250

I write these words at the start of a significant week in the history of the United States of America – the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the birth of an independent nation called America. Over the years, I have discovered a great interest in reading about the moments and people that shaped the foundations of our nation. As I think about our national “birthday”, the thought I continue to return to is that what makes the celebration so special is that America represented a great experiment. Several of the ideas that would become the pillars of the American experience were, in their time, radical and risky. Perhaps chief among those ideas was the belief that America would be a land of religious liberty, a land where faith was not reinforced or required by the state and its laws. Even in the colonial era, this was not often the reality. Though several of the colonies were established in part by religious groups that had come to America to gain freedom from oppression in Europe, laws were passed by local and colonial legislators that required support of and/or loyalty to a particular denomination of faith, often times under pain of fines and imprisonment.

While certainly not the only voice, Baptists in America were among the loudest voices calling on the new nation that was being formed to reject tying together the forces of the state and the power of religion. Isaac Backus, a New England Baptist pastor, had witnessed the imprisonment of his mother and brother for falling behind on paying the state taxes that
supported the Congregational Church. When Massachusetts adopted a state constitution that would allow the state to apply a tax for the specific purpose of supporting Protestant ministers, Backus tried to try to convince the legislators and the people to remove the troublesome article, saying, “It asserts a right in the people of this State to make and execute laws about the worship of God, directly contrary to the truth which assures us
that we have but ONE LAWGIVER in such affairs.” Here in Virginia, John Leland, a traveling Baptist evangelist, made the case for full religious liberty, saying, “Every man must give an
account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that he can best reconcile to his conscience. … Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according
to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing.” Backus and Leland were just a few of the Baptist voices crying out for the new “land of the free” to be truly free in matters of faith.

The freedom of religion that is part of the American experience was not necessarily self-evident, as our early history too often shows. What is truly fascinating is that often times these conversations and debates were not between people of faith and atheists, but, such as in the case of Isaac Backus and his family, between one group of Christians and another group of Christians. That is why I find it fascinating that, even as we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, I come across Christian leaders and speakers and influences who see fault in the separation of church and state now. Like many religious leaders in the time of Backus and Leland, they believe that Christianity cannot survive in America without state support. It seems there is still a need for the historical Baptist witness that reminds us that Christ did not announce His Kingdom through the decrees of the Roman emperor or the laws of the Herods. Instead, Christ fished with disciples and talked with women at wells and welcomed children and healed the sick and dined with tax collectors. Christ nurtured faith not through the powers of the state but the incarnation of love and grace and mercy and righteousness.

As our nation celebrates 250 years of freedom and independence, let us also celebrate the freedom we have in Christ Jesus to call upon the Lord and to respond to His saving work. Let us nurture the freedom within each soul to encounter the gospel and respond not by force of will but by the choice to love as they have been so loved. This is the heritage and history that defines us and the commission that calls us forward.

- Pastor Mark