The conservative resurgence is not over. Last year about this time Christ Over All focused on the need for confessionalism in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which we argued is the antidote to the pragmatic approach to ecclesiology that plagues—dare I say, steers—the SBC. This year in focusing on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), we are aiming for course correction outside the pews in the public square. In what follows I will seek to demonstrate that key Baptist distinctives like religious liberty and missions mobilization are complemented and even maximized by strong Christian influence upon the cultural and political order. There has been a widespread departure from the best of our Baptist heritage regarding the nature and relationship of the church and state and I contend that the crying need of the hour is for us to (re)articulate what was once assumed by (many) Baptists for the recovery of both ordered and religious liberty.
Other contributors to this month’s theme have dealt directly with issues regarding the ERLC. My purposes are a bit “bigger picture,” in that I am targeting what has become the de facto Southern Baptist approach to politics, which assumes a fundamental disunity between the mission of the church and the calling of the state; or at least sees political involvement as a distraction from the mission of the church. I find addressing this matter is urgently needed for diagnosing how the SBC broadly and the ERLC specifically can course correct on understanding the church-state relationship, by better grasping the role that culture/politics plays alongside the church in cultivating and preserving conditions which allow for religious liberty and the spread of the gospel.
Modern Baptist Devolutions: Soul Competency in the Pews, Secularism in the Streets
Thanks to the conservative resurgence that began in 1979, Southern Baptists are increasingly averse to the notion of “soul competency”[1]—the idea that the individual is only accountable to God and not to his local congregation (or his local church’s confession of faith). Many in the SBC see this idea for what it was/is: a poison pill that infiltrated and infected Baptist ecclesiology and institutional life in the twentieth century. Sadly, this trojan horse for Enlightenment individualism made it into Baptist ranks due in no small part to the influence of leading Baptist thinkers like E.Y. Mullins[2] and George Truett. The former opened the door for “moderates” seeking to undermine confessionalism, and the latter is often touted for his well-known address “Baptists and Religious Liberty,” wherein he incorrectly synthesizes the notions of individualism, democracy, and soul freedom/competency as the Baptist distinctives.[3]
[1] “Soul competence” is a twentieth century novelty which sadly took root in many Southern Baptist churches and institutions. This doctrine elevated the individual to the place of prominence and competence over the corporate body of believers. As American Baptist historian Winthrop S. Hudson has memorably summarized: “The practical effect of the stress upon ‘soul competency’ as the cardinal doctrine of the Baptists was to make every man’s hat his own church.” Winthrop S. Hudson, Baptists in Transition: Individualism and Christian Responsibility (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1979), 142.
[2] Albert Mohler rightly argues, “Soul competency also serves as an acid dissolving religious authority, congregationalism, confessionalism, and mutual theological accountability. This, too, is part of Mullins’s legacy.” Introduction to The Axioms of Religion, by E. Y. Mullins, ed. Timothy George and Denise George, Library of Baptist Classics 5 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), 26.
[3] Truett (unhelpfully) argues: “The right to private judgment is the crown jewel of humanity, and for any person or institution to dare to come between the soul and God is a blasphemous impertinence and a defamation of the crown rights of the Son of God . . . in the realms both civil and ecclesiastical. Often have the two ideas, absolutism versus individualism, autocracy versus democracy, met in battle.” See “Baptists and Religious Liberty.”
However, as John Hammett rightly argues, soul competency subverts the priesthood of the believers and a healthy elder-led congregational polity in favor of the autonomous self. This is why in traditional Southern Baptist churches one often finds many more names in the membership directory than they do in the corporate gathering, because church accountability and discipline disappear whenever the individual alone stands before God. Today, conservative Baptists are still reckoning with the repercussions of this widespread error within our ecclesiology and institutions,[4] but what many fail to see is how the same rationalistic and individualistic principles that fueled the Baptist downgrade into soul competency drive the de facto Baptist approach to the church-state relationship.
