http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16062507/did-all-baptists-want-a-wall
In 1801, the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, penned a letter to the newly elected president, Thomas Jefferson, to declare their belief “that America’s God has raised you up to fill the chair of State out of that good will which he bears to the Millions which you preside over.”1 In their view, Jefferson was a divine instrument for the purpose of securing and safeguarding religious liberty. The Danbury Baptists were speaking on behalf of thousands of Baptists in the early United States who still endured the weight of religious intolerance by their respective state churches. But the Danbury Association did not speak for all Baptists.
Jefferson’s famous reply, in which he referred to the First Amendment as erecting “a wall of separation between Church & State,” has led many historians to frame virtually all Baptists as Democratic-Republicans who shared a similar view.2 However, most Baptists did not define religious liberty in such strict separationist terms. In fact, many believed that Jefferson’s ideas about God and government were harmful to society.
In an era of American history in which certain states still boasted a tax-supported church, many Baptists partnered politically with actual Christian nationalists to realize their own vision of an America where religion was not established but still encouraged.3 They locked arms with Congregationalists and Episcopalians, denominations that traditionally opposed disestablishment, to promote various moral and social causes, and to regulate matters like immigration and the influx of foreign (i.e., French) ideas. Like many Baptists today, they emphasized freedom of conscience and the importance of the Bible to shape the minds and morals of citizens.
These Baptists help to expose two myths about religion in America: (1) The earliest Baptist supporters of the First Amendment intended a “wall” between church and state. (2) Baptists in the early United States agreed upon a universal definition of religious liberty.
Four Kinds of Baptists
The ultra-Jeffersonian Baptist John Leland (1754–1841) once called religious liberty the “polar star” of Baptist politics.4 However, to borrow a biblical analogy, in their pursuit of the “polar star” of religious freedom, Baptists did not always arrive in the same Bethlehem.
“Many Baptists believed that Jefferson’s ideas about God and government were harmful to society.”
Although Leland has become somewhat famous for wheeling his 1,235-pound cheese to the White House as a gift to his “hero” Jefferson, not every Baptist was a self-professed “dyed-in-the-skin” Democratic-Republican.5 On one hand, due to their common cause in disestablishing religion, there is a sense in which every Baptist in the early United States was “Jeffersonian.” On the other hand, most Baptists were not willing to remove religion from government in the same way that Jefferson wished to extricate government from religion.
In fact, there were at least four kinds of Baptists who qualified their Jeffersonianism: (1) those Democratic-Republicans who supported Jefferson but did not share his view of religious liberty, (2) Federalists who applauded Jefferson’s push for religious liberty but who partnered with establishmentarians due to a common belief in the importance of Christianity as the basis for good government, (3) anti-Jeffersonians who believed Jefferson’s ideas were dangerous and undermined public morality, and (4) those who were so disillusioned with party politics that they chose not to support any candidate, including Jefferson. Like their spiritual descendants today, Baptists in the early republic were a diverse bunch.
Democratic-Republican but Not Separationist
Isaac Backus, pastor of Middleborough Baptist Church in Massachusetts, had every reason to be a Jefferson man. At the Continental Congress in 1774, John Adams dismissed the former Congregationalist when the latter contended for “the liberty of worshipping God according to our consciences, not being obliged to support a ministry we cannot attend.”6 Like most Separate Baptists, Backus had experienced the hostility of the so-called “Standing Order” clergymen in the Federalist Party. As the chairman of the Grievance Committee in the Warren Association, he documented complaints of religious persecution by Baptists.
But Backus was not interested in building a wall between church and state. He believed in the “sweet harmony” between religion and civil government, and he also did not object to compulsory attendance at public worship, teaching of the Westminster Confession in New England schools, and strict observance of the Sabbath.7 Backus once referred to Roger Williams’s Rhode Island as an “irreligious colony,” bristling at the thought of a more secular America where Christianity was removed from the public square.
