I’m not on Twitter anymore. So, mercifully, I don’t see the daily crazy. But it came to my attention this week that a group of posters associated with the Christian Nationalist right were on there feigning ignorance of and then questioning the “narrative” about the lynching of Emmett Till. Apparently, we can’t acknowledge one of the most well-documented cases of racist terrorism in American history simply because it is a part of the “official narrative” of “the left.” The brutal disfigurement, mutilation, and murder of a 14-year-old boy, which was racially motivated by his murderers’ own admission, may have not been “wholly unprovoked, or as thoroughly driven by racism as is claimed.” This vile and tribalistic thinking betrays a profoundly relativistic mindset that is more concerned with posturing in the contemporary political landscape than it is with the truth or with Christian morality. Flagrantly racist attitudes are now treated as merely different “opinions on race.” And it appears to be a part of a growing trend on the so-called dissident right to cozy up to anti-Semitic and overtly white supremacist voices. One of the leaders in this movement suggested to me on Twitter a couple years ago that genetic inferiority is as likely an explanation for racial disparities in America as any lingering effects of systemic racism. The ethnic dimension to the rising ethno-nationalism on the right is becoming more transparent. The mask is coming off.

It is easy to get angry about all of this. And to be sure, righteous indignation is appropriate. But I would suggest the leavening of another emotion: pity. I genuinely pity those who still find a perverted solace in the myth of racial superiority and the hardened path of racial division. I feel sorry for those who are so blinded by a “no enemies to the right” way of thinking that they have departed so disastrously from the way of Christ, where “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).

There is a reason why we included an article on racial unity in our Manifesto for Evangelical Baptist Catholicity. Racist attitudes and expressions even within the church aren’t making a comeback. Sadly, they never went away. In the Manifesto, we write,

We affirm that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, are created in God’s image and, if they have repented and believed in Christ, are brothers and sisters together in the one body of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Because of this shared imago dei and because of Christ’s saving work among all nations, peoples, and tongues, we believe that one major task of Baptist catholicity is to promote racial unity, especially within the body of Christ.

The last several years have put a major strain on efforts toward racial reconciliation within evangelical and Baptist circles. We are at a point now where things that almost everyone agreed on a decade ago—about the need for empathy, the acknowledgement of past wrongs (and their lingering effects), and the pursuit of racial diversity in the body of Christ—are dismissed as “critical race theory” or “cultural Marxism.” Few have the courage to poke their heads up in favor of racial reconciliation in this landscape. This too is pitiable.

For Southern Baptists, it would be a good time to revisit our Resolution on Racial Reconciliation on the 150^th Anniversary of the Southern Baptist Convention. Again, it says things that would get you run out of town as an allegedly CRT proponent today. It spoke of both conscious and unconscious racism and of both individual and “systemic racism.” It apologized and repented for our racist past. It sought forgiveness and healing. It made commitments to eradicate racism from our midst. And it anchored all of it in the Great Commission that our Lord solemnly gave to the church to make disciples of every tribe, tongue, and nation. We should pursue racial justice, unity, and reconciliation not because they map onto any left-right analysis of contemporary American politics, but because they are demanded by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rediscovering and making good on these resolutions is the only possible path for a Baptist future blessed by the Savior of the world.

Myk Habets and I have recently published a book with Lexham Press on how the theology of T. F. Torrance interfaces with evangelical theology. Lexham interviewed Myk and I about the book here. One of Myk’s comments sums up well why you should be interested in the book and in Torrance’s theology more generally:

At the heart of Torrance’s theology is the conviction, from Scripture and the tradition, that Jesus is the exclusive two-fold movement from God to humanity and humanity to God. Christ is our High Priest, Mediator, Savior, Model, and King. What Evangelical would disagree with that! But, Torrance goes further and takes this as seriously as anyone in the Tradition, and argues for the vicarious humanity and ministry of Christ. This is something that is fundamental to the Gospel and yet subtly eclipsed in much modern Evangelicalism. This book is an attempt to in part, correct this. To do this, a clear and compelling doctrine of the Trinity is required, a mature and faithful commitment to the authority of Scripture is needed, and from there, everything else will flow. This book is a partial contribution to the renewal of Evangelical thought and practice today. 

Check it out the whole interview (note my last reply especially) and buy the book here!

One my favorite British Baptist theologians, Steve Holmes, has written a reflection on the Coronation liturgy of King Charles. It’s straight Baptist fire. His concerns center on the Baptist conviction, beautifully expressed in the First London Baptist Confession of Faith, that Christ alone is the true Prophet-Priest-King of the New Covenant people of God. As Holmes explains, this doctrine of Christ’s threefold office (munus triplex) had important precedents in earlier Christian history, but it takes on a particular force in Baptist theology:

Thomas Aquinas presents the doctrine like this; Calvin starts to use it as an organising principle for narrating the work of Christ. The expansion of its range amongst the English Separatists and Baptists is extensive and perhaps surprising. It is also dependent on a further claim that King Jesus does not delegate any of these offices: he is our great high priest, so there is no need for any human priesthood; he alone is the true prophet, and so we look for truth nowhere other than his word; he alone is king, and so no-one else may presume to command any congregation of his people.

