The Separation of Church and State. An idea that as Baptists we all mostly value. One of the “Four Freedoms” of Baptist principles. A historic part of being Baptist, arising from our origins in the state-church era of Reformation Europe, often today bound in the struggle to keep prayer out of public schools or religious symbols off public grounds.
Last week at the CBF General Assembly, I went to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty meeting. The BJC has been important to moderate and liberal Baptists ever since it was disestablished in the 80s from that other-Baptist-group-of-which-we-do-not-blog. As CBF, we not only partner with, but cherish the BJC as the supreme defender of one of our “Freedoms.” From this upscale gathering, with the honorable congressman speaking, and with its oft-voiced commitment to the inalienable rights established in the “first sixteen words” of the Bill of Rights, it is ironically clear that – despite intention – the BJC and most moderate Baptist are still very much entrenched in the life of the state.
The refrain at this meeting was clear: Our motivation for this battle is the upholding of the US Constitution, making sure we maintain our rights – our Baptist “freedoms.” However, this ends in Baptists fighting for separation for the Church by appealing to the state, on state grounds, using political and legal language. If this situation seems odd to you, it is. This scenario seems to be at worst hypocritical and at best a case of acute schizophrenia (“disordered thoughts and incoherent thinking”). It seems to echo James’s repeat warning against double-mindedness. We are suffering from a multiple personality disorder of sorts, trapped in two – competing – identities; are we citizens of the state and citizens of the Kingdom of God. I think I recall Jesus saying something about not serving two masters.
Our incessant fight to defend our “freedoms” has led us to engage and connect with the state rather than separate from it. Perhaps our struggle to fight for these treasured, oft-quoted, and much published “freedoms” has created some odd bed-fellows and led us further from our original mission.
Maybe it is time to re-envision the way we imagine church and state relations, time to move beyond the narrow vision and mission of the BJC.
The BJC, as it struggles for church separation, has become deeply enveloped in the national liberal democratic system – not exactly a witness to the radical alternative Kingdom of the Church. Perhaps it is time to rethink our identity, our mission, or at least our strategy, and move beyond the nationalized discourse of the BJC, which simply fights on the same level as any other lobbying body, and begin contending for the separation of Church and state by being the Church – not by lobbying politicians. Perhaps it is time we be the Church and teach our own children what it means to be disciples no matter what prayers – or pledges – they hear in public school. Perhaps it is time we contend for this important aspect of what it means, not just to be Baptist or embody some individualized notion of “freedom”, but what it means to be God’s Church, not by relying on our national political system corrupted by violence, greed, and competition, by but relying on God and working through the Body of Christ.
I realize that one could accuse me of negativity in my blogging – always finding fault with some action or idea. So hopefully this entry can be seen as one of positivity, not only critiquing, but looking, and hoping, and imagining what we could be. Hoping that we can firmly establish our identity as citizens of the Kingdom of God, not citizens of a specific nation-state, nor the security guard of the first sixteen words of the First Amendment. Hoping that we renew our identity by following the Word who is our example – one who was not a national political leader, but who founded his own form of politics of being a community set apart from and yet within the world – a community with our own unique calling, identity, and mission.
A question or four: do you vote? And would I be correct to assume that you do not feel that we Baptists should be involved in the political process?
Will there be a follow-up post on why the CBF should rethink their support of the Micah Challenge, U.N. Millennium Development Goals and partnership with Bread for the World? Lots of state-interaction and “lobbying” going on there. Would it have been more appropriate for a CBF blogger such as yourself to have first looked inward at your own organization before offering a critique of a partner organization like the BJC?
Transforming a culture by detachment doesn’t seem plausible to me. Relationships are required for crdeibilty. The BJC is the only voice many of us have. Imagining hypocrisy is an easy pursuit and costs nothing. Articulating philosophical differences requires no sweat. Try working hard for solutions.
I think AJC’s point is a good one. Like it or not, right here on Planet Earth, political structures and realities on the ground offer many of the barriers to achieving the Kingdom of God. To ignore the suffering and oppression that results from those barriers – and just float above it all – would certainly be easier. But being one in the “Body of Christ” requires otherwise.