[4] From historical developments within Southern Baptist circles like that of the conservative resurgence at the end of the twentieth century to ministries like that of 9Marks, Founders, and others like them, an encouraging progression in Baptist life over the last quarter century has been the recovery of elder-led/ruled congregationalism and the healthy biblical principles undergirding such renewal.
Just as Baptists under the influence of Mullins imported Enlightenment/individualistic concepts into their ecclesiology in the twentieth century, Baptists under the influence of thinking like that of Truett have been importing secularistic/privatistic concepts into political theology in keeping with the cultural decline of America.[5] For a tangible example of the deleterious effects such an error has on public policy, see Alex Kocman’s contribution to this month’s theme, where he shows that leaders in the ERLC have celebrated the decline of Christian culture in America and used the “transcultural nature of the invisible church [to] overthrow principles of natural law and prudence affecting national policy.”
[5] As Phillip Hamburger explains, “According to the First Amendment, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Yet Jefferson and numerous other Americans, including many judges and scholars, have understood this phrase, especially its establishment clause, in terms of the ‘separation between church and state’—indeed, a ‘wall’ of separation.” Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 2. For a good argument as to why the trope that all Baptists affirmed this early 19th century Jeffersonian invention in the early 19th century stands on dubious grounds, see Obbie Tyler Todd’s essay, “Did All Baptists Want a Wall? Early Postures Toward Religious Liberty.”
Articulating What was Once Assumed
Leading Baptist public theologian Albert Mohler is calling for course correction and a return to our Baptist heritage. He rightly and recently claims: “I don’t believe that western civilization can endure without acknowledging the first table of the law and obeying the second table.”[6] He qualifies this statement by adding: “I’m a Baptist. I’m a conversionist. So, I can’t say that the civilization is to be predicated upon confessional faith as is reflected in the first table of the law. I can say that our society won’t survive without the historical acknowledgment of it.” He has further formulated such thoughts here and here, concluding that: “in our political order, even unbelievers should be accountable for a basic morality we acknowledge is derived from Christianity. If this acknowledgement is rejected, I believe our constitutional order is doomed to fall.”
One reason that Mohler needs to add the caveat “I’m a Baptist” after making the claim(s) above is that many (maybe even most) contemporary Baptists have succumbed to the error of defining the Baptist ideal of “a free church in a free state” in keeping with the cultural decline of America into secularism. Stephen Wellum, borrowing from David Wells, diagnoses and critiques the error of this concept: “as a society becomes more ‘secular,’ it doesn’t necessarily make everyone an atheist. Instead, religion is ‘privatized’ and removed from the public square. In turn, this reinforces the unbiblical ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ divide, thus making theology publicly irrelevant but privately engaging.” But such a privatization of the faith is unfaithful. Instead, as Mohler rightly exhorts: “Christian citizens should seek to establish and sustain a moral, legal, and cultural order that is avowedly consistent with the Lordship of Christ.”
[6]In political theology, the “first table” of the law typically refers to the first four of the Ten Commandments, which have a greater focus on the vertical relationship between God and man, whereas the “second table” refers to commandments five through ten, which have a greater focus on the horizontal relationship between mankind. This standard distinction is verified by Christ in Matthew 22:36–40.
When we examine our history, one can find many examples of leading Baptists who agreed with what Mohler is arguing for above. In short, Mohler is articulating what was once largely assumed—just as he did when he took the helm at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993. And Southern Baptists would do well to take heed of what he is saying now. It is my earnest hope that in a quarter century we will have reset the default on these matters to the extent that a Baptist could simply state what Mohler does above—without needing to offer the reassurance of their Baptist bonafides. This would indicate that the conservative resurgence has properly graduated to the conservative conquest.