Now, both the expansion of the scope of the offices and this point about the lack of delegation are contestable, of course, and so other theological constructions than a Baptist one are possible. But the instinctive Baptist fear/complaint/demand is always that some human authority is trying to muscle in on a role that belongs to Christ alone.

British Baptists have not, generally, been anti-monarchy: there is a temporal realm, that requires governing, and a monarchy is a possible way to do that. The seventeenth-century English Baptists, even when persecuted, did not stop declaring their loyalty to the crown—but they thought that, in imposing forms of worship and doctrine, the crown had badly over-reached its authority, and was trying to govern where Jesus alone can reign.

Read the whole thing. If the coronation represents an expression of “Christian nationalism” or whatever you want to call it, the Baptist complaint against it not just that it’s a relatively empty symbol in a nation even more secular and progressive than the United States. No, even if the ceremony had more teeth–especially if it had more teeth–the problems are systemic, on a Baptist reckoning. No king or government should pretend to usurp the place that belongs to Jesus alone as the King of the Church and Lord of the conscience.

To prevent mistakes, however, it is proper to observe that the patriotism required of us is not that love of our country which clashes with universal benevolence, or which seeks its prosperity at the expense of the general happiness of mankind. Such was the patriotism of Greece and Rome; and such is that of all others where Christian principle is not allowed to direct it. Such, I am ashamed to say, is that with which some have advocated the cause of negro slavery. It is necessary, forsooth, to the wealth of this country! No; if my country cannot prosper but at the expense of justice, humanity, and the happiness of mankind, let it be unprosperous! But this is not the case. Righteousness will be found to exalt a nation, and so to be true wisdom. The prosperity which we are directed to seek in behalf of our country involves no ill to any one, except to those who shall attempt its overthrow. Let those who fear not God, nor regard man, engage in schemes of aggrandizement, and let sordid parasites pray for their success. Our concern is to cultivate that patriotism which harmonizes with good-will to men. O my country, I will lament thy faults! Yet, with all thy faults, I will seek thy good; not only as a Briton, but as a Christian: “for my brethren and companions sakes, I will say, Peace be within thee: because of the house of the Lord my God, I will seek thy good!”

Andrew Fuller, “Christian Patriotism,” 1803

Among the many biblical, theological, and historical reasons the earliest Baptists gave for religious liberty, is one that is sometimes forgotten or neglected, namely, evangelism. It’s not a stand alone argument. The biblical-theological, covenantal case has to be made. The regulative principles of the New Testament must be exegeted. The freedom and dignity of the human person must be defended. But among those other reasons, Baptists can also appeal to the free proclamation of the gospel as an additional rationale for religious liberty.

It is remarkable that some of the earliest Baptists argued for religious liberty, not only for themselves and their fellow Protestant dissenters, but even for other religions. Thomas Helwys’ famous lines from The Mystery of Iniquity (1612) are always worth repeating: “Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.” Part of Helwys’ argument is that true obedience to God must be “spiritual obedience,” that is, willing obedience to Jesus, free from governmental compulsion. In other words, if you want non-Christians to be truly saved, religious liberty must be granted to them.

Roger Williams, whose influence on Baptists in the New World outlasted his own brief tenure as a part of a Baptist church, made a similar argument in The Bloody Tenent of Persecution (1644). Williams appeals to Paul’s imperative that meekness and gentleness be shown to “all” in the hopes that God might grant them repentance and salvation (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Williams applies this call to universal patience to the various religious opinions in society: Jews, “Turks” (=Muslims), “Antichristians” (those who preach a false Christ), and pagans. Williams asks his readers to remember their own former spiritual blindness and the mercy extended to them in the Lord Jesus. He concludes, “And to all these sorts–Jews, Turks, Antichristians, pagans–when they oppose the light presented to them, in sense of [the soul’s] own former opposition and that God peradventure may at last give repentance, I add [that] such a soul will not only be patient, but earnestly and constantly pray for all sorts of men, that out of them God’s elect may be called to the fellowship of Christ Jesus. And lastly not only to pray but also to endeavor (to its utmost ability) their participation of the same grace and mercy.” Religious liberty, not religious persecution, is the conclusion of those sensible to God’s sovereign grace in their own lives.