But there is another more specific reason I am proud of the Baptist Joint Committee and consider its work essential and united with the mission of the CBF: the BJC fights not only for our religious liberty, but for the religious liberty of all. It would be easy today for Baptists to shy away from the responsibility to defend the freedom of others – easy for, as you say, Baptists to retreat from this fight by merely “being the Church” and let, I suppose, all other faiths fend for themselves. How easy to do that today in America when the vast majority of the country is Christian!
All members of God’s Kingdom should be able to make religious decisions in true freedom. And yes, soul freedom is a gift from God, and not a granting of the state. But the state can and does take steps to make that more difficult for some. One group it’s not especially difficult for these days? Baptists in America. But it has been in the past and could well be again in the future.
I believe engaging with the political power structures in an appropriate way is an enactment of Christ’s call to minister to those in need, not an abandonment of that call. Maintaining constitutional freedoms, to be sure, is just one part, but an important one. I appreciate the Baptist Joint Committee for its vigilance toward that end.
Does the author plan on dropping by to respond to these comments? Or is this merely a hit-and-run blog post?
It seems that this post has elicited much conversation both on-line and off-line and I see that patience is wearing thin for my response. First let me say that while it has its flaws, the CBF is a great organization and I am deeply committed to its work and mission. The author (my name is Kris) is away visiting CBF partner churches this week and I do not have a lap-top with me. I apologize for the inconvenience. I offer this brief response via a friend and will offer a more detailed articulation next week.
I greatly appreciate the important conversation begun in response to my blog. I am glad the blog is finally generating discussion, its original intention. Allow me to say that I did not intend my statement to sound as harshly directed at the BJC as it has appeared to have been taken. I certainly did not intend to imply that the work in which the BJC engages is in any way bad. It is not bad or completely detrimental to our Christian witness; it is simply emblematic of a misguided and narrow-visioned framework.
By relying on and working within the parameters of the state, to fight for Church-state separation, I believe that groups like the BJC exist in a compromised location and takes needed attention and resources away from the greater mission of the Church. If people would place as much faith and intentionality in the work of the Church as they do the state, then perhaps we could make the Church into what Christ intended it to be, a witness to the love and Shalom of God.
The difference in my viewpoint is this: We want separation of Church and state not because the constitution grants it, but because it should be- the Body of Christ knows no country. Political and legal debates over whether America is a Christian nation are irrelevant: it should not be- the Body of Christ knows no country, only people created in God’s image.
I hope this is a sufficient response to the readers of this blog, but please continue the conversation and I will respond again next week.
(To AJC, I did not vote.)
Kris,
I too am pleased to see discussion taking place here at The Fellowship Portal.
My comments are below:
“Allow me to say that I did not intend my statement to sound as harshly directed at the BJC as it has appeared to have been taken. I certainly did not intend to imply that the work in which the BJC engages is in any way bad.”
I’m not sure how you expected a BJC supporter to receive a post entitled “Acute Schizophrenia, or What’s Wrong with the BJC.” The title alone was obviously negative. Based on the first sentence of your last paragraph, I’m surprised that you seem surprised by how your post “appeared to have been taken.”
Further, your assertion that “Maybe it is…time to move beyond the narrow vision and mission of the BJC” does seem – in my opinion – to imply that the work of the BJC is less than good, less than positive. I doubt very few people would describe a mission/vision that seeks to preserve religious liberty and the separation of church and state as “narrow.” Surely I am not the only reader of your post who was left wondering exactly how much you really know about the ministry of the Baptist Joint Committee.
Baptists have historically eschewed the notion that we should “separate from [the state].” We Baptists have not embraced the separatism of our Anabaptist cousins – a type of Anabaptist-like separatism that was clearly argued for in the post above. As Gary previously asked, how can we transform culture by detachment? In the last sentence of your post you acknowledge that we Christians are to be a “community set apart from and yet within the world.” It seems that you completely neglected the whole “community…within the world” part in your critique. Sitting on the sidelines doesn’t do much to advance our witness – even many modern-day Anabaptists like Ron Sider and Jim Wallis get that.