Thomas Baldwin defended Jefferson publicly after his election in 1800. However, as pastor of Second Baptist Church of Boston and as chaplain of the General Court of Massachusetts, Baldwin was on friendly terms with Federalists. In the so-called “benevolent empire” that arose in the early republic, Baldwin worked with Congregationalists in various moral and missionary endeavors.8 Of Baldwin it was said that “no important association seemed complete unless it had enrolled him as its President.”9
However, Baldwin’s vision of America included more than voluntary societies. He also campaigned for publicly funded biblical education. In a sermon delivered before the Federalist governor of Massachusetts in 1802, Baldwin insisted that there was cause “no more deserving of legislative attention, than the education of youth and children.” Without the “religion of the Bible,” he argued, America would certainly lose its most basic liberties. Sensitive to the “irreligion” sometimes associated with the “Republican name,” Baldwin’s response to the First Amendment wasn’t to keep Bibles out of schools, but to teach children “the essential articles of the ‘Faith once delivered to the Saints.’”10
Federalists Who Appreciated Jefferson
The second group of Baptists who did not adopt Jefferson’s “wall” metaphor were not Democratic-Republicans at all. These Baptists affiliated with the Federalist party not because they believed that religion should be wedded to the state, but because they feared the tyranny of a state completely divorced from religion.11
Charleston Baptist Richard Furman honored Jefferson as a founder of the nation, but he aligned with Federalists because they shared his ideal of a Christian citizenry. Furman was vice president of the Charleston Bible Society, which met in the home of his friend and vice-presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Furman’s Southern network included Episcopal and Presbyterian pastors, and his favorite American theologian was Yale President Timothy Dwight, the leading clergymen of the “Standing Order” and the grandson of Jonathan Edwards.12 He also partnered with the most notable Federalists in the South when he led in the formation of a “Society” in Charleston “for encouraging Emigration of virtuous citizens from other countries.” According to his own combination of religious liberty and religious nationalism, Furman, a slaveowner, sought to regulate the influx of “those about to leave Europe” whom he deemed injurious to American society.13
There were, in fact, a host of Baptist Federalists in the early republic, men who did not excoriate Jefferson publicly but who were suspicious of his beliefs. These men included Hezekiah Smith, Oliver Hart, Morgan Edwards, James Manning, and Henry Holcombe. John Mason Peck named his youngest son after John Adams.14 Not surprisingly, they were proponents of education and moral improvement, causes they believed to be impossible with a “wall” separating church and state. To reach the poor and spread the gospel, these men worked with all sorts of Protestant denominations — and sometimes with Roman Catholics. In New Orleans in 1817, the young Federalist William B. Johnson was even asked to preach at St. Louis Cathedral for a benefit for the Poydras Orphan Asylum. Father Anthony of the local diocese approved of the homily, but he requested to “see his sermon before he preaches it.”15
Anti-Jeffersonians
The third group of Baptists who opposed Jefferson’s “wall” were in fact Jefferson’s most bitter opponents. These Baptists defy the stereotypical Lelandian caricature of Baptists who praised “America’s God” for raising up Jefferson. In fact, they were anti-Jeffersonian.
Jonathan Maxcy was a brilliant college President who served at three different institutions. He spent most of his career in New England and South Carolina, two hotbeds of Baptist Federalism. Maxcy was judged by some to be a “violent politician” whose “sarcasms against the Anti-Federalists” were viewed as incompatible for a man of his office. The year before “the revolution of 1800,” Maxcy warned his audience of “foreign foes and domestic traitors” in America who were “continually advancing opinions and doctrines which tend to its subversion.” The nativistic Maxcy believed that Jefferson posed a threat to religious liberty with his “foreign influence and foreign intrigue” and his “utmost efforts to ruin our government.”16 His case against a Jeffersonian wall was simple: “The most salutary laws can have no effect against general corruption of sentiments and morals. The American people, therefore, have no way to secure their liberty, but by securing their religion.”
Samuel Stillman, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Boston, launched the same kind of verbal assaults in Jefferson’s direction. In 1795, he warned his hearers of “men of boundless ambition, who become heads of parties, and spare no pains to get into place.”17 These kinds of thinly veiled shots at Jefferson were not uncommon in New England, even among Baptists.
