{"id":1111,"date":"2010-11-11T02:23:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T09:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2010-11-11T02:23:02","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T09:23:02","slug":"virginia-baptists-religious-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1111","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Baptists & Religious Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”\u00a0 First Amendment to the United States Constitution<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of America’s greatest freedoms perhaps has spawned more controversy\u00a0than all of our country’s other freedoms combined.\u00a0 What makes the First Amendment ripe for disagreement and debate has more to do with what it does not say than for what it does.\u00a0 Let me demonstrate.<\/p>\n

After thousands of readings — from middle school social studies classes to law school to writing this post — I have looked in vain for the words “separation of church and state” in the body of the First Amendment.\u00a0 Funny thing is, I have never been able to find those words in the text.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, famously written by Thomas Jefferson\u00a0in a letter to the\u00a0Danbury Baptist Association, have never been a part of the Bill of Rights.\u00a0 But, to hear Virginia Baptists tell it, you would think that Jefferson and Madison included this controversial language as part of our nation’s most well-known amendment.<\/p>\n

At this year’ annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the Religious Liberty Committee of the BGAV introduced a resolution entitled, “Inaccurate history threatens religious liberty.”<\/a>\u00a0 The impetus driving the Committee was articulated by Chairman Rob James:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that frightened us [the committee] was that the next 10 years of social-studies textbooks would raise questions about the founding of this country and to what extent, if at all, the idea of separation of church and state is part of our national commitment\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You see, the recent revisions of history textbooks by conservative Christians on the\u00a0Texas State Board of Education caused the consternation among members of the Religious Liberty Committee which led to the writing and introduction of the resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The resolution itself, which\u00a0originally\u00a0singled out\u00a0 “David Barton, W. Cleon Skousen and ‘some Reconstructionist authors’ who the committee said had engaged in \u201csystematic efforts\u201d to revise American history” was subsequently revised by the committee to remove any reference to the aforementioned individuals.<\/p>\n

However, front and center in this resolution\u00a0was the oft-repeated notion of the “separation of church and state.”\u00a0 In fact, the committee’s language almost seems to indicate that they believe that this\u00a0phrase was actually\u00a0included in the First Amendment:<\/p>\n

“Whereas, the Baptist principles of religious liberty and its safeguard, separation of church and state <\/strong>(or government neutrality toward all religions and nonreligion), are well grounded in this nation\u2019s history, and<\/p>\n

Whereas, the labors of Virginians, notably Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, and the Baptist minister John Leland, were crucial in the historic events that made these two principles part of our nation\u2019s Bill of Rights<\/strong>, and . . .”\u00a0 (emphasis added)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even in the BGAV, this resolution, trumpeting the “separation of church and state,” was not without controversy itself.\u00a0 Just the very mention of those words cause some conservatives pastors (yes, there still are conservative pastors in the\u00a0BGAV) to react negatively and with an understandable dose of suspicion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I should\u00a0know.\u00a0 For 5 1\/2 years, I was one of those conservative pastors in the BGAV.\u00a0 And, for full disclosure, I also had the privilege of serving on the Religious Liberty Committee before I moved to\u00a0New Mexico.<\/p>\n

As a member of the committee, I brought a conservative voice and perspective\u00a0to\u00a0religious liberty issues that affected Virginia Baptists.\u00a0 While I did not necessarily agree with the other members on every issue that we tackled,\u00a0there was a mutual respect and gracious attitude that prevailed.\u00a0 Maybe it was the\u00a0genteel spirit which characterizes\u00a0Virginia Baptists, but there was never any contention or rancor between myself and the more “moderate” members of the\u00a0Religious Liberty Committee, even when we did not see eye-to-eye.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0thoroughly enjoyed serving with my fellow Virginia Baptists\u00a0on this important committee.\u00a0 I do not\u00a0know if there\u00a0are currently\u00a0more “conservative” members of the committee\u00a0nor do I\u00a0presume to know why the committee\u00a0chose the\u00a0particular language that they did, but I would have avoided loaded language like “separation of church and state.”<\/p>\n

No matter what that phrase may have originally meant and no matter what some Virginia Baptists think that it means, that language has come to mean different things to different people. \u00a0Joseph Giles, pastor of James Square Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Va., no doubt spoke for many conservatives when he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe definition of separation of church and state today is not what the man who coined the phrase meant by it.\u00a0 Whereas Jefferson understood the concept to mean that government could not coerce belief, many today take it to mean that religious faith should be excluded from public life.\u00a0 The notion [of separation of church and state] held by people today is the real revisionism.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even though the resolution passed overwhelmingly, I would have advocated\u00a0that the “separation of church and state” language not be included.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because even though it might feel good for some to use this phrase,\u00a0it is unnecessary.\u00a0 One could simply\u00a0use the language of the First Amendment itself to craft a resolution expressing Virginia Baptists’ strong support\u00a0for\u00a0the principles of\u00a0religious liberty.<\/p>\n

Agree or disagree, Virginia Baptists always give their fellow Baptists something to think about.\u00a0 Their strong championing of the First Amendment will not always be appreciated nor understood\u00a0by some within the Baptist family.\u00a0 We may not always see things the same way\u00a0that our brothers and sisters do in the Commonwealth of Virginia.\u00a0 When that happens, might we remember to thank God for the\u00a0wonderful religious liberty that we enjoy in America!\u00a0 And,\u00a0please remember to\u00a0thank\u00a0our veterans for their sacrifice so that we might be\u00a0continue to be a\u00a0free people in a free land!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”\u00a0 First Amendment to the United States Constitution One of America’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,32],"tags":[117,142,383,3379,826,827,890],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-religion","category-miscellaneous","tag-baptist-general-association-of-virginia","tag-bgav","tag-first-amendment","tag-freedom-of-religion","tag-religious-liberty","tag-religious-liberty-committee","tag-separation-of-church-and-state"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-hV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}