SIDEBAR: Rhode Island was also founded by a woman, who was the unauthorized Puritan minister of a dissenting church. Anne Hutchinson held Bible studies for women that eventually attracted men as well. She played a key role in the development of religious freedom in America.Roger Williams was banished in 1636 from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views (which were Baptist). He did not think it right for the government to punish people for religious infractions. He believed every individual should be free to follow his or her own convictions according to the Bible.
The first idea is that civil magistrates should not act as ecclesiastical authorities—separation of church and state. The second idea is that people must be allowed freedom of opinion on religious matters—soul liberty. These ideas eventually became the foundations of our constitutional guarantees.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I saw so many evangelicals criticizing Dr. Jeremiah Wright. Because the same baptistic concepts that protect Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, and yes, Dr. Bob Jones and Ian Paisley, also protect him. (Oh, here he goes again, shooting our sacred cows.)
• Dr. Falwell was fined $6,000 in 1987 for using religious funds for political purposes.
• He sold videos that promoted various conspiracy theories related to the President (drug-running, orchestrating murder, etc.).
• He made a big deal about Tinky Winky Teletubby modeling a gay lifestyle because he had a triangle antenna and carried a purse.
• Pat Robertson concurred when Falwell publicly blamed 9-11 on "pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the ACLU, and all those who are trying to secularize America." Asinine rhetoric is not indigenous to Chicago, apparently. (I ain't hating, I'm just stating.)
• Robertson also predicted doomsday by the end of 1982.
• He prophesied a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest for 2006.
• He predicted another terror attack in 2007.
• He prayed publicly asking for "more vacancies on the Supreme Court" (which generally only occur at the death of a judge).
• What America is doing to evangelical Christians he compared to what NAZI Germany did to the Jews (citing the Democratic congress, liberal media, and "homosexuals who want to destroy Christians"). No mention was made of Baptist Fred Phelps, who wants to destroy homosexuals.
• He suggested that, "Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom [the State Department] to shake things up."
• And of course, more recently he suggested assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
• The racism of Bob Jones is well known.
And the really asinine thing (from the evangelical perspective) is that when the above men espouse this philosophy it flies fully in the face of the doctrine of grace they claim to believe. (In 1982 I heard Dr. Ian Paisley pray that God would smite the Reagan government "hip and thigh" for denying him a visa to preach at Bob Jones University—Dr. Bob Jones had already enjoined all the student body to pray that God would smite Secretary of State Alexander Haig "hip and thigh, bone and marrow, heart and lungs and all there is to him, that he shall destroy him quickly and utterly." Last I looked, Haig was still kicking it.)
We live in the day of God's grace. God does not, therefore, send Katrinas to New Orleanians because of their wickedness (nor AIDS to gays because of their immorality). When persons insinuate that he does, they make God a liar (and become a proponent of an Old Testament-Reformed-Calvinistic-Anti-dispensational theology they claim to eschew). We should be very careful what we blame God for.
In contrast to systems of government that prevailed during Bible times, America was founded on different principles. Two of them are central to the notion of the "Christian nation" we find ourselves in: separation of church and state and freedom of conscience. Both were concepts particularly championed by Baptists.
The great "American experiment" of democracy gave Baptists the freedom and opportunity to shape the type of government we would have according to the ideals of a Radical Reformation. Since Baptists were persecuted throughout history (as anabaptists, dissenters, and other proto-Protestants like Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, Albigenses, Paulicians, Bogomils, Petrobrusians, Waldensian churches, etc.), they were insistent on being able to speak and act in "soul liberty." Historical information on Baptistic groups can be found here.
Did they all dip? Mostly. Since they were persecuted they were pacifist. Since they were persecuted by the governments of the lands they lived in they believed in separation of church and state. Since they were always opposed by state-sponsored religious authority, they believed in absolute freedom of conscience under God. That is why Baptist churches are historically independent and autonomous, and subject to congregational rule.
