The Baptist Standard / By Ken Camp, Managing Editor
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WACO, TEXAS—Government should let religion “flourish or flounder on its own,” not promote it or prohibit liberty of conscience, a religious freedom advocate told a chapel assembly at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.
In spite of their diversity and deep disagreements on other issues, a historically grounded, biblically based commitment to religious liberty for all people has united Baptists for four centuries, said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, an educational and advocacy agency in Washington, D.C., that represents 15 national, state and regional Baptist groups.
A Baptist ‘birthright’
“We have taken seriously the liberty for which Jesus himself broke the yoke of slavery and set us free. This was our birthright in the 17th century, our rallying cry today and, I pray, our legacy four centuries from now,” he said.
Walker spoke in Truett Seminary’s chapel in conjunction with the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.
Walker highlighted heroes of religious liberty, from Thomas Helwys, who sent a declaration on liberty of conscience to King James and subsequently was sentenced for life to Newgate Prison; to Roger Williams, who established Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters and founded the first Baptist church in North America; to John Leland, who helped convince James Madison to include a religious freedom guarantee in the Bill of Rights; to J.M. Dawson, who persuaded the United Nations general assembly to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; to George W. Truett, who proclaimed religious liberty to a crowd of 10,000 from the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
But while history demonstrates Baptists’ key role in advancing religious liberty, their commitment to the principle finds its roots in the Bible and its teaching that God created humankind with free will, he insisted.
“Our understanding of religious liberty involves no less than the freedom to worship God and to follow Jesus without efforts by government to advance or inhibit religion—someone else’s or our own,” Walker said.
Baptists have drawn inspiration from the example of the apostles, who were arrested for preaching the gospel of Christ, he noted.
Rights of conscience
“The rights of conscience take precedence over the demands of government authority,” he said.
However, Baptists likewise have recognized the limits of freedom, particularly responsibility to others and duty to the government, Walker added.
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