Baptist Unity Rally Remembers G.W. Truett

On Friday, Baptists attending the joint gathering of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches USA met at Fountain Plaza, directly behind the United States Capitol to celebrate religious liberty through the reading of G.W. Truett's historic sermon.
Johnny Pierce of Baptists Today covered the event (which I attended)....

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Eighty-seven years after George Truett thundered a call for separation of church and state to more than 10,000 Southern Baptists gathered in the nation’s capital, a smaller but more diverse group of Baptists paid tribute to the legendary pastor’s message and called for a renewed commitment to full religious liberty.

Sponsored by the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the speeches took place near the Capitol building, where Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, gave his May 16, 1920, address. While George Washington laid the physical cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793, “its true foundation is on the first freedom -- freedom of religion,” congressman Chet Edwards (D-Texas) said at the June 29 event..Edwards said former Baylor University chancellor Herb Reynolds, who died last month, gave him a copy of Truett’s sermon several years ago. The sermon “made an indelible imprint” on him and caused the defense of religious liberty to become his “political calling in life.”

“Our religious freedom must be protected by each generation,” Edwards said. “There are politicians in each generation, in the name of religion, who would do it great harm.”

Edwards and congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) addressed the crowd, composed mostly of those attending meetings of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches, USA. BJC Executive Director Brent Walker introduced Edwards and Scott as leading members of Congress committed to preserving religious liberty.

You can read the text of George W. Truett's "Baptists and Religious Liberty" - here.

Those who read portions of Truett's speech included:

Amy Butler of Washington’s Calvary Baptist Church; Steven Case of First Baptist Church of Mansfield, Penn.; Quinton Dixie of Indiana University-Purdue University; Pamela Durso of the Baptist History and Heritage Society; Jeffrey Haggray of the D.C. Baptist Convention; Robert Marus of Associated Baptist Press; Julie Pennington-Russell of First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga.; Bill Underwood of Mercer University; and Daniel Vestal of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Tech-savy Dr. Bruce Prescott podcasted the speeches given by Rep. Chet Edwards and Rep. Bobby Scott.

Also be sure to check out BJC blogger Don Byrd's thoughts on the Baptist Unity rally.

Finally, see this article. Sam Hodges of The Dallas Morning News phoned the "church-state guru" of the Southern Baptist Convention for a comment on the rally. Land (who supposedly reveres Truett) claimed that Truett was "less rigid on church-state practicalities than moderates suggest."

Though Land is a historian - it seems he might want to revisit a little Southern Baptist history during the first half of the 20th century. Many non-Baptist scholars recognize that The Texas Tradition (absent J. Frank Norris and a few others) was indeed a Separationist Tradition. Even a revisionist historian like Land can't (with any level of honesty) depict G.W. Truett and J.M. Dawson as accommodationists.

The successors to the legacy left behind by Truett and Dawson includes Texans such as James Dunn, Jimmy Allen, Foy Valentine, John Baugh, and Herb Reynolds.

Richard Land is not part of that legacy.

His legacy is one of accommodation, watered-down civil religion, and militarism.

Not separation.

Merely hanging a portrait of G.W. Truett in a hall somewhere in Nashville does little to honor the legacy of G.W. Truett who fought long and hard for soul freedom, religious liberty, and her essential corollary - the separation of church and state. A portrait may be worth a thousand words but actions always speak louder than words....