This is why "Gothardism" gives me such a fit. It's the medieval idea of an unbroken "chain of command." And while, in balance, it is biblical, it only works with the assistance of an ungrieved Holy Ghost. Think about that a minute and you will get it. Most Gothardites forget that all human authority is relative authority. Only God's authority is absolute. A husband's authority over his wife is not absolute. A pastor's authority over his parishioners is not absolute. Why? Because Peter insisted on the priority of soul liberty in Acts 4:18-20, and that no authority has the right to tell you to do wrong. There is a higher authority than any earthly authority (whether it be parent, spouse, religious leader or government). That higher authority is God as he speaks to your conscience by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures. How did you miss that, all these years?
So it is that Baptists have always been at the prophetic forefront steering the public conscience. Since many Baptistic groups are pacifist, then this involved criticizing government policy relating to how wars are started and prosecuted.
That is why it was (black) Baptist preachers who were at the forefront of burying Jim Crow. And it was the success of their movement that prevented America from degenerating into a second civil war (sometimes we forget how close we really were, during those months of social insurrection, to what Barry McGuire called the "eve of destruction"). In a participatory democracy, it is the job of good citizens to vote, and it is the job of good preachers to be the conscience of the nation and remind us and our government of where we have fallen short of justice, and what yet needs to be perfected in our union.
The freedom to do so has to be defended as a matter of principle. The very idea of separation of church and state places the church in the position of "loyal opposition" to the state. And as to any given church or pastor, they must be free to speak publicly about public issues according to their conscience.
This is the only thing I ever say of a political nature. This makes us uncomfortable today. Especially when some of those leaders (evangelical and Baptist) make statements that others in the public arena consider asinine (a word the King James crowd borrowed from the Latin and used in common conversation to describe someone who was obstinate like an ass in maintaining a foolish opinion). That being granted, it still contributes positively to the public debate.
So what about the flap over Dr. Wright? When you side with Farakkhan on the origin of the AIDS virus, that is asinine. But no more asinine than other evangelical (and even fundamental and Baptist) church leaders over the years. No more asinine, shall we say, than believing a Catholic conspiracy killed President Kennedy. (Oh, I'm sorry. You missed the History Channel episode that proved Stone was stoned, because it was a lone gunman, and the "magic bullet" fit all the physics after all.)
I have studied "Daddy J's" sermons for several years, even before I knew who Barak Obama was. His remarks have recently been conveyed with absolutely no context. If you were to have asked the late Jerry Falwell, with his strong pro-choice stance, whether, after 1.2 million abortions a year, God looked at America and said "God bless America" or "God damn America," I believe he would have said the latter even before he blinked. Dr. Wright was not making an absolute statement. It had a context, not of abortion, but akin to my example.
Pundits have extrapolated from Dr. Wright's remarks things that were not there. Dr. Wright is no more pro-Palestinian than (for example) prominent evangelical and "Bible Answer Man," Hank Hanegraaff. I did not hear Wright speak negatively of Israel, yet he is being labeled anti-semitic.
One thing the pulpit in America must be absolutely free to do is criticize public policy, otherwise there is no separation of church and state. Separation of church and state is dependent upon pastors and religious leaders being able to speak freely according to their conscience, and even, as a "prophet," to speak truth to power.
Dr. Wright's father was an eminent Baptist pastor. As a shepherd, he took up his congregation's viewpoint in evaluating public policy. Baptist preachers have historically sensitized the moral conscience of the nation and (with St. Peter) maintained the independence of the church over against the institutions of the state.
There is a difference between endorsing a particular candidate from the pulpit and criticizing government policy from the pulpit. The former can endanger a church's tax-exempt status, but the latter must be defended both tooth and nail, especially by Baptists with any self-awareness of their history.
If anything can be said about "Daddy J." it is that he criticizes the Democrats as well as the Republicans, and Clinton as well as Bush (but then, that part of his message was not YouTubed). The really asinine thing is those in the media who benefit from the freedom to air their opinions, yet hypocritically condemn a preacher for airing his. But if you see them limping, it wasn't because God smote them "hip and thigh."
