The Practice of Religious Freedom

A Sermon for Independence Day, 2008

Introduction

1. One of the key concepts on which our Nation was founded is the principle of religious freedom.

2. And that principle in turn is founded on an acknowledgement that our nation is made up of people of many religious faiths.

1. That was true in the days when our Constitution was first established.

   1. The religious plurality of our nation in those days arose largely from the diversity of religious viewpoints among those who laid the foundations for our system of government.

      1. David L. Holmes is Professor of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virgina.

      2. He is the author of a compact but very penetrating book titled The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

      3. In this book he carefully examines — and rejects — the notion that the United States was founded as an explicitly “Christian nation, and goes on to examine the specific religious beliefs of those who helped shape our form of government.

         1. ,“He [concludes], for example, that while some, like Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson’s daughters, held orthodox Christian views … many of the most influential figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, [Thomas] Jefferson [himself], James and Dolley Madison, and James Monroe were believers of a different stripe.

         2. “Respectful of Christianity, [these individuals] admired the ethics of Jesus, and believed that religion could play a beneficial role in society. But they tended to deny the divinity of Christ, and a few seemed to have been agnostic about the very existence of God.”¹

   2. In these days the religious plurality of our people extends not only to these ideas, but to many other faiths as well: Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and many people of no outward religious faith at all.

2. And so our forefathers wisely included in the Constitution a Bill of Rights, with a specific provision to protect the religious diversification of our people.

3. The first Amendment to our Constitution therefore declares

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

3. This same debate — about how rigorously Christian moral and ethical teachings are to be applied to the everyday lives of US citizens — shows up within our nation even today:

1. The basic question is, To what extent are the moral and ethical teachings of Christianity to be enshrined within the civil law?

2. It is reflected in such contemporary issues as:

   1. The legality of abortion.

   2. The use of prayer in public schools and at other public events and assemblies.

   3. The display of religious symbols and articles, such as nativity scenes at Christmas, and the Ten Commandments, on public property.

   4. The inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

   5. And most recently, the extent to which physicians and pharmacists are obligated to provide medical services to people whose moral and ethical values differ from their own.

3. These are complex and contentious issues, but each of them center on the meaning and practice of religious freedom.

4. You will of course have to make up your own mind about each of these questions.

   1. I will not tell you what to think or to do about these issues.

   2. But I will suggest to you that each of us has no more right impose our personal faith upon another person than that person has to impose his or her beliefs upon us.

   3. And I affirm again, as I am sure you do, the First Amendment to our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

4. Walter B. Shurden is Professor of Christianity and Chair of the Department at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He is the author of several books and numerous articles in Baptist studies, and he has written and spoken widely on the divisions and controversies in Baptist life over the last 30 years.

1. He is, for example, editor of a history of the divisions in Baptist life over the last 30 years, a volume titled The Struggle for the Soul of the SBC Moderate Responses to the Fundamentalist Movement (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1993).

2. But perhaps his best known book is The Baptist Identity Four Fragile Freedoms (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 1993).

3. In that book, Shurden defines religious freedom as

“the historic Baptist affirmation of freedom OF religion, freedom FOR religion, and freedom FROM religion, insisting that Caesar is not Christ, and Christ is not Caesar.”

Scripture

1. The Scriptural foundation for our study of religious freedom is Matthew 22:15-22. I am reading from the New International Version.

[Read here Matthew 22:15-22 (NRSV).]

2. In this encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus drew an important distinction between our responsibilities to God and our responsibilities toward the civil government.

3. To be fair, we must also notice that there are other voices in the Scriptures relating to the relationship between Christians and the civil government.

1. In this passage in Matthew, Jesus recognizes both the legitimacy and the limitations of civil government.

2. In Romans 13:1-7, written during a time of relative peace, Paul affirms the authority of the state, saying

“¹Everyone must submit … to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

3. However, in Revelation 12:11, written during a time of great persecution of the church, John hears a loud voice from heaven giving praise to the saints who overcame Satan “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Exposition

1. In justification for the use of coercion in enforcing religious faith, some folks cite the parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-24, in which the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.” (v. 23).

