Baptists, Christian nationalism, and freedom of belief or religion 

In the present climate of a growing Christian nationalism, especially in the United States but also here in the UK, what should be our Baptist response? A reflection by Tony Peck

Christian nationalism seeks a fusion between religion and politics in order to promote a conservative ‘Christian’ agenda. It seeks to enshrine its own version of ‘Christian values’ in law and government policy. It tends to be exclusive, intolerant of other religions and opposed to open borders to immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

By contrast, from their beginnings in the early 17th century Baptists have espoused freedom based on liberty of conscience. They were among the very first to argue for religious freedom for all, not just themselves. It was a kind of Christian nationalism that both Anabaptists and Baptists rejected at the beginning of their history.   

A prime factor in the separation of the earliest Anabaptists from Zwingli’s reformation in Zurich in the 1520s was Zwingli’s desire to involve the Zurich City Council in implementing and enforcing his reforms. The little group of Anabaptists led by Conrad Grebel became increasingly convinced that they faced a choice between obeying the city Council or obeying God. They wanted absolute freedom to reflect on God’s word and act accordingly. And that led them to believers’ baptism, based on them freely choosing to become followers of Jesus having counted the cost of discipleship. It also led to the martyrdom of many of them. 

For the Baptist pioneers like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, freedom of conscience to follow the Word of God as it was revealed to them was central. The early Baptists grew out of groups of English Separatists, so-called because they had rejected the Church of England with its strong ties to the state and King as head of it.

In 1612 Helwys published his book The Mistery of Iniquity addressed to the English King James.  In it he said that freedom in Christ meant that no ruler, no King, no government had the right to enforce a particular version of faith in their subjects, or seek to dictate the consciences of their people.  

In the book there is the famous, and for its time revolutionary, statement in the book about the principle of freedom of religion being extended to all including ‘heretics, Turks (Muslims) Jews’ or whoever’. Helwys supports his argument by asserting that in Jesus, the gospel is always freely offered with no coercion. It is the Son, Jesus Christ, who sets us free and no human agency has the right to seek to dictate the nature of that freedom.

Today Helwys’ words are our inspiration as Baptists to uphold and defend religious freedom, not just for ourselves but for all, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18.  

As one example, I recall some years ago seeing a copy of a letter sent by the Russian Baptist Union to its government. It was at the time when Jehovah’s Witnesses were to be made completely illegal in Russia and therefore outside the law and subject to persecution. It was a letter that modelled Thomas Helwys. It made clear the utter disagreement of Russian Baptists with the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but crucially went on to argue for their freedom to exist legally and worship freely.

Since just after the time of Helwys the radical view of religious freedom for all has remained a challenge for Baptists. This element of Baptist identity has sometimes been forgotten, obscured or compromised. 

What would Helwys and the early Baptists say about the rise of anti-semitism, and Islamophobia in many of our societies today? How would they view a Christian Nationalism that once again seeks to use the coercive power of the state to force its own understanding and version of Christianity and Christian values and culture on a whole nation? This is the very understanding of reformation and authentic witness to the Christian Gospel that early Baptists rejected. 

Is it possible that we Baptists who say we believe in religious freedom for all and the separation of church and state still sometimes have a hankering after Calvin’s Geneva or Zwingli’s Zurich? Building some kind of ‘Christian nation’ that to a greater or lesser extent uses coercion and the power of the state to establish its vision. 

Those early Baptists somehow heard the Lord saying to them ‘But it will not be so among you…’. As the Baptist theologian Nigel Wright comments,

‘Ultimately the state deals in coercion while the church acts by persuasion. To conflate these realms is fatal since on the one hand the church becomes a partner in coercion, as it so often has done, and on the other the state’s worldly power is confused with the power of God… What is crucial is to maintain the freedom of the church to be itself’

The Baptist view of freedom is not confined to a narrow definition of religious freedom. It has implications for a vision of society as a whole.  And central to these, it seems to me, is a concern for oppressed or minority or excluded groups of all kinds, that they should enjoy their full freedoms and rights in society and under the law. The Baptist pastor Martin Luther King was the great apostle of freedom for the oppressed African-Americans of his time. Let Freedom ring! was his cry. 

And this freedom extends especially to those to those that we fundamentally disagree with, or even those do not share our Christian values.  We Baptists should be advocates for a society when every man woman and child created in the image of God can live in peace and justice with the freedom to live out their own convictions. We should not be in the business of trying to force our convictions or moral values on others.  

Helen Paynter of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, based at Bristol Baptist College, writing recently about the rise of Chistian nationalism in Britain comments,

‘”My Kingdom is not of this world”. Jesus told Pilate. So though we are called to testify to the values of the Kingdom, and to live by them, we are not called to impose the Kingdom.’ 

Another way of expressing this might be to say, ‘What we had done to us as Baptists we should not do to others.’  

Those early Anabaptists and Baptists encourage us to put our faith and utter confidence in the Gospel to freely make its impact in order to transform lives and communities even in a plural society of many faiths and none; and even where so many don’t seem to share our Christian values. That is, without resorting to attaching ourselves to the levers of worldly power, or political movements that marry a distorted view of Christianity with a culture that seeks to exclude all who disagree or who are different.

Surely for Baptists it’s all about the freedom to be authentic witnesses to Christ and the gospel, as a community of men and women who believe it and live by it. That is where true freedom in Christ is to be found, experienced and shared with others.
 

Image | Aaron Burden | Unsplash

 

Tony Peck is a former General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF). Defending religious freedom is a key area of work for the EBF

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