Your proposed separatism won’t sit well with most Baptists except perhaps Baptists of the Bob Jones variety. The theological viewpoints articulated in this post would play well with some Anabaptist groups today and most Anabaptists of yesteryear. Don’t expect Baptists to separate from society anytime soon. Nor should we.
I respect your FREEDOM to individually interpret the Bible as you have done here. I respect your FREEDOM to express your personal interpretation here at The Fellowship Blog. And while I do not respect your decision not to vote, I do respect your FREEDOM to participate or not to participate in the political process.
I do agree, however, with the commenter above who suggested that it would have been more appropriate if you had first offered a critique of the CBF rather than the BJC. Also, from one blogger to another, here’s a piece of friendly advice: It’s not good blogging etiquette to throw up an inflammatory post and then leave town. If your schedule does not permit you to hang around and defend your words, save that controversial post for another day.
Brother Kris,
B’Diddy and I are usually at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to anything BJC or CBF. However, I must admit I am with him on his analysis of your post. Your post reads more like something coming from one of us BI guys in the SBC. I do not mean that to denigrate your post, I mean it to say you have given us fodder for our churn. For example your statement: The BJC has been important to moderate and liberal Baptists ever since it was disestablished in the 80s from that other-Baptist-group-of-which-we-do-not-blog We have been saying all along the BJC was a moderate and liberal Baptist biased watch group. Anything coming out of the BJC would certainly be against Bible Believing Christians. Also, you go on to say; The BJC, as it struggles for church separation, has become deeply enveloped in the national liberal democratic system. You could have said the “Democratic Party” and saved about three words. This is exactly what we have been saying the BJC has been doing all along–leading us down the road of the Democratic Party. Of course our ERLC has certainly over emphasized the Republican Party and we are paying a price for that also.
Would it not be more easy to just acknowledge that separation of church and state means today what it meant back when we penned the words of the Declaration of Independence? That we, as a people, established this nation in order to worship God freely as the people believed, and the state has no right to tell us what denomination that religious worship should be practiced in?
Blessings,
Tim
From their beginnings in the early 17th, Baptists engaged the political process in order to achieve what was then a liberal, radical, heretical, even godless and atheistic (according to some of their “Christian” detractors) goal: the obtainment of religious liberty for all people, and the separation of church and state.
Thomas Helwys appealed directly to the King, informing James I that the monarch was not God and had no power over the spiritual realm (for this he was thrown in prison and died). Roger Williams and John Clarke established the democratic colony of Rhode Island, including guarantees of full religious liberty and freedom of conscience for everyone and separation of church and state, the model our Founding Fathers turned to in the foundation of our American nation.
In another generation, scores of Baptist preachers, including John Leland in Virginia and Isaac Backus in New England, engaged the political processes in order to implement the vision of Helwys / Williams / Clarke for religious liberty / freedom of conscience / church state separation.
Historically, the greatest contribution that Baptists have made to the history of Christianity is engaging the political processes to protect the basic rights of all citizens.
In short, our Baptist heritage is solidly one of engaging the political processes in order to insure equal rights for all people. It is quite possible that America might today be a theocracy if Baptists had not engaged political processes.
The concept of complete disengagement from political processes, which you advocate, is either an Anabaptist position (mentioned beforehand) or a 20th century separatist fundamentalist model. (I’m not sure which tradition you are coming from, but am guessing Anabaptist.)
We as Baptists have championed separation of church and state because it is necessary for voluntary faith; the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state exists today because Baptists for 150 years put their lives on the line for it and refused to take no for an answer. We Baptists today yet champion the separation of church and state that we won with our blood generations ago preciously because all people are created in the image of God, and government does not have the right to stand between any person and their faith or lack thereof. As Helwys and Williams and Clarke and Baackus and Leland and untold others learned hundreds of years ago, the only way to keep the government separate from the church — and protect the voluntary faith of all people — is to stand up to the government and remind the machinery and the politician that as mortals he/she is “mortal man, and not God, therefore he hath no power over the mortal soul of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for them and to set spiritual Lords over them.” Such were the words of Thomas Helwys, who chose death over remaining silent before the King, and whose words and actions in time altered the course of world history.
