Written by Don Byrd
In an interview with Associated Baptist Press, BJC Executive Director Brent Walker discusses the past year for the organization and in religious liberty. Rev. Walker emphasizes a side of the Baptist Joint Committee’s advocacy we don’t read often read about in religious liberty news stories: its role as an educator.
It has been a very good year. We completed the first year in our new Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill, which we had planned for and developed for several years now…. We have increased our staff size. Charles Watson Jr., has come on board as education and outreach specialist, and is in charge of our new center. He’s charged with expanding our base of support for religious liberty through networking…. We have always been very much involved in public policy issues in the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House, but it’s equally important for us to launch an education effort … on the importance of the separation of church and state.
Is there a practical, tangible benefit to this education effort?
Yes: we can’t do it all ourselves…. We need colleagues and advocates arguing at the local level and we need additional advocates in the cause. We can go to the Congress with our message and to the White House and the Supreme Court. But in the final analysis, it’s the people that decide the issues. Congress votes and justices decide, but they are there because of the votes of the people, and we need a populace educated on these issues.
We need as many voices as possible defending the separation of church and state from the perspective of faith. The BJC continues to lead the way in educating and expanding those voices.