Many Baptists since have understood the evangelistic and missionary benefits of religious liberty. The Baptist insistence on “a free church in a free state” is motivated, in part, by this evangelistic impulse: “the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power” (Baptist Faith & Message, 2000). That doesn’t mean religious liberty has no limits. As the BF&M says elsewhere, “Freedom in any orderly relationship of human life is always limited and never absolute.” When religious liberty brings physical or moral harm, it may be limited in a principled and carefully qualified way. But otherwise, men must be free to reject, if they are to be truly free to accept, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the church must be free to share and to persuade but never to compel or to coerce. Religious liberty, in this understanding, is an evangelistic stewardship as much as an enumerated right.

I mentioned in my previous post that the Baptist confessional tradition should be weighted more heavily than individual authors when we are making generalizations about the historic Baptist view on the civil magistrate. I also mentioned that the Second London Confession has a particular pride of place in this regard. The 1689 Confession influenced, in one way or another, most of the other major Baptist confessions in an English-speaking context. So, paying careful attention to what the confession says–and most tellingly, what it doesn’t say–about the civil magistrate is especially important.

You can find a tabular comparison of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 Confession here. Below is a screenshot of the articles “Of the Civil Magistrate.” Again, this comparison and contrast is especially important to considering how Baptists have historically positioned themselves in relation to the broader Reformed movement, and magisterial Protestantism more generally.

The portions in red indicate divergences between the two confessions. But note that the portions in black indicate continuity with the great Reformed confession. The seventeenth-century Particular Baptists were trying to strike a balance here: to express their solidarity with other Protestants as far as possible and to defend unashamedly their Baptist distinctives. They were aiming for, we might say, a Baptist Catholicity.

The first paragraph here is pristinely carried over from the WCF. God ordains civil government for his own glory and the public good. But the power of the sword is carefully delimited: to defend and encourage those who do good and to punish those who do evil (cf. Romans 13:1-7).

From there, the omissions tell the real story. These early Baptists believed, contrary to the Anabaptists, that Christians can rightly participate in the civil government. But the duties of the magistrate are limited to the maintenance of civil justice and peace. The WCF’s mention of “piety” as one of the aims of the magistrate is conspicuously absent. The church, not the civil authority, has within its jurisdiction the maintenance of piety. The jurisdiction of the civil government is limited to civil, not religious, matters. As Baptist historian Thomas Nettles has put it, “The Baptists would not have the magistrate insert any of his power into the divine prerogative of creating and maintaining piety in his people. That is the function of the Holy Spirt by the word of God under the faithful labors of God-called ministers of the word in the context of the church.”

Likewise, the WCF’s third and fourth paragraphs are omitted entirely and replaced with an original paragraph arguing for submission to and prayer for the magistrate. Gone are the magistrate’s duties related to the ministry of the church. The Baptists intentionally omitted any reference to the government preserving the unity of the church, keeping the truth pure, suppressing blasphemies and heresies, preventing abuses in worship, calling synods, and so on. Even the American revision of the WCF, which made space for the magistrate’s protection of all Protestant denominations, still affirmed the magistrate as the “nursing father” who has charge to “protect the church of our common Lord.” Regardless of what any individual Baptist thinker may have thought or written elsewhere, the Baptist confessional tradition knows nothing of a civil government with such explicitly religious responsibilities.

The difference between the establishmentarianism of the WCF and the separation of the civil and religious spheres in the SLBCF is rooted in the two groups’ distinct views on biblical theology. As Nettles notes, the position of the WCF, “assumes a direct continuity between Israel and political entities subsequent to the coming of Christ. It assumes that earthly kings have the same authority and duties of the king in that covenanted society. It does not embrace the distinction between Israel as an elect nation and the church as the ‘chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.’ These people are not all of any nation but are to be looked upon as ‘sojourners and exiles’ who once were ‘not a people, but now the people of God’ (1 Peter 2:9-11).”

In sum, the 1689 Confession intentionally and deliberately distanced itself from the the WCF on the matter of the civil magistrate. At least as far as our confessional tradition would bind us, the Baptist view on the separation of church and state seems clearly inconsistent with any kind of specifically religious authority being given to the civil powers. The magistrate is God’s servant for God’s glory and the public good but only within its limited jurisdiction: maintaining civil justice and civil peace.

Addendum: Note well that the Baptist belief in the separation of church and state does not entail a separation of church and society nor even a separation of morality and state. Civil justice demands, for example, the protection of the unborn from the evil of abortion and the protection of children and adolescents (and adults, for that matter) from the irreversible harm of so-called “gender affirming care.” I hasten to add this because so many people today seem to set up a false dichotomy: it’s either Christian Nationalism or radical progressivism. But Baptists have long been engaged in promoting moral legislation. Think of William Carey’s opposition of sati, or Andrew Fuller’s support of the abolitionist movement, or Charles Spurgeon’s opposition to slavery, or the SBC’s opposition to “racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.” (BF&M 2000). Baptists in America today can push for just laws right now, without blowing the whole system up and seeking to retrieve something more “magisterially” Protestant.