Protecting and ensuring voluntary faith, in short, is part of the greater mission of Christ’s Church.
Ditto to everything Bruce Gorley said, but also, why do you not vote? I advocate the separation of church and state by education in the church and action and activism through the state, much as the BJC does. As someone who formerly interned for them and studied Baptist history and Baptists’ dissenters effect on American government, I couldn’t disagree with you more. If we hadn’t been blessed with the great Baptist leaders who were politically active in addressing the government in discourse, I believe that we wouldn’t have the freedom to argue on this blog. The state would tell us how to worship and what to believe (ie, Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary War period under Anglican control). Not voting and disentangling yourself from the political process because you have the luxury to do so is alarming. For starters, you are a white male, so it is a luxury. If you happen to be a landowner, then you would have been able to vote in virtually every quasi-democratic country in history. It is a luxury you have because others fought very hard to give you that freedom. It is also too easy to be overly critical and not involved. It is better to do what the BJC has done and find a middle way of engaging the political process while not becoming too embedded (i.e. promoting one political party over another). Kris, I agree with much of what you have to say on this blog, but for so many reasons I cannot agree with you on this.
Women have had the right to vote for less than a century in America, and in many other countries they are still fighting for it. I plan to vote in every election I can until God calls me home, because I do not take this freedom for granted.
And for that matter, if Christian women and minorities hadn’t questioned the government and protested, and then worked with the government to begin fighting institutionalized racism and sexism, and then continued to stay active in government to ensure and protect womens’ and minorities’ rights, then this nation wouldn’t even remotely resemble the egalitarian mode of being Jesus advocated (America still has a long way to go) and more the hierarchical Roman model that Jesus fought throughout his ministry.
I want to briefly respond only to comments made in the past few posts. A more general theology of church and state can wait for another day, although I do believe I should soon explain my more general theories on the subject. As Bruce notes, I do approach this subject with an Anabaptist perspective – which I do not think disqualifies my view since Anabaptists are a not-so-distant cousin of us Baptists and are still a viable option for the opinion of many Baptist communities.
First, Bruce, you bring up great points about Baptist history. I do not want to argue with you over this because you know far more about Baptist history than I certainly do. What I do want to put out there is that perhaps we live in a different context than those early Baptists and a different approach would be more faithful to the mission of the Church in our current space and time. We do not live in a country where a certain religious tradition is mandated; our context in America today is different. Let me jump back to the beginning of my argument (where I should have spent more time in my original post) and say that I see a problem of which I think many of us are not aware. I believe one of the biggest challenges to the church is the prevalence of civil religion. American civil religion, not just the conservative “God bless America” type, but the more liberal type – a kind of national transcendence where the modernized American value of FREEDOM is our salvation and our “evangelical mission” and our state might be the world’s savior – threatens the identity, witness, and mission of the church. (Perhaps this needs further explanation later.) In such a time as this, perhaps an Anabaptist approach is more faithful than the approach you espouse for our early Baptist Brethren.
Laura makes a great point, as she often does – although she often is in support of me! I am a white male who grew up upper middle class. It is easier for me to say these things and I constantly struggle with the question of whether I would hold similar views if I was other-than that. Thank you for keeping me aware of that. However, I see the problem of which you speak as still an ecclesiological problem. If the Church was doing what it is called to do, and promote egalitarianism and inclusion within itself and spread its message of hope and new community to the world, then we would not have to rely on and compromise with slow, corrupt, and violent government bodies to do the work of the Body of Christ. This is my meager and brief response, but more is still to come I’m sure.
Recent BJC actions and public statements of support for the expanded role of government in every aspect of American life (both religious and economic) have prompted such questions as raised by the author of the article serving as the catalyst for this thread. Any perceived “negativity” toward BJC associated with the article is, in my opinion, a far lesser evil than the need for critical evaluation of an organization in danger of being co-opted to support the very principle it has historically stood against.
