I was recently sent an article from the Associated Baptist Press (ABP, USA), entitled: "Baptists urged to consider risks of ‘majoritarian faith’", by David Wilkinson. It is a news article about a recent lecture by Baptist historian Doug Weaver, speaking at the Baptist History and Heritage Society annual meeting.
His main point was that Baptists (and by inference, other Reformed Protestants) were shaped and formed as persecuted, minority groups. Now, they are majority, mainstream groups, and are in danger (I'd say they have already) lost their distinctiveness and compromised their values. In particular, he is concerned that Baptists have abandoned their belief in religious liberty (and in liberty in general).
While Baptists proudly point to religious liberty and church-state separation as their distinctive contributions to American history, Weaver said, contemporary Baptist heirs to that tradition may find it difficult to relate to their 17th-century forebears, who were part of a persecuted minority of dissenters to official state-supported denominations.
“We are used to being a part of the majority. We are the Bible Belt, maybe even the buckle of that belt. We are Baptists, the largest body of Protestants in the United States,” Weaver, a religion professor at Baylor University, said. “We have climbed the ladder of success numerically, socially and intellectually. We have an air of respectability. We are the majority; hear us roar.”
In contrast, he noted, it was the persecuted minority groups - the Anabaptists, Baptists and Quakers - that “pushed the Christian world in the 16th and 17th centuries to face the music and hear cries for complete religious liberty.”
Ironically, he added, many of those dissenters who fled to America to escape persecution in Europe soon used that hard-won freedom to persecute those in the New World who did not share their religious views.
Weaver said John Leland, the famous 18th-century Baptist advocate of religious freedom, noted that whenever you try to force a union between church and state in order to create a Christian nation, you have created a monster that denies liberty of conscience to anyone who dares to be different.
Weaver challenged American Christians to re-read their Bibles from the perspective of a religious minority group. From Moses and the Exodus to Daniel in the lion’s den to the teachings of Jesus to accounts of the early church, the Bible is filled with examples of the persecuted minority, he said.
“Can we hear Bible passages in the way that persecuted minorities have heard them when they talk about freedom? Can we read Bible passages like persecuted minorities would when they were being denied religious freedom by the government or by a majority group that was defining how free they can be?” he asked.
“I wonder who really understands the implications of freedom,” he added. “Those people who don’t have it and desperately want it, or those people who are threatened that they might lose control of it?”
The Bible and church history call 21st-century Baptists to “look in the mirror of our ‘majoritarian faith’ and see its risks,” Weaver said. Among those risks are that:
-- “We cease to affirm religious liberty for all because we are now the majority.”
-- “We fear losing our status as a majority faith in an ever-increasing[ly] pluralistic world, so our response is to assert oppressive control only majorities can pull off.”
-- “We now become [like] the colonial Puritans and think that freedom is only for us and should be defined by us.”
-- “We hide behind the rhetoric of being a Christian nation to justify religious favoritism toward our majority viewpoint," forgetting that "Baptists’ forefathers and foremothers were persecuted by so-called national churches.”
-- “We abandon -- even denigrate -- the separation of church and state that we desperately cried for when we were a minority faith in our infant years.”
-- “We forget that freedom is a gift from God and not ours to withhold.”
Source: ABP, June 8, 2009
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What Is Liberty?
Galatians 5:12-14 (King James Version)
12I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
13For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
14For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
More than quoting Bible verses
penfire,
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and to comment on a number of posts. However, simply quoting the Bible does not make a point. In fact, the point it makes most strongly is that you are in danger of becoming a Bible Deist (see: http://tr.im/fc_deist).
I don't know what you mean by your quote above. Do you mean that the Obama administration is "of the flesh"? Or are you confirming that he is a person of love who will serve others through his presidency?
And if we're going to just throw Bible verses around, how about these:
Galatians 5:2-3 (yes, same chapter as you quoted):
2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
Just check with the men in your church - are the circumcised? Most right wing conservative Christians are! Hhhmmmmm.
OK, that's just silly. But that's the point. It's just silly to dump Bible verses into this blog as responses. Please tell us your point too. Then we can have a conversation.
Liberty
Dear Grahame,
I assume this is a place where context matters. Maybe I was wrong about this.
Context Does Matter
I do not believe that Obama is a person of love; I believe he cares nothing for others except what power he can hold over them.
He has created the image of himself as some kind of Robin Hood, and those who stand in awe of him believe it. But he is governing really more in the spirit of communism where he condemns the "rich" (whomever he lumps into that category at any given time, but certainly not himself; although he can now afford to let his wife purchase triple digit dollar shoes and purses.) As someone said, if they earn the money they can spend it anyway they want to; but, surely this is hypocritcal for someone who is also demanding that everyone else who earns their money should then "share their wealth"; epecially those who earn a lot less than he does.
I do believe that his rhetoric about sharing the wealth has emboldend many to go out and take it from those whom they deem to be rich, or have more than they do.
As of two days ago, a band of men entered into a very large home that they believed housed some very rich people, intending to kill and rob them. Well, they did and they killed this man and his wife who were very rich. But, these same people were raising six or eight handicapped children, along with their own four children; providing them with a loving, nurturing home. They were minding their own business when these fiends entered their home and killed them point blank without knowing, or caring, what kind of people they were or what they were doing for these children or others.
YES, I do believe that Obama's rhetoric, pitting the poor against the rich, contributed to this heinous crime.
Let's see if he makes any kind of statement about this crime.
Paul teaches the work ethic; the whole Bible does. i.e. A workman is worthy of his hire; he who does not work, shall not eat; it all started in the Garden of Eden.
We know it does not mean those who cannot work, or those who cannot find a job, as in today's world. The church is limited in what it CAN do for those who need financial help if they are on welfare. Many, many churches, including Baptist, have food and clothes "closets" where many people come for help. Most all Baptist churches have these or sponsor these ministries. Most Baptist churches do a lot for the poor, the downtrodden and the underprivileged but they do not get any credit for it. Statement like yours that denigrate Baptists in general are using the same kind of hateful rhetoric Obama is, and that you admonish others for using when it is not just like your own opinions.
WHO is witholding freedom from anybody? The Baptists teach morality as the Bible teaches it; it preaches against sin, as described in the Bible, but they, at the same time, teach love of God and love of neighbor. I don't understand how you can lump all Baptists into some category as described above even if Mr. Wilkerson said what he said.
It is ok to use specific problems within an individual church, to admonish one another and provoke one another unto good works but not to denigrate and criticize uncategorically in order to bring a blanket disparagement upon the whole denomination, represented by truly caring individual and committed Christians.
Jesus died for the sins of this world...to offer the only sacrifice acceptable to God for sin; He did not die to preserve anyone's "rights" to practice sin. He said, "Many will call Me Lord, Lord but I will say, "I never knew you...".
Love of God, His Holiness, His disfavor of sin, is contained in the first and greatest commandment; the second is like it, love you neighbor as you love yourself.
I know that means caring for their welfare, seeking justice where there is none; this does not mean to demand release for prisoners who are indeed guilty of a crime, or tolerating known sinful lifestyles. Many who want to live lifestyles that do not reflect the spirit of scriptural teachings want to believe that anything they do is acceptable. Their God is one they have made into their own image, not the other way around.