The First Baptist Church in America and the birthplace of Religious Freedom in America
Last Thursday, I spent the day advocating in the Texas Legislature for our core Baptist principles, the freedom of the conscience and the separation of church and state. I did it alongside the legislative director of Pastors for Texas Children (an ecumenical group focused on protecting public education in Texas) and the legislative director of Texas Baptists. I was asked to come and speak to legislators as they are debating the idea of redirecting public tax dollars to private religious schools. Since I helped nurture Athens Christian Academy for over 20 years and have invested time and energy in our local school district, they thought I might be able to add something to the conversation. As I talked with people in Austin, I was convinced that not all of them knew the rich and beautiful history of America in the area of religous freedom. Its one of our great gifts to the world. The intellectual architect was Roger Williams. He wrote and acted 150 years before our Constitution and his thoughts rocked the world.
Williams sought and was granted a charter for Rhode Island in which absolute universal religious freedom was give to all individuals. In the history of the world, it was the first such place that the right to practice or not to practice a religion was guaranteed without any interference from the government. He pursued this with such energy because of the persecution he experienced for his own religious opinions (one of which was being a Baptist, because being a Baptist was illegal in all of the American colonies until Rhode Island was founded). Williams was punished for his beliefs as were people like him through: fines, whippings, and banishments. His banishment happened in the dead of winter and he barely survived. He came ashore at a place he called Providence in recognition that it was only by grace that he made it our alive from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He also argued convincingly that religious taxation was another form of persecution because he was required to support a religion and worship in which one did not believe.
Baptists help enshrine these ideas in the Constitution through the election of James Madison. He brought the ideas to life in the Bill of Rights. We have been living out these freedoms ever since. Unfortunately, the further we get away from those ideas, the less we remember the historical need for religious freedom and the more we fall back into the same old traps. The people in power tend to persecute the voiceless. The people in power forget that the cornerstone of faith is the freedom of the individual conscience to choose and that external force is powerless to convince the soul. That is why government must be constantly reminded to stay out of the area of faith. It cannot and should not try make people believe.
Williams was an influential and prolific writer and helped teach that Catholics, Native Americans, Muslims, Protestants and Jews could live together in a free society as long as the magistrates were organized solely on civil principles. The charter to Rhode Island called it a “lively experiment.” It had never been tried before. What had been tried was governments and religion becoming so intertwined that Europe had been roiling in religious wars for over 100 years. The graveyards were filled with those who died as a result. Religious freedom was supposed to insulate America from the rage and destruction that often flowed ironically from the love of God. It took years, but eventually all the colonies accepted this position and stopped having established churches. They stopped taxing people to pay for churches. We have done alright without the tax monies. Now our government is toying with the idea of taking your tax dollars and giving them to people of faiths that you do not support, just like the time of Roger Williams. I was there trying to remind them of our history.
The church in America has thrived in large part and in dramatic contrast the the church in Europe due to our position or religious freedom. We don’t need the government to fund, support or even encourage faith. We need the people of faith to live such convincing lives that they are drawn to faith. Let the free market decide. Let our witness be convincing. Let the Holy Spirit convict people’s conscience because nothing else will work.