Since 1609, Baptists have been vocal and persistent advocates for religious liberty. In 17th century England, it was not legal for any religious group to express their faith without permission from the official church.
Baptists could not worship freely, attend a university, hold public office, officiate weddings or observe the Lord’s Supper as they chose. Baptists could not refuse to have their infants baptized. Those who resisted the government found themselves beaten, harassed and jailed.
Religious persecution of Baptists
Thomas Helwys, the founder of the first Baptist church on English soil, wrote a treatise demanding religious liberty in 1612, the first pamphlet devoted to the topic of religious freedom written in English.
Helwys sent his views to King James I with a personal letter attached. He insisted it should not matter to the government if a person was Jewish, Muslim or a heretic. No earthly power should punish people for their religious beliefs. He also added the king was a man and not God.
It did not end well for Helwys. He was tossed into Newgate Prison in London, where he languished until his death.
Baptists in Colonial America found no more freedom in the New World than in the Old. Once again, Baptists were beaten, harassed, fined and jailed.
Their marriages were not valid unless performed by a minister of the government-supported church. Invalid marriages meant children were illegitimate. Illegitimate children could not inherit property and were left impoverished when parents died.
Baptists could not attend college at Harvard or Yale, leaving young Baptists with no educational opportunities and Baptist congregations without trained leaders.
Government officials in Boston tossed a prominent citizen named Thomas Goold into jail over and over again for refusing to have his infant daughter baptized. He stubbornly refused to conform.
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Baptist minister John Clarke wrote to an audience in England in 1652 explaining the news was very bad in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Clarke and his friend Obadiah Holmes had been arrested for visiting a church member on Sunday. The men were found guilty of “holding a private meeting on the Lord’s Day.”
Holmes refused to pay the fine imposed by the court. As a result, he was tied to a post and given 30 lashes with a three-corded whip (Clarke, Ill Newes from New England).
For these and other acts of resistance, Baptists earned a reputation for causing trouble.
Baptists defend religious liberty
Roger Williams
A Baptist missionary named Roger Williams railed against the “Bloody” practice of religious persecution in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Williams insisted the colonial government could not force people into religious belief.
He said religious laws could only create hypocrites, not disciples. He pointed to the religious wars that had ravaged Europe as evidence of the brutal policy of persecution. With the conviction of an Old Testament prophet, Williams claimed God would avenge the blood of those persecuted for the “cause of conscience.”
Williams believed every human being is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27) and therefore deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Christ himself did not force his followers into the faith, although Jesus could have called 10,000 angels. Instead, Jesus respected the individual conscience.
An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (Emphasis added; Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience).
Christ came to proclaim freedom to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind and to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18). Christ did not come to impose a heavy burden of religious legalism, but to free people to receive the New Covenant written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31-33).
The only sword that should be wielded in soul matters, wrote Williams, is the sword of God’s spirit, the word of God. When Williams established Rhode Island, he enshrined the principle of separation of church and state into the colony’s charter and welcomed all religious traditions to settle in his free territory.
John Leland
In the next generation, Baptists followed the trail of religious liberty blazed by Roger Williams. In an act of civil disobedience, Isaac Backus led Baptists to ignore the religious taxes imposed by New England authorities. John Leland, a revival preacher in Virginia, insisted:
“Is conformity of sentiments in matters of religion essential to the happiness of civil government? Not at all. Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics.
“Let every man speak freely without fear—maintain the principles that he believes—worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse or loss of property for his religious opinions.
“Instead of discouraging him with proscriptions, fines, confiscation or death, let him be encouraged, as a free man, to bring forth his arguments and maintain his points with all boldness; then if his doctrine is false it will be confuted, and if it is true (though ever so novel) let others credit it.
“When every man has this liberty what can he wish for more? A liberal man asks for nothing more of government” (Emphasis added; John Leland, Right of Conscience Inalienable).
Leland, like Williams and Helwys before him, understood a threat to anyone’s religious freedom is a threat to everyone’s religious freedom.
Establishing religious liberty
By the time of the American Revolution, nine of the 13 colonies had government supported churches that routinely persecuted dissenters like the Baptists. In Virginia, 50 percent of Baptist pastors had been imprisoned for the crime of preaching the gospel without a government license.
Baptists protested loudly and worked with other minority groups to demand religious liberty. Their petitions and pleas fell on deaf ears until they gained the support of a powerful ally named Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson worked with the Baptists to make religious liberty the rule of law in Virginia. Although Jefferson disagreed with the Baptists on nearly every point of faith, he fought for their right to practice their faith freely—demonstrating a democratic principle that people of opposing opinion can work together for common purpose.
Baptists also negotiated with James Madison, promising him political support in exchange for a Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution that would guarantee religious liberty.
Jefferson and Madison kept their promises to the Baptists. The result was the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
After he was elected president, leaders of the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter congratulating Jefferson and thanking him for his work on behalf of religious freedom. Jefferson wrote the Baptists a letter in response:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State” (Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to the Danbury Baptists”).
Religious and secular historians alike have given Baptists the credit for being the loudest and most persistent advocates for religious liberty—not just for themselves, but for all people.
Ongoing Baptist advocacy
Baptist advocacy for religious liberty continues today with organizations like the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C., and the Baptist World Alliance.
The Baptist Joint Committee traces its history to 1936, when it was founded by Southern Baptists as a watchdog for religious liberty. While predominantly Baptist, the BJC now welcomes others who share the historic Baptist commitment to religious liberty.
As the BJC website notes: “We are attorneys, Capitol Hill insiders, ministers and scholars who work in the courts, with Congress and in the community to defend the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for every person, including those who don’t claim a faith tradition.”
Established in 1905, the Baptist World Alliance’s devotion to religious liberty has not wavered. “Defending Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Justice” remains one of the five key areas of ministry to this day.
In 2018, Elijah Brown—a 2002 graduate of University of Mary Hardin-Baylor—was elected general secretary of the BWA. The BWA represents an estimated 51 million people—about twice the population of Texas—with 246 member bodies in 128 countries and territories.
Under the auspices of the BWA, Brown and other global Baptist leaders continue the fight for religious liberty so the gospel may be proclaimed and received freely.
New challenges to religious liberty
Baptists have celebrated this devotion to religious liberty for more than 400 years. Today, some have forgotten or abandoned this story. The suffering of Baptists and other religious minorities at the hands of Christian governments in England and Colonial America has faded from memory.
Some Christians have been seduced by an idea the church needs the power of the state to carry out its work, as if the kingdom of God cannot stand without the support of the government. Nothing good comes from a wedding of church and state.
It is dangerous to ignore our “Bloody” legacy of persecution. We all should heed the words I once heard James Dunn, a colorful Texas Baptist, say when he warned that when the church gets tangled up with the state, it is like being hugged by a bear: “At first it is warm and fuzzy. Then it kills you.”
Carol Crawford Holcomb is a professor of church history and Baptist studies in University of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s College of Christian Studies. The views expressed are those of the author.
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