Baptist Theology and Distinctive Doctrines — Unit 6: Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State

Key Verse

"And He said to them, 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.'" (Matthew 22:21, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why Baptists teach that faith must be free and cannot be forced by any government.

2. Give the main biblical passages Baptists use for religious liberty and for the believer's duty to the state.

3. Name the early Baptist witnesses to religious liberty and say what each one stood for.

4. Distinguish the separation of church and state from the removal of faith from public life.

5. State four objections to the Baptist position and give the Baptist answer to each.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist students. It is conservative. It holds that the Bible is the inspired and sufficient Word of God, and it reads the question of church and state from the Bible first. When it says "we," it means Baptist Christians. Other Christians have worked with the state in ways Baptists have not. We state their reasons fairly and then give our answer. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

The history of how Baptists came to this conviction is told in Course 1, especially Units 3 and 5. Here we do not repeat that story. We ask what the Bible teaches and what a pastor should do with it today.

Why Baptists Care About Liberty

Almost every Baptist doctrine rests on one conviction: a person comes to God by his own repentance and faith, and nobody can believe for another person. If that is true, no ruler, church council or parent can make a person a true Christian by force. A forced confession is only words. For this reason, the doctrines of regenerate church membership and believer's baptism, which you studied in Units 2 and 3, lead directly to the doctrine in this unit. A church made only of believers cannot be built by law. It can only be built by preaching, prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Baptists learned this in suffering. From the 1600s onward, our spiritual fathers were fined, jailed or driven out because they would not baptize infants or attend the state church. They did not demand liberty only for themselves. They argued that the principle was right for everyone.

What the Bible Teaches

God alone is Lord of the conscience

Paul writes that "each of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). The final judge of a person's faith is God, not the state. Jesus did not use force to gain followers. When many disciples turned away from Him, He let them go and asked the Twelve whether they also wished to go (John 6:66-67). When James and John wanted to call fire on a Samaritan village that refused Jesus, He rebuked them (Luke 9:51-56). Paul says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God (2 Corinthians 10:4). The church's weapons are the Word, prayer and love, not the sword of the magistrate.

The kingdom of Christ is not a political kingdom

Before Pilate, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). The church is not a nation with borders and an army. It is a people called out by the gospel from every nation (Revelation 5:9). In the parable of the wheat and the tares, the Lord tells His servants not to pull up the tares now, but to let both grow together until the harvest (Matthew 13:24-30). Baptists have long read this as a warning against using force to purify the world of unbelief. Judgment belongs to Christ at the end of the age.

Two spheres, each with its own duty

When Jesus was asked about paying tax to Caesar, He did not say the state is evil, and He did not say the state owns everything. He said, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." There are two spheres. Caesar has a real but limited claim. God has the whole person.

Paul teaches that government is appointed by God to punish evil and to praise good, and that believers should be subject to it and pay what is due (Romans 13:1-7). Peter also tells us to honor the king (1 Peter 2:13-17). Paul tells Timothy to pray "for kings and all who are in authority" so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Baptists are therefore not rebels. We pray for rulers, pay taxes, obey just laws and work for the good of our towns.

Where the state's claim ends

When the authorities commanded the apostles to stop preaching Christ, Peter and the apostles answered, "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). The same Paul who wrote Romans 13 was often arrested for preaching. In Revelation 13 the state that demands worship becomes a beast. Scripture therefore gives the state real authority over civil order, and it denies the state any authority over worship, preaching, baptism or the conscience. Where a ruler commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, the believer obeys God, accepts the penalty with a good spirit, and does not take up the sword.

Early Baptist Witnesses

Course 1 gives the full story. Here are the names a pastor should know, with one line on each.

Thomas Helwys wrote A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity in 1612 and sent it to King James I. He argued that the king is a mortal man with no power over the souls of his subjects, and he was imprisoned for it.

Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded Providence, in what became Rhode Island, in 1636. In The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) he argued against forcing conscience, and he extended liberty even to people of non-Christian religions. Here historians disagree about one point, and we state it fairly. Williams was baptized and helped form a Baptist church in Providence in 1639, but he left it within months and never again joined a church. Some historians therefore hesitate to call him a Baptist in the full sense. Baptists answer that the church he helped found is counted among the earliest Baptist churches in America, and that his teaching on liberty has been carried on mainly by Baptists.

Isaac Backus (1724-1806) was a New England Baptist pastor who spoke and wrote against laws that taxed Baptists for the support of the established churches.

John Leland (1754-1841) was a Virginia Baptist preacher who pressed for religious freedom in that state and afterward. Baptists have long told how Leland and the Virginia Baptists influenced James Madison and the protection of religious freedom in the First Amendment (1791). Historians debate how large that influence was, because many people worked for the amendment. We can say with confidence that Baptists were among those who asked for it and that the amendment matched what they had long taught.

In 1920 George W. Truett, a Southern Baptist pastor, gave a well-known address on religious liberty in Washington. The Baptist World Alliance, founded in 1905, has also defended religious liberty.

What We Mean, and What We Do Not Mean

The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article XVII, speaks of religious liberty. In summary, it says that God alone is Lord of the conscience; that the church and the state should be separate; that the state is ordained by God and owed loyalty in things not contrary to the will of Christ; that the church should not turn to civil power to do its work; and that the state owes every person protection and full freedom to pursue spiritual ends.

This gives us two rules, one for each side.

The state must not control the church. It must not set up a state church, choose a church's pastors, dictate its teaching, tax citizens to support one religion, or force anyone to worship, pay for worship, or take part in a religious festival.