The very fact that today’s most ardent supporters of BJC are having this discussion is proof that evaluation needs to occur. Conclusions will be formed as to whether or not The Gospel is collectively social or individually redemptive in its primary emphasis. The discussion needs to take place and I commend Kris Norris for raising the issue.
Kris, let me respond to your specific comments as quoted below:
KRIS: What I do want to put out there is that perhaps we live in a different context than those early Baptists and a different approach would be more faithful to the mission of the Church in our current space and time. We do not live in a country where a certain religious tradition is mandated; our context in America today is different. Let me jump back to the beginning of my argument (where I should have spent more time in my original post) and say that I see a problem of which I think many of us are not aware. I believe one of the biggest challenges to the church is the prevalence of civil religion. American civil religion, not just the conservative “God bless America” type, but the more liberal type – a kind of national transcendence where the modernized American value of FREEDOM is our salvation and our “evangelical mission” and our state might be the world’s savior – threatens the identity, witness, and mission of the church. (Perhaps this needs further explanation later.) In such a time as this, perhaps an Anabaptist approach is more faithful than the approach you espouse for our early Baptist Brethren.
Bruce’s Response: First of all, we live in a country where many Christians are desperately trying to mandate a fundamentalist Christian faith (with some successes in the public sphere). Should Baptists, historic champions of separation of church and state, not resist such efforts to mandate a public faith?
Also, I’d like you to talk more about what you mean by “the modernized American value of freedom.” I do think freedom is the issue at many levels: fundamentalists despise freedom for everyone but themselves, while moderates/liberals embrace an expanding definition of freedom (a contemporary landscape that has parallels with the conservative Congregationalist/Puritan and liberal Baptist divide of the 17th and 18th centuries). Early Baptists viewed religious freedom not as salvation, but as a basic Christian precept and God-given human right that allowed full and true expression of saving faith and respected the God-created human soul … all of this as part of the mission of the church. I think this truism remains to this day, and I perceive the current BJC as remaining true to this heritage.
Anabaptists, on the other hand, withdrew from any public attempts to (first) champion and (later) guard the basic Christian principle of freedom of conscience that under girds religious liberty and allows full expression of saving faith in our world. While ultimately beneficiaries of Baptist efforts for religious liberty and separation of church and state, the Anabaptist witness was turned inward, unconcerned with the larger Christian church/witness and the larger world in general, in order to maintain internal purity untainted by involvement with the larger world (this is the enclave paradigm as opposed to the engagement paradigm). Is the enclave paradigm your perception of what Baptists/Christians should embrace in our contemporary world? And do you perceive Christ as advancing an enclave mission, or an engagement mission?
Balancing the words of Bruce:
Secondly, we live in a country where many Christians are desperately trying to mandate a more liberal/social interpretation of the Christian faith (perhaps, for the moment, with less success in the public sphere although the highest offices of political leadership are now held by a majority of folks who would mandate this agenda as “morally imperative”.) The Christian faith along with its primary document is utilized to support the left wing of the spectrum in the same way it was used previously to support the right wing of the spectrum.
Should Baptists, historic champions of separation of church and state, not resist such efforts to mandate this alternative form of public faith as well?
Is The Gospel of Jesus Christ collectively social or individually redemptive in its primary emphasis?
Scott, the difference between religious fundamentalists and moderate / liberals who engage the public square and advocate policies is that the former try to mandate faith itself (and a fundamentalist faith at that, an agenda wrapped in a self-proclaimed “biblical worldview”), while the latter try to mandate a vision of society at large that upholds and affirms basic principles of justice and mercy (including religious liberty and separation of church and state) in a broad (and global) human rights context that transcends any one religious faith (and religion in general) yet is consistent with the core messages of many religious faiths (as well as the society-transformative message of Christ himself, for Christians). The latter agenda, incidentally, is reflective of the ideals of America’s founding documents; the former is reflective of the colonial theocracies.
Now, how would you answer your own question: Is The Gospel of Jesus Christ collectively social or individually redemptive in its primary emphasis?