Neither Democratic-Republican nor Federalist
Stillman was a personal friend of John Adams. However, the last group of Baptists who opposed Jefferson were friends of neither Adams nor Jefferson. Some, like Georgia Baptist Jesse Mercer, simply did not vote, “for he said all parties had aberrated so far from the constitution, that he could not conscientiously vote for the candidates.”18 In 1798, Mercer wrote the article of the Georgia constitution guaranteeing religious liberty. However, at least by the end of Jefferson’s presidency, Mercer no longer identified with the principles that Jefferson had bequeathed to the Democratic-Republican party.
“Religious liberty has always united — and to some extent divided — Baptists in America.”
A closer look at the political leanings of Baptists in the early United States reveals a people who were remarkably similar to Baptists and other evangelicals today. They wrestled with the influence of ideas on society, the importance of shaping children’s minds, the responsibility of Christians to practice their faith, the relationship between religious liberty and nationalism, and the inherent tension of supporting political parties led by men who denied some of their most basic convictions. There is truly nothing new under the Baptist sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
By examining our Baptist ancestors, we are reminded that religious liberty has long united — and to some extent divided — Baptists in America. However, within this spectrum of views, it is doubtful that the majority of Baptists, including the Danbury Association, ever intended to build a “wall” between church and state.19
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The Fatherly Way of Paul’s Exhortation: 1 Thessalonians 2:9–12, Part 3
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15430940/the-fatherly-way-of-pauls-exhortation
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The Stable Presence: Five Traits of Resilient Fathers
Fathers are called to provide for and protect their households. To do this well, they must be sober-minded and stable men who lead their families with gladness, fortitude, wisdom, and resilience.
To provide literally means “to see before.” Thus, a key element of provision is anticipation. A dad is responsible to anticipate the needs, threats, and temptations in his household. His goal is to have clarity about the issues facing his family, coupled with a readiness to act with wisdom to address them.
And he does not do so by himself. In seeking this clarity for the sake of provision, a father does well to remember that he has been given a helper precisely for this purpose. Together, they will see more than if they try to see alone. A faithful father welcomes the insights and wisdom of his wife concerning the needs of the family.
Fathers with Sober Minds
A common pitfall in a father’s leadership is defensiveness in response to his wife’s insights, comments, and encouragements to act. Say a mother sees a pattern of sin forming in her son’s life. She brings it to her husband’s attention, wanting him to do something about it. He gets defensive, or blows up, or shuts down, or shifts blame. All of these reactions display a lack of sober-mindedness.
This is true regardless of whether his wife brings the issue to his attention in a helpful way. Say that the sin in the kids has awakened fear in her. She knows that little sins, when left unchecked, become big sins. Little sinners, if left unchecked, grow up to be big sinners. And so, she brings this to her husband’s attention with some anxiety, agitation, and (perhaps) frustration that the sin has festered as long as it has.
Such situations call for stable sober-mindedness. At a basic level, sober-mindedness is the opposite of drunkenness (1 Thessalonians 5:6–8). Drunkenness refers to the physical, cognitive, and moral impairment caused by drinking too much alcohol. Drunkenness negatively affects one’s judgment, frequently leading to other sins. Those who are drunk don’t see clearly, nor do they stand firmly, nor do they act wisely.
Crucially, alcohol is not the only intoxicant. Passions too, whether ours or others, can cloud our judgment and hinder wise action. Under the influence of passions, we become reactive and tossed to and fro. Again, we get defensive, blow up, shut down, or shift blame.
“To be sober-minded is to see with clarity, stand with stability, and act with wisdom.”
Therefore, to be sober-minded is to see with clarity, stand with stability, and act with wisdom. Sober-minded men govern their own passions, and thus they are able to absorb and endure the passions, reactions, and agitations of others.
Making a Resilient Dad
Where does such sober-mindedness come from? In my own life, I frequently return to Colossians 3:12–17 as a way of building sober-minded resilience into my soul. So let us consider the passage, not merely as a word to all Christians, but as a word applied particularly to husbands and fathers.
CLOTHED IN VIRTUE
First, Paul calls his readers to clothe themselves with key virtues: “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). All of these are vital for fathers as they seek to lead their homes. We are to clothe ourselves with these virtues “as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” In other words, these virtues flow from knowing ourselves to be loved by God and set apart for his service. Steady fathers are grounded in the love of their heavenly Father.
