Limitless liberty

The news has been dispiriting lately. A gunman wreaks havoc in  a Wisconsin Sikh temple, killing six worshippers and injuring three others.  Hours later, an Islamic mosque, an apparent target of arsonists, burns to the ground in Missouri.

Victims of these violent acts expanded far beyond two congregations. They range far beyond Sikhs and Muslims, too. All people of all faiths suffer when intolerance and hatred take root in society.

Ascendancy of incivility

Unfortunately, our society is rife with intolerance and hatred. Incivility often dominates public discourse.  Conventional wisdom—depressingly often espoused by self-proclaimed Christians—sees people as "other" rather than fellow human beings created by God in God's own image. 

Sometimes, the approach is strange, and the source is embarrassingly close. A commenter on this website suggested the United States suspend the free exercise of religion in order to eliminate terrorism. He advocated (a) state sactionining of ministers "to ensure they have a rightful understanding of their religion," (b) requiring all sermons be screened "by authorities for improper topics" and (c) forbidding religious training of all children until age 18. 

I hope this commenter came across my editorial on the Second Amdendment through a search engine and is not a Baptist, much less a regular Baptist Standard reader, who should know better.

Champion of liberty

Baptists were born on the other side of the religious-liberty tracks. Both in England and in the colonies, early Baptists were outsiders and well-acquainted with oppression and persecution. Small wonder, then, the first—and possibly  greatest—American champion of religious liberty was a Baptist, Roger Williams. He founded Rhode Island Colony expressly as a haven for people of all faiths and no faith. And he also founded the first Baptist church in America there, in Providence.

Here are some quotes from The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, which Williams wrote in 1644:

• "Men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained. And whenever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue has been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries."

• "It is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries … ."

 • "God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls."

Williams built his political principles upon sound Baptist doctrine, most notably the notion of the priesthood of all believers. 

Now is our time

If Baptists stand true to our heritage and, more vitally, to the biblical principles that undergird our heritage, we will defend religious liberty for all people and exert our effort and influence to secure their safety.