated January 1, 1802]
5.) Shelley, Bruce, Church History in Plain Language. (Thomas
Nelson Inc; 2nd Edition, 1996). Pg. 254.
6.) R. Stanton Norman, The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a
Baptist Church (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2005). Pg. 180.
7.) Kidd, Thomas, Baptists and religious liberty (Light
Magazine, June 10, 2016)
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