READY TO FORGIVE
Second, steady fathers bear with and readily forgive others (Colossians 3:13). They are long-suffering, and they keep short accounts. They don’t hold grudges or allow bitterness to fester. They either allow love to cover a multitude of sins, or they quickly act to address substantial sins and pursue forgiveness and reconciliation. The one thing that they don’t do is allow sins to pile up in their own hearts and their own households. And they act this way, fundamentally, because their Lord has freely forgiven them.
RULED BY PEACE
Third, steady fathers clothe themselves with love and let Christ’s peace rule in their hearts (Colossians 3:14–15). The peace of Christ is the root of Christian sober-mindedness. He is our peace. He is our stability. He is the sure and steadfast anchor of our souls. And a godly father who welcomes the peace of Christ in his heart is empowered to be a sober-minded anchor for his family. The peace of Christ enables him to be a spiritual harbor for them in the storms and trials of life.
STEEPED IN SCRIPTURE
Fourth, Christ’s peace reigns in our hearts when God’s word dwells in us richly (Colossians 3:16). Paul’s words press us to pursue a particular quality in our biblical meditation. The word must dwell richly in us; this implies a certain abundance and fullness of God’s word in our lives. This richness overflows from us, in both teaching and singing. Steady fathers have the word on their tongues; they are ready with wise biblical instruction, exhortation, and admonition for their families. More than that, “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” are the soundtrack of their lives. They love to sing God’s word back to him and over their families.
ALWAYS THANKFUL
Finally, steady fathers are grateful fathers. Three times in Colossians 3, Paul calls us to gratitude. “Be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). Sing “with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). Glad-hearted gratitude to God is the abundant overflow of a steady father. A steady father thanks God for all things, great and small. He is ever mindful of God’s many kindnesses to him, and he leads his family to the throne of grace with thanksgiving and adoration.
Sober-Mindedness in Action
So, returning to the original scenario, how might a Colossians 3 father both respond to his wife’s insight and lead in shepherding his son?
“Steady fathers are grounded in the love of their heavenly Father.”
First, a sober-minded father will not be threatened by the insights of his wife (even the agitated and anxious insights). Instead, he’ll receive his wife’s insights with humility, meekness, and gratitude. Because he is anchored in God’s love and Christ’s peace, he will be quick to listen and slow to speak, carefully evaluating the situation in light of God’s word.
Second, the dominant note that he’ll strike, whether she brought her concerns in a faithful way or a reactive way, is gratitude to God for her, and gratitude to her for her help. He is able to live with her in an understanding way and show honor to her as the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7). With God’s help, his sober-mindedness can act as an anchor for her, and together they can turn their attention to wisely shepherding their son.
Third, he’ll take the initiative in addressing the issue with his son. He’ll do so clothed with compassion and patience, bringing the same steady presence to bear in teaching and admonishing his son with all wisdom. Such wisdom will often take the form of anticipating and diffusing his son’s own defensiveness and blame-shifting with kindness, meekness, and manifest love. A steady father will both bear with the weaknesses of his son and insist that God’s word be obeyed in everything.
Finally, he will aim at forgiveness and reconciliation, first with God, and then within his family. God’s forgiveness in Christ is foundational, but it always spreads. A steady father leads in making sure that everyone in his home is keeping short accounts with each other, quickly confessing sin and sincerely offering forgiveness.
And he will do all of this in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him, clothed with the love of God that binds his family together in perfect harmony.
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Reality Written in Cursive: The Power of Christian Wordcraft
A-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lind-or-burúmë, Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin. “Excuse me: that is a part of my name for it; I do not know what the word is in the outside languages: you know, the thing we are on, where I stand and look out on fine mornings, and think about the sun, and the grass beyond the wood, and the horses, and the clouds, and the unfolding of the world. . . . Did you say what you call it?” . . .
“Hill?” suggested Pippin.
Treebeard repeated the word thoughtfully. “Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, 465–466).
Names are powerful realities. But one thing names do is abridge. They shrink down. In haste, they label realities larger and deeper than themselves — things too wild to be caged by consonants and vowels.
Do you ever linger over what others label and discard? This world needs more Treebeards, repeating words thoughtfully in their minds, “Hill” (or “grace” or “wife”), concluding that these are hasty words for things that have stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped. Do you ever ache to pass the title to explore reality’s pages, to bring down