Guest View

Aims of the New Baptist Covenant require commitment to religious liberty

By Don Byrd

February 2008

We can’t celebrate the worthy ambitions of the New Baptist Covenant without re-dedicating ourselves to the cause of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. That may not have been said explicitly at every breakout session and every plenary speech, but it is the message I received loud and clear from that exciting, promising weekend.

From Al Gore’s call to address the dangers of global warming to Marian Wright Edelman’s urgent plea that the government take action to alleviate childhood poverty, we Baptists were exhorted to reclaim our prophetic voice, to speak out on the issues of the day, and to hold our elected officials accountable with one voice.

But the simple truth is this: New Baptists (or whatever we are) will have no credibility and no true power if we seek influence by cozying up to the powers that be. Alliance with a political party, like the use of government funds, might seem like a quick and direct way to achieve our public policy goals. The church, however, has a higher calling than political power. To be the conscience of the state, we need enough distance from the institutions of power to have what Gardner Taylor calls “swinging room.”

Sadly, this distance — representing the very integrity of the church — is not assumed. We must assert it. When I opened the local Nashville, Tenn., paper on the Saturday morning after our adjournment, I realized just how necessary this step is, and how steep it will be. The headline spanning the top of the front page, describing the event, screamed “Politics Butts in at Baptists’ Gathering: Organizers Say Jesus Would Have Approved Agenda,” this to sum up a meeting that was anything but political.

How did we get to this point, where addressing poverty and hunger, the sick and the oppressed, the environment and religious freedom for all, would be cynically perceived as a political agenda rather than a Christian mandate of good will? To be truly heard as one of faith, our prophetic voice needs to regain credibility. It must overcome the ready temptation of power and convenience offered by the political process. And it must overcome the recent damage done to the Baptist name by those who have preferred to align the institutions of the church with those of the state, at the expense of our heritage.

Proclaiming the separation of church and state as a fundamental Baptist principle is an essential first step in the process of moving forward in reclaiming that prophetic voice. Religious liberty, protected by the Constitution, is the fulcrum balancing our need for social action on one side with our tradition of autonomy and soul freedom on the other. I believe the aims of the New Baptist Covenant simply can’t be met without maintaining both sides vigilantly.

John Grisham was right when he urged us to “stay out of politics.” But that’s not to say religion has no place in the public debate; just the opposite. Engaging our public policy is essential to the church’s mission, a calling we heard ring out through the witness of the New Baptist Covenant. Keeping the church out of the mechanisms of government and politics, though — insisting on the independence of church and state, both legally and spiritually —is the only way our true voice will be heard.

Don Byrd writes for the Baptist Joint Committee’s Blog from the Capital, www.BJConline.org/blog. He lives in Nashville, Tenn., where he teaches music theory and composition at his alma mater Belmont University.