The church must not use the state to control others. It must not ask the magistrate to punish unbelief or to make people join. Our task is to persuade.

It is important to say what separation of church and state does not mean. It does not mean that Christians should be silent in public life. Believers may vote, serve in government, speak on public questions and bring their moral convictions to the public square, as any citizen may. It does not mean hatred of religion. The Baptist argument is, in fact, for religion: when faith is free, it is honest. It does not mean that Christians believe all religions are equally true. We hold that Jesus Christ is the only Savior (Acts 4:12). Religious liberty is a statement about how truth should be spread, not about what is true. Truth should win by testimony, not by pressure.

Objections and Baptist Answers

Objection 1: Israel was a nation under God's law, so a Christian nation may enforce true religion.

In the Old Testament, God set apart Israel as a nation with His law, and kings were judged by their faithfulness. Some Christians reason that a "Christian country" should do the same.

Our answer. Israel was a unique people, chosen for a unique purpose, in a covenant that God did not make with any other nation. The New Testament does not describe the church as a nation. Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world, and the apostles never asked Rome to enforce the faith. The new covenant is written on the heart by the Spirit (Hebrews 8:10), and force cannot reach the heart.

Objection 2: A strong state church protects the people from false teaching, and history shows it keeps order.

After the emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians in the early 300s, the church and the empire grew close, and later rulers used the law to enforce one faith. Augustine, a great teacher, used the words "compel them to come in" in Luke 14:23 to defend using the state against the Donatists, a divided church group in North Africa.

Our answer. We honor these men for much that they taught, but we think they erred here. The words in Luke 14:23 are about the urgent invitation to the feast in the master's parable. They are not an order to use soldiers. Where the state church has been strong, it has also persecuted true believers, including the early Baptists. Early Anabaptists such as Balthasar Hubmaier argued against killing heretics in the 1520s, and the Baptists carried on that witness.

Objection 3: "Separation of church and state" is not in the Bible or the Constitution and is used today to push faith out of public life.

Some Christians say the phrase is misused by people hostile to religion. Other Baptists worry that mixing religion and government will harm the church.

Our answer. The words are not in Scripture, just as the word "Trinity" is not, yet the idea is. We seek freedom for the church, not removal of the church's voice from the public square. Baptists today do not all agree on how to apply the principle to hard cases such as prayer in public schools, government money for church-run schools or charities, and religious displays on public property. These are questions of application on which faithful Baptists differ. The principle itself is the same: no state church, no coercion of conscience, and freedom for all to worship or not to worship.

Objection 4: Liberty means that error has the same rights as truth, and this will let false teaching spread.

Our answer. Liberty is a right of persons, not of ideas. We do not say that every teaching is true. We say that a person's relation to God cannot be settled by law. Truth needs no police. Paul told Timothy that the Lord's servant must correct opponents with gentleness, in the hope that God may grant them repentance (2 Timothy 2:24-26). If the state may punish a false belief, then a hostile state may punish the true one, and we have seen it do so.

Living This Doctrine Today

Baptists live under many kinds of government. In Mexico, the 1917 constitution placed severe limits on churches, and reforms in 1992 gave religious associations legal recognition. In some towns, evangelical believers have been pressured to pay for local religious festivals. A faithful pastor must know what the law of his country allows, must be a good citizen, and must be ready to suffer for conscience where necessary.

Four rules follow. Pray for rulers by name. Obey every law that does not require disobedience to God. Stand for the freedom of others, including people whose beliefs we think are wrong. Do not seek special favors from political power.

Pastoral Application

A pastor serves a small Baptist church in a town in southern Mexico. Each year the local committee asks every household for a contribution for the festival of the town's patron saint. This year some of the church members were told that if they do not pay, the water service to their street may be delayed. The members come to the pastor, frightened. They ask whether they should pay to keep the peace.

First, he listens and learns the facts. Is the demand made by law, or by custom and pressure?

Second, he teaches from Scripture. Paul told believers to honor those in authority, but he also said we must obey God rather than men. A required payment for worship we cannot share is a matter of conscience.

Third, he guides them to answer with respect. They can say that they are good neighbors, they will gladly help with public works like roads and water, and they cannot give to a religious ceremony.

Fourth, he seeks lawful help: a conversation with the municipal authorities, advice from the denomination's legal contact, and, if needed, a complaint through the courts. The church does not retaliate. It prays for the committee.

Fifth, he keeps his own conduct clean and does not trade pulpit support for protection.

Summary

Baptists teach that faith must be free because salvation comes by personal repentance and faith, which no government can create. The Bible shows that God alone is Lord of the conscience (Romans 14:12), that Christ's kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), that the state has a real but limited authority (Matthew 22:21; Romans 13:1-7), and that when it commands what God forbids, we obey God (Acts 5:29). Helwys, Williams, Backus and Leland are important witnesses, though historians debate Williams's Baptist standing and Leland's influence. Separation of church and state means that the state must not control the church and the church must not use the state to control others. It does not mean silence in public life. We answer objections drawn from Israel, from Constantine and Augustine, from the misuse of the phrase, and from the fear that liberty protects error. In every case we ask for liberty for all, because truth is spread by persuasion.

Further Reading

• Thomas Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (1612), a primary source.

• Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644), a primary source.

• Isaac Backus and John Leland, primary writings on religious liberty (18th century).

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article XVII.

• E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion (1908).

• McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (1987), and Chute, Finn and Haykin, The Baptist Story (2015), for the history of liberty.

• Hobbs, The Baptist Faith and Message (1971).

• Garrett, Baptist Theology (2009).

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