2. However, in counterpoint to that parable, one should also consider the parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, in which the farmer tells his servants to “let both [the wheat and the weeds] grow together until the harvest.” (v. 30). Only at the final harvest will God separate the wheat from the weeds.

3. So there are competing voices in this debate. But where have Baptists stood historically?

1. The answer is: squarely on the side of religious freedom for all persons.

2. As early as 1612, Thomas Helwys, whom you will remember as one of the first Baptist separatists, wrote a plea for religious freedom titled A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity.

   1. Having done that, he went on to send a copy of it to King James I (who just one year earlier had authorized a new translation of the Bible into English), and enclosed a handwritten note to the King, reminding James that “the king is a mortal man and not God,” and said, “Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertaines not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”

   2. As you might expect, King James was so offended by Helwys’ remarks that he threw Helwys into prison, where he died four years later.²

3. In the American colonies, Roger Williams, John Clarke, and Obadiah Holmes were early voices for religious liberty.

4. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in this country, Isaac Backus and John LeLand took up the struggle.

4. Baptists have anchored their passion for religious freedom in three key concepts:³

1. The first concept is the nature of God.

   1. The sovereign God who created the universe and all that is in it is a liberating God.

   2. Throughout the Old Testament, God is portrayed as and advocate for the poor and oppressed, and intolerant of empty religious ritual that is devoid of social justice and compassion for the poor.

   3. And the whole point of Jesus’ ministry on earth was to free people from sickness and disease, and from religious practice that had become hollow and meaningless.

2. The second concept is the nature of humanity.

   1. Human beings are created in the image of God.

   2. Human personality is sacred, and life’s highest value.

   3. Therefore, to deny freedom of conscience to any person is to debase the value of God’s creation.

3. The third concept is the nature of faith.

   1. To be authentic, faith must always be free.

   2. Genuine faith cannot be denied, or be forced, by the civil government.

5. What then does it mean to say that religious freedom is the freedom of religion, the freedom for religion, and the freedom from religion?⁴

1. First, freedom of religion represents a commitment to complete religious freedom and not simply religious toleration.

• Religious toleration is passive permission for another person to practice his or her faith without undue interference, but also implies an unwillingness to acknowledge the other person’s inherent rights to religious beliefs that are different from one’s own.

1. Second, freedom for religion means that liberty is for all people, not just for a select few, or even for the religious majority.

• Freedom for religion is the recognition that every person has a God-given right and responsibility for his or her own relationship with God.

3. Third, religious freedom also means freedom from religion. One’s right not to believe is therefore as sacred as one’s right to believe.

Reflections and Conclusions

1. Freedom is never without corresponding responsibility⁵.

1. Shurden has defined religious freedom as freedom of religion, freedom for religion, and freedom from religion, insisting that Caesar is not Christ, and Christ is not Caesar.

   1. With that freedom comes the responsibility to provide to the civil authority a clear proclamation of its ideals and those truths that under gird justice and peace.

   2. With that freedom also comes the responsibility to refrain from invoking the civil authority to secure its own welfare or unfairly promote its own theology.

2. And above all these freedoms comes the responsibility to love God with one’s whole being, and to love one’s neighbor, be he “heretic, Turk, Jew, or whatsoever,” (to use Thomas Helwys’ terms) as one’s self.

2. Today we honor the memory of those who have given for us the ultimate sacrifice in the preservation of our freedoms.

1. We cannot repay these individuals for what they have done for us.

2. But we can, and should, work for the preservation of those ideals for which they have paid the final sacrifice.

3. And among those liberties and freedoms for which they have died is the freedom to worship when and where and how we feel led by God to do.

3. But even as we choose our own time and place and manner of worship, we must be respectful of the freedom of others to worship in different ways and different places, and even of their freedom not to worship at all.

4. For truly, it is in the preservation of their freedom to worship, or not to worship, as they choose, that we preserve our own freedom.