Bruce:
Perhaps would be better to say that “in your opinion–the former try to mandate faith itself (and a fundamentalist faith at that, an agenda wrapped in a self-proclaimed biblical worldview”…etc. etc. I still don’t see much difference in the methodologies of the religio-political right and the religio-political left. The Bible is used more for prooftexting than exegesis in both extremes.
My answer to my own question is easy. No doubt The Gospel is individually redemptive as opposed to collectively social in its primary emphasis. There is no true knowledge of justice or mercy apart from the knowledge of Him who is the very source and essence of justice and mercy.
The transformation of the individual human heart through a soul-saving encounter with Christ is pre-requisite. Human achievement on earth of such attributes of God’s nature and character are byproducts of the encounter and will never be fully completed (in a social context) until this earth as we know it gives way to Christ’s return–regardless of endless speculation about the “historic position of Baptists, the ideals of America’s founding documents, etc.
If the idea, as you put it, is “a vision of society at large that upholds and affirms basic principles of justice and mercy (including religious liberty and separation of church and state) in a boad (and global) human rights context that transcends any one religious faith (and religion in general), Why didn’t the biblical writers say as much themselves? Why did they focus their attention primarily on Christ, him crucified and resurrected, and the responsibility of the individual to come to Christ as the sole means of apprehending the true knowledge of God?
Why did Paul, for example, defer issues of societal evolution (or regression) to the ongoing process of God’s self-disclosure with statements like “Slaves, obey your masters” instead of coming right out and saying “Masters, immediately release your slaves and repent of this hideous evil”?
Thanks for inviting me to answer my own question and thanks for your answer by not answering.
Scott said: My answer to my own question is easy. No doubt The Gospel is individually redemptive as opposed to collectively social in its primary emphasis. There is no true knowledge of justice or mercy apart from the knowledge of Him who is the very source and essence of justice and mercy.
Bruce sez: You best re-read the Gospels; Jesus talks as much about transforming the world/society here and now (his parables about the “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of god” – for starters – are not about some future, remote place in the universe, but the present working of God in human society) as he does individual and internal salvation. We American Christians tend dwell much on the individualistic/internal nature of salvation (one Gospel theme) while ignoring the social nature (an equal Gospel message). Many Christians explain away the second by saying that society will be saved when Christ returns, yet most of these same individuals base this belief on a belief in the “Rapture,” an 1820s invention that was heretical until the 20th century.
Not to mention that your contention that justice and mercy does not exist apart from Christ is ludicrous. Jesus himself told stories that illustrated mercy and justice … and had nothing to do with Him. I suspect even you would concede that justice and mercy can exist in societies/cultures/clans/nations/peoples who have no knowledge of Christ.
Ludicrous?
Everything Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount(i.e. progress in mercy and social justice) as well as the New Testament record of supernatural miracles performed by himself and his followers, are signs pointing to and byproducts of his primary emphasis on the individual’s transformation through belief in God’s Son. Perhaps I’m not the only who should do some re-reading.
At any rate. This is a good point for me to exit the discussion and refrain from further posting on this site. I’m obviously not so enlightened as to engage in discussion with the likes of yourself. I’m content, however, to let what I’ve exchanged with you in this thread rise or fall on it own merit with any subsequent readers.
God’s richest blessings on you Bruce.
It seems to me we may be talking past one another, which is not helpful. Not to mention that we seem to have moved away from the thread topic. So, blessings to you as well, my friend.
Correction:
No “we” here. I’ve attempted to stay focused squarely on the thread topic as raised to the surface of discussion by Kris Norris.
“Movement away from the thread topic” began with such terms as “ludicrous” and a reference to “rapture theology” which I, personally, find no basis for in the New Testament. Please don’t invite others to engage in discussion if you can’t handle the fact that their positions may vary significantly from your own.
Scott, I’ll grant that ludicrous was not a helpful word. You have my apology.
The thread topic was about the BJC. We’ve moved significantly away from that topic.
Bruce:
Apology sincerely accepted and my involvement in this discussion ended.
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This is why I’m not a Baptist… smh…
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