George Truett on Baptism and Religious Liberty

I've been busy writing papers over the last week. One forthcoming paper analyzes David Gushee's "Emerging Evangelical Centrist" thesis and the concept of "substantive neutrality." The other paper which I presented earlier this week was entitled:

Where Did Baptists Come From? The Case For Anabaptist Influence on Baptist Origins

In that paper, I take a look at the writings of Winthrop Hudson, William Estep and Jason Lee. If you have not read Jason Lee's The Theology of John Smyth (Mercer University Press), check it out.

All that said, it was interesting trying to analyze how much influence 16th century Anabaptism and the Dutch Mennonites specifically had on Smyth's adoption of believer's baptism and his church-state views.

Speaking of believer's baptism and religious liberty, I'd like to share my favorite G.W. Truett quotes on those two subjects on this Friday. These lengthy quotes are taken from Truett's famous sermon, Baptists and Religious Liberty, delivered on the steps of the United States Capitol.

Truett on Baptism:

It follows, inevitably, that Baptists are unalterably opposed to every form of sponsorial religion. If I have fellow Christians in this presence today who are the protagonists of infant baptism, they will allow me to say frankly, and certainly I would say it in the most fraternal, Christian spirit, that to Baptists infant baptism is unthinkable from every viewpoint. First of all, Baptists do not find the slightest sanction for infant baptism in the Word of God. That fact, to Baptists, makes infant baptism a most serious question for the consideration of the whole Christian world. Nor is that all. As Baptists see it, infant baptism tends to ritualize Christianity and reduce it to lifeless forms. It tends also and inevitably, as Baptists see it, to secularizing of the church and to the blurring and blotting out of the line of demarcation between the church and the unsaved world....

Again, to Baptists, the New Testament teaches that salvation through Christ must precede membership in his church, and must precede the observance of the two ordinances in his church, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper. These ordinances are for the saved and only for the saved. These two ordinances are not sacramental, but symbolic. They are teaching ordinances, portraying in symbol truths of immeasurable and everlasting moment to humanity. To trifle with these symbols, to pervert their forms and at the same time to pervert the truths they are designed to symbolize, is indeed a most serious matter. Without ceasing and without wavering, Baptists are, in conscience, compelled to contend that these two teaching ordinances shall be maintained in the churches just as they were placed there in the wisdom and authority of Christ. To change these two meaningful symbols is to change their scriptural intent and content, and thus pervert them, and we solemnly believe, to be the carriers of the most deadly heresies. By our loyalty to Christ, which we hold to be the supreme test of our friendship for him, we must unyeildingly contend for these two ordinances as they were originally given to Christ's churches.

Truett on Religious Liberty:

That utterance of Jesus, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," is one of the most revolutionary and history-making utterances that ever fell from those lips divine. That utterance, once and for all, marked the divorcement of church and state. It marked a new era for the creeds and deeds of men. It was the sunrise gun of a new day, the echoes of which are to go on and on and on until in every land, whether great or small, the doctrine shall have absolute supremacy everywhere of a free church in a free state.

In behalf of our Baptist people I am compelled to say that forgetfulness of the principles that I have just enumerated, in our judgment, explains many of the religious ills that now afflict the world. All went well with the early churches in their earlier days. They were incomparably triumphant days for the Christian faith. Those early disciples of Jesus, without prestige and worldly power, yet aflame with the love of God and the passion of Christ, went out and shook the pagan Roman Empire from center to circumference, even in one brief generation. Christ's religion needs no prop of any kind from any worldly source, and to the degree that it is thus supported is a millstone hanged about its neck.

In a post-modern world that values relevancy, I'd say that much of what G.W. Truett had to say from those East Capitol steps almost 90 years ago is still relevant today. Preserving the best of The Baptist Story is indeed worth the fuss.

Where Have All The Baptists Gone?

And now some BJC news...

WASHINGTON — One of the most prominent historians of American evangelicalism called on "true Baptists" June 29 to re-assert their prophetic role "as watchmen on the wall of separation between church and state."

Randall Balmer, a history professor at Columbia University, told more than 550 supporters of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty that many of America's Baptists, in recent decades, have "lost their way."

Now, let's revisit a few of Balmer's most memorable one-liners.

"They have been seduced by leaders of the Religious Right into thinking that the way to advance the gospel in this country is to abandon Baptist principles,"

"Why not post the Decalogue in public places? Because, quite simply, it trivializes the faith and makes the Ten Commandments into a fetish....What Roy Moore was peddling was idolatry, pure and simple — a conflation of the gospel with the American political order."

"The identification of the Religious Right with the Republican Party has deprived the faith of its prophetic voice. Where are the Baptist voices of conscience decrying this administration's immoral war in Iraq, the relentless assault on civil liberties and the abomination of torture?"

"It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Religious Right has abandoned the faith for a conference call with Karl Rove in return."

"Every true Baptist understands that any attempt to baptize the faith with the imprimatur of the state … ultimately diminishes the integrity of the faith...I'm asking Baptists to reaffirm their heritage. I'm asking them to rededicate themselves to the importance of liberty of conscience. Baptists were once a minority themselves, so they should know better than most the importance of protecting the rights of minorities, religious and otherwise."

Let's heed the advice of Dr. Balmer. To reclaim that authentic and genuine Baptist voice in North America, we must recommit ourselves to soul freedom, complete religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The upcoming Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant will be a great opportunity to reaffirm our heritage - a heritage that values liberty of the individual conscience.

As religion must always be a matter between God and individuals, no man can be made a member of a truly religious society by force or without his own consent, neither can any corporation that is not a religious society have a just right to govern in religious affairs.
-Isaac Backus, 1781

It is the consistent and insistent contention of our Baptist people, always and everywhere, that religion must be forever voluntary and uncoerced, and that it is not the prerogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship....A Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty, for his Catholic neighbor, and for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else."
-George W. Truett, 1920

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....

Baptists and Religious Liberty

Baptists and others who love religious liberty will gather on the steps of the Capitol next weekend to to show support for the separation of church and state. This rally will be held in conjunction with the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and is sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee. Don Byrd of Blog from the Capital has more:

On a Sunday afternoon in May 1920, a 53-year-old Baptist preacher from Dallas, Texas, climbed the east steps of the U.S. Capitol to address a throng of some 10,000 onlookers in town for the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. His purpose — to rally support for religious liberty and its constitutional corollary, the separation of church and state.

The crowd heard a masterful call for true religious liberty, not the veiled contempt expressed in the “mere toleration” of others’ religious views. “Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right,” the speaker said.

That sermon delivered by George W. Truett has continued to have a profound impact on Baptists and others for decades, including Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who received the text of the sermon from a friend more than a decade ago. The sermon “haunted” and “inspired” Edwards and caused him to change his political priorities. Edwards is now one of the fiercest champions of religious liberty on Capitol Hill.

Edwards will be on hand, as well as Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Va., and a host of other religious and educational leaders representing an array of Baptists, as the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty hosts a Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty at 8 a.m. on Friday, June 29. The event will be held at Fountain Plaza of Upper Senate Park, adjacent to the U.S. Capitol and the Russell Senate Office Building.

Leaders from across the country will celebrate Truett’s contribution to religious freedom and the Baptist distinctive of religious liberty for all by reading excerpts of Truett’s sermon.

For text of the sermon, titled “Baptists and Religious Liberty,” visit the Baptist Joint Committee Web site at http://www.bjconline.org/resources/pubs/pub_truett_address.htm .

Count me in! I'll likely be worthless and half-awake at 8am. But I'll be there.