Commentary: Religious liberty champions: John Weatherford

Baptists have always been committed to religious liberty for all believers of any stripe and unbelievers as well. Our commitment to religious liberty is grounded in our theological and biblical view that the only authentic faith is one freely and voluntarily chosen. This doctrine is inextricably linked to our commitment to believer’s baptism.

Committed by experience

For Virginia Baptists, our commitment to religious liberty was affirmed by our experiences under the established Church of England.

During that time, Baptists were not allowed to preach without a license from the government. Baptist clergy were not allowed to officiate weddings, and Baptist churches were restricted and required to have a license from the state to organize, operate, and hold property.

Everyone in Virginia, regardless of religious belief, was required to attend the established church, and everyone was taxed to support that church. Infants born to Baptist parents were required to be baptized in the Church of England.

Upwards of 40 Virginia Baptist ministers and lay people were jailed, whipped, beaten, or dunked for preaching or openly bearing witness to their faith. Among those who were persecuted was the Elder John Weatherford, who in 1773 was jailed in Chesterfield County for five months for the crime of unlicensed preaching.

Weatherford’s commitment

Weatherford, undeterred by his imprisonment, used his jail cell as a pulpit, preaching to crowds with hands outstretched through the barred windows to implore people who gathered outside. Local ruffians would sneak along the wall, crouching low, and use knives and razors to slash the preacher’s hands when he stretched them forth.

Weatherford is buried in Pennsylvania County, close by the Shockoe Church. Those who viewed his body at death, 60 years after his imprisonment, reported they could still see the scars upon the back of his hands.

Religious freedom for all

The long battle for religious freedom for all was finally won with the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom on Jan. 16, 1786.

Baptists provided much of the political muscle for the passage of that bill, which made the Commonwealth of Virginia the first government on the face of the Earth to recognize and protect full religious liberty for every individual.

This is a grand legacy. Own it, celebrate it, pass it on, and defend it against those who create new establishments of religion or proscribe the free exercise of religion.

Shelton Miles—bivocational pastor of Union Hill Baptist Church in Brookneal, Va.; 2025 president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia; and former chair of BGAV’s Religious Liberty Committee—narrated the video that accompanies this transcript, which is published by permission of the BGAV.

The video is part of a series produced by BGAV’s Religious Liberty Committee. Other videos in the series feature John Leland and James Madison, and Rev. Thomas Woolsey.