Learning from the Past for Present and Future Guidance
Obbie Tyler Todd insightfully draws attention to the fact that historically Baptists differed in the early United States (1776–1835) over the best way to protect the liberty of religion/conscience.[7] Baptists were in principle for the protection of religious liberty, but they differed as to the ideal conditions required for this principle to be realized. Todd uses the labels of Baptist Republicans and Baptist Federalists to capture how there was no small debate over the way this most basic principle was to be both procured and sustained.[8] The usage of the label Baptist Federalist intentionally undermines the common but wrong conviction that Baptists were in unison against a Christian(ized) social order. Todd explains,
[7] See Obbie Tyler Todd, Let Men Be Free: Baptist Politics in the Early United States (1776–1835), MBH (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2022).
[8] The distinctions between Republicans and Federalists are loaded and complicated, as during the election of 1800, for example, Republicans had political reasons to separate the Federalist clergyman from politics. This is because Federalist ministers were speaking out against Thomas Jefferson from the pulpit, on the grounds of his infidelity and deism. As Philip Hamburger explains,
“In defense of Jefferson, Republicans argued that clergymen ought not preach about politics, and eventually, beginning in 1800, some made such arguments in terms of separation—in particular, a separation of religion and politics. Seizing upon the idea of separation—a concept that until 1800 had been unusual and anything but popular-these Republicans elevated it to a political principle. Although establishment ministers had caricatured dissenters as seeking a separation of religion from civil government, and although dissenters had declined to seek separation, Republicans now endorsed it as a means of discouraging Federalist clergy, especially in Congregational New England, from preaching against Jefferson.” (Hamburger, Separation of Church and State, 112).
Since virtually every Baptist was principally concerned with protecting their liberty of conscience, it might be said that Baptist Republicans and Federalists quarreled over the best way to procure and protect this most sacred freedom. In general, Baptist Republicans emphasized the restraint of government and the importance of individual rights while Baptist Federalists stressed the responsibility of government and the importance of public virtue. These differences were not so much in principle, but in degree. . . .
One conceived the ideal government as protecting men from false religion; the other conceived of true religion as sustaining the ideal government. In short, Baptist Federalists did not trust a godless government to protect their religious freedom and Baptist Republicans did not trust a religious government to keep its hands out of free religion.[9]
To sum up, Baptist Republicans majored on the individual’s right to liberty of conscience and Baptist Federalists majored on the public virtue required to protect the liberty of conscience. While Baptist Federalists make for a fascinating study, what must be stated is that even Baptist Republicans were not unanimously in favor of a wall of separation between church and state for the protection of the individual’s right to liberty of conscience.
For example, Baptist pastor and statesman Isaac Backus (1724–1806)—who would rightly be labeled a Baptist Republican—did not see the separation of the church and state as institutions to preclude cooperation between the Christian religion and civil government.[10] As James Hutson points out, “Evangelicals had traditionally been reluctant to tout the public utility of religion for fear that their endorsement would recoil upon them. . . . During the debates of the general assessment in Massachusetts in the 1780s, Isaac Backus had more than once declared that ‘piety, religion, and morality are essentially necessary for the good order of civil society.’”[11] Such astute cultural and political instincts on the part of Backus lead historian William McLoughlin to claim,
[9] Todd, Let Men Be Free, 72–73.
[10] Backus argues the Baptist ideal is that “there may and ought to be a sweet harmony” shared by the church and civil government in their respective institutional responsibilities, not a fundamental disunity. Isaac Backus, A Fish caught in his own net. An examination of nine sermons, from Matt. 16. 18. published last year, by Mr Joseph Fish of Stonington (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1768), 23.
[11] James H. Hutson, Church and State in America: The First Two Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 168.
In certain respects Backus had more in common with the transformationists or theocrats than the separationists. Backus and the New England Baptists were Jeffersonians in politics primarily in reaction to the Standing Order’s Federalism, but basically they shared the socially conservative heritage of their region, or at least their eastern spokesmen did.[12]
[12] McLoughlin, introduction to Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, 50–51.
Backus’s positions are sharply contrasted from that of another leading Baptist thinker, John Leland (1754–1841), whose approach to religious liberty emerged from his theology of soul liberty. According to Baptist historian Joel L. Coker, Leland’s soul liberty and optimistic epistemology denigrated the role of organized churches, creeds, confessions, inter-Baptist church associations, interdenominational cooperation, and missionary societies as ultimately unnecessary.[13] In keeping with this logic, Leland also maintained Christianity is not essential to good government, and in accord with his subscription to some form of social contract theory, he posited that all government inevitably costs individuals some measure of their natural rights—soul freedom chief among the forfeitures.[14]
[13] Joe L. Coker, “Sweet Harmony vs. Strict Separation: Recognizing the Distinctions between Isaac Backus and John Leland,” American Baptist Quarterly 16, no. 3 (September 1997): 244–45.
[14] See Todd, Let Men Be Free, 79–81.
John Witte has helpfully drawn attention to Leland’s distinctiveness by highlighting that there were two forms of church and state separatists in early American and Baptist circles — the Evangelical separatists and the Enlightenment separatists.[15] Evangelical separatists did not want a strict separation between church and state, but instead called for the state to respond to the church’s initiatives. Enlightenment separatists, like Leland—also referred to as “two-sided separatists”—insisted that neither the church nor the state could aid each other. Thus, Leland foreshadowed the likes of Mullins and Truett (mentioned earlier) insofar as he built his political theology and his understanding of pure and undefiled religion upon soul freedom in keeping with a rationalistic definition of liberty.
[15] John Witte Jr., “Theology and Politics of the First Amendment Religion Clauses: A Bicentennial Essay,” The Emory Law Journal 40, no. 2 (1991): 494–95.
Backus rejected Leland’s Enlightenment separatism, and instead combined Calvinistic anthropology with a Baptist ecclesiology, which had profound implications on his political theology. First, his strong belief in the sovereignty of God led him to acknowledge that: “No government could ever be established among themselves without appeals to Him for the truth of what was asserted.”[16] Second, due to his Calvinism Backus was far less optimistic about human’s choosing the right thing than Leland, who posited that a rightly informed conscience would choose the truth. Third, Backus’s conviction that liberty, duty, and obedience co-exist, caused him to dismiss the notion that government inevitably costs individuals their rights. He contends that man even prior to sin was righteously limited by the law of God, and in the fall, “man first lost his freedom by breaking over the rules of government.” He describes it as “a root of all evil . . . for men to imagine that there is anything in the nature of true government that interferes with true and full liberty,” concluding that “it is so far from being necessary for any man to give up any part of his real liberty in order to submit to government that all nations have found it necessary to submit to some government in order to enjoy any liberty and security at all.”[17]
[16] Isaac Backus, “Truth is Great and Will Prevail. Boston, 1783,” in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789, ed. William G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1968), 402.
[17] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public,” 309.
Unlike Leland, Backus was an Evangelical separatist who promoted “one-sided separationism.”[18] This meant that while he found it permissible and even necessary for the church to influence and shape the state, the reverse was unacceptable. Due to his Puritan leanings, he argued that “civil rulers ought to be men fearing God, and hating covetousness . . . and ministers ought to pray for rulers, and to teach the people to be subject to them, so there may and ought to be a sweet harmony between them.”[19] To reiterate, Backus saw true religion (Christianity) as a necessary public good, claiming: “Religion is as necessary for the well-being of human society . . . as light is to direct our ways.”[20] He was thus in lockstep with John Adams, who understood that “our [American] constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[21] In sum, Backus rightly grasped (along with others in the early republic) that apart from Christianity, the American project was doomed.
[18] See Witte, “Theology and Politics,” 494–95.
[19] Isaac Backus, “A Fish Caught in His Own Net. Boston, 1768,” in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789, ed. William G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1968), 190–91.
[20] Isaac Backus, “Policy as Well as Honesty. Boston, 1779,” in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789, ed. William G. McLoughlin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1968), 371.
[21] John Adams, “From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798,” Founders Online, National Archives, Adams Papers.
Sadly, I think it is fair to say that Leland won the day, insofar as the default Baptist assumptions today are in keeping with a rationalistic approach to soul freedom. I would be remiss to not mention that this also just so happens to correspond with where America has moved since the time of Leland. It is no coincidence that such downgrade has coincided with the loss of constitutional order, for secularism cannot produce a moral and religious people.[22] As such, could it be that Baptists have been steered by cultural decline—like when we allowed soul competency to subvert our church polity—more than we have been shaped by a sound theological approach to the church-state relationship? I think so.
[22] This is one reason why we have seen many attempts of America to import a democratic republic into other countries fail, because it takes ontological and metaphysical presuppositions which flow from Christianity to make this system of governance work well.
Now, one could say: Backus was just a man of his day, and we live in a different day now where a greater influence of Christianity in the political realm is unrealistic or even unworkable. But I submit we could just as easily say the ever-increasing secularism that has taken root in America—and has eroded ordered liberty and constitutional order—is in part because other leading Baptist thinkers like Leland won the day, or better yet, were won over by the cultural trends of their day. Furthermore, I contend one can be meaningfully Baptist and make prudential arguments in keeping with either Backus or Leland. This is an important point, as many wrongly presume that the Baptist ideal of a “free church in a free state” precludes advocating for positions many of our Baptist forefathers maintained. However, this form of chronological snobbery begs the question in its assumption that religious liberty demands two-sided separationism.
As the aforementioned trend of soul competency in Baptist churches throughout the twentieth century demonstrates, just because a doctrine becomes widely adopted for years, does not mean it is faithful to or in keeping with our Baptist heritage. And just as we have seen reformation in Southern Baptist churches and institutions following the conservative resurgence, may we now see a recovery of a robust Baptist approach to the public square, one that openly acknowledges Christ’s Lordship over all things and seeks maximal Christian influence in culture and public policy.
Cooperative Conditions Between the Church & State and Baptists & Other Denominations
I will close by focusing on two areas in which Leland’s (unhelpful) severe separationism undermines the conditions for religious liberty to flourish, to amplify the need of Baptists today to course correct from such errors. Leland argued that if Baptists developed higher institutions of education we would inevitably give in to the law of Christian establishment. He claimed that by seeking to formally educate themselves, Baptists were wrongly moving toward a return to the unholy wedding of the church and state (thus, for Leland, Baptists should not focus on institutions for higher education). But, as Todd rightly notes:
Leland did not necessarily speak for most Baptists when he expressed his belief that Christianity was not “essential to good government.” Indeed, most Baptists believed that Christianity was necessary to produce republican virtue and good governance. If the Christian ethic and worldview were removed from society, despotism would naturally follow and religious liberty would evaporate. This is why so many Baptists associated Christianity with patriotism and why so many were willing to view Baptist education as a means of preserving their new-found political freedoms. . . . Despite the severe separationism of Baptists like John Leland, God and government were not so easily divorced in most Baptists’ minds. Therefore, Baptist education was about training young men in the Scriptures and in virtue, and by extension, in good citizenship. . . . A self-governing nation demanded an educated Baptist denomination. In turn, that Baptists collectively decided to establish so many of their very first colleges and seminaries within the energetic and empowering conditions of the new nation is not a coincidence in history.[23]
[23] Todd, Let Men Be Free, 178–79.
Baptists (and other Protestant denominations) must recover the ambition to use education to train young men in the Scriptures, virtue, and, by extension, good citizenship. On this point, I am greatly encouraged by the increase in classical education taking place, especially within Protestant circles, as such a recovery cultivates the kind of citizens for the renewal of institutional and political order.[24]
[24] Michael Lynch offers a helpful primer on the aim of classical education, concluding, “Early modern classical education was neither simply aimed at personal virtue formation nor career training, but both. It was intended to create (at least by the university level), an elite, learned class of men who were religiously and morally pious, having what the Greeks called eusebeia. If we wish to return to classical education, we need to embrace its anti-egalitarianism, its political import, and its necessity for godly leaders who will shepherd us with an upright heart and a skillful hand (Ps. 78:72).”
David Mitzenmacher has argued that one area of needed reform in the ERLC is to “adopt a more conservative disposition.” One tangible way I envision for such an adoption to take place would be to retrain Southern Baptists to see the mobilization of missionaries and the cultivation of Christian culture, institutions, and even public policy as complementary goals. This would include encouraging Baptists to aspire to be politicians, advocate for Christian virtues to shape the public square, and even lobby for biblical standards of conduct to be codified into law so as to promote cooperative conditions between the church and state.[25] These are practical ways to reinforce the ideal of a “sweet harmony” between the two institutions. We can and should walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters. These twin pursuits are in keeping with Backus’s “one-sided separationism” mentioned above.
[25] In an interview with Christ Over All, Kevin DeYoung asks: “Baptists in particular, are all about missions. The SBC is basically: you come together to support global missions. You think you do more missions globally without a Christian culture? When you can’t have buildings, when you don’t have prosperity, when you can’t speak openly and freely, when you’re just trying to survive?”
Leland also saw ecumenical tolerance as expressed in Baptist cooperation with other denominations as necessarily leading to compromise. While it is valid and needed to maintain that Baptists ought not reduce our distinctives as we work with other denominations, Leland and those like him confuse Christian culture for nominalism and interdenominational cooperation with syncretism. So, while Leland has some legitimate concerns, the rationalistic approach to defining liberty, the false antithesis between the church/religion and state/society, and his sectarian approach to preserve Baptist distinctives are not the answer. Baptists should work with other denominations both for the spread of the gospel and to influence the political orders in which we find ourselves, and such efforts do not inherently contradict one another. Todd again offers historical insight into how early American Baptists understood this well:
In the early republic, Baptists were replacing establishment with ecumenicism. No less concerned about public morality than their Congregationalist and Episcopalian brethren, Baptists envisioned a civil religion forged by personal initiative rather than legal enforcement, by voluntary societies instead of the state. . . . In effect, by opening themselves to ecumenical activism, Baptists were demonstrating their willingness to embrace religious liberty and to take personal responsibility for the moral fabric of their communities. They were, as Henry Holcombe wrote to the Charleston Association in 1796, engaging both “private and public, civil and religious life.”[26]
[26] Todd, Let Men Be Free, 164
What I am commending Baptists to recover in this essay is captured well by Mohler: “I believe that it is my responsibility to be faithful in the nation of which I am a part—not by accident, but I believe by God’s purposes—to see maximum Christian influence, the maximum preaching of the Word of God, and, yes, maximum Christian moral influence in the society translated even into public policy.”
My prayer for the SBC is that we relent from the pragmatism and sectarianism currently steering us in the pews and the streets. May we rearticulate what was once assumed, and recover the best of our rich heritage. A good place to start would be to learn from the instincts of Backus as modeled in Mohler’s calls for maximal Christian influence in the state, and leave the individualistic and secularistic approach which has been smuggled into Baptist life behind.
Conclusion
To sum up: the Baptist fervor for disestablishment and religious liberty did not mean all Baptists in early America were in lockstep regarding the best conditions for sustaining these principles. Leading Baptist thinkers in the early American Republic understood the Christian religion to be a public good, and desired to see the state influenced by churches, even acknowledging its dependence upon Christianity to develop the kind of citizens necessary for a healthy society. Contemporary Baptists have every warrant to (re)articulate these former assumptions for the sake of present renewal. What are the most ideal Baptist conditions for the conversion of many to Christianity and the sustaining of ordered liberty in a social order? As many of our Baptist forebearers envisioned, this comes about through cooperation between the church and state, one that is characterized by a “sweet harmony” shared by these two God ordained institutions. The entity commissioned with the task of promoting ethics and religious liberty would do well to lead the way in encouraging and equipping Southern Baptists to pursue and attain such conditions as part of its mission.
