The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Free Churches in a Free State
The final historic Baptist distinctive is perhaps the most controversial, at least in the last generation—our commitment to full religious freedom and the separation of church and state. Of course the reason this idea is so provocative is because the latter phrase means different things to different people. While there are many secularists out there who equate church-state separation with the silencing of (orthodox) religious voices from the public square, this is far from what Baptists have historically meant when we’ve used this language.
Before proceeding, we must admit up front that the idea church-state separation isn’t advocated in Scripture, despite strained efforts to proof-text it. Israel was for centuries at least in theory a theocratic state and the first century church was an unpopular sect that rejected the official pagan civil religion of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Baptists have almost uniformly argued that some form of church-state separation is good public policy because it benefits individual Christians, churches and denominations, and even unbelievers by guaranteeing every individual’s right to follow his or her conscience in matters of faith.
Baptists have argued that the best way to preserve religious liberty for all people is to protect the church from oppressive state coercion and protect the state from utopian theocracy. Both of these arrangements are a threat to the gospel, the former because it often stamps out the free proclamation of the good news, the latter because it frequently confuses the gospel with worldly political power. Religious freedom is about gospel freedom. There is no arrangement that better protects gospel freedom than one that allows for free churches to flourish in a free state.
To say it another way, when we are at our best, Baptists don’t base our views of this matter on Natural Law, Jeffersonian ideals, or American tradition—though all of these are good as far as they go. Nor do we argue that religious liberty is the way things are meant to be—frankly, it’s a temporary concession in a fallen world where multitudes shake their fists at their Creator and refuse to bow the knee to the True King. Baptists believe that a free church in a free state is not an end unto itself, but rather is the best means of preserving the freedom of the gospel. This means we not only fight for our own religious freedom, but we also defend the religious freedom of pagans, infidels, and atheists, not because they’re right, but because we recognize that when they have the right to be wrong, we have the right to convince them of their errors and persuade them of a better Way through the gospel.
Baptists who champion a healthy view of church-state separation will face criticism from the cultural right and left—even within the Baptist family. But we have to hold fast to this distinctive, even when some of the conservative brethren reject it (or at least downplay it) and when leftwing Baptists baptize secularist understandings of the doctrine. Both sides have lots of shoddy historical work to back up their views, either of the “Christian America” ilk or of the “Justice Black was just being a good Baptist” variety. Both extremes must be resisted, first and foremost for the sake of gospel freedom.
As American culture becomes increasingly secularized, and as our brothers and sisters in other lands increasingly suffer horrific persecution, it’s all the more important that we Baptists maintain a gospel-driven commitment to religious liberty for all. I think the idea of free churches in a free state is still the best way to preserve religious liberty and gospel freedom until that day when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.
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Note: This is the final post in an nine-part series on the relationship between the gospel and Baptist identity. Earlier posts in this series include:
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Introduction
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: What is the Gospel?
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Pondering Baptist Identity
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Four Categories of Baptist Beliefs
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Covenanted Gospel Membership
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Confessor Baptist by Immersion
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Christocentric Congregationalism
The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Cooperative Autonomy
3 Responses to “The Gospel and Baptist Identity: Free Churches in a Free State”
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Nathan A. Finn serves as Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He's a husband, father, elder, baseball enthusiast, and Broadway musical fan. He's still trying to figure out why we drive on parkways and park on driveways.
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If I remember correctly, good ole Justice Black’s decision accommodated Catholic kids, giving them a free lift to parochial school via public transportation.
As to Black’s interpretation of what the EC means, what is there to disagree with? Seems rather compatible with BFM 1925 to me.
Your beef really ought to be with Rutledge not Black and with how others have interpreted and applied Black’s opinion.
I’m not convinced he was reading the EC correctly, but I do think he was reading it the way many Baptists read it, especially in the past century or so. But you’re probably right that I’m more concerned with how others have interpreted and implied the decision than I am the decision itself.
I think its interesting to compare Hugo Black and his colleague Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Black gets depicted as this strict separationist that helped to usher in secularism.
But really, I read Black as building off of Hughes’ earlier decisions. When Black said “No tax…can be levied to support any religious activities,” he was echoing Hughes, whose view of neutrality was influenced Roger Williams.
What people forget is that Hughes the Baptist was responsible for crafting the Child Benefit Theory which basically says no harm, no foul if the support of religion is indirect (meaning the kid benefits rather than the school).
Black may have used more separationist language in his opinion but his reasoning was classic Hughes. Subsidizing the transportation costs of kids going to private schools does not violate the Establishment Clause.
I think it’s fascinating, however, to see how the church-state landscape has changed in just a few decades among Baptists. Back in the 1960s, James Dunn criticized the Child Benefit Theory. Texas Baptists rejected indirect aid.
Fast forward to 2011 and Texas Baptists via Baptist Standard and Baylor University were lobbying the Texas legislature not to cut the Tuition Equalization Grant which goes to kids from Texas attending Baptist-affiliated schools even those who are majoring in ministry. Those forms of indirect aid that fall under the Child Benefit Theory reasoning are generally acceptable even among Baptist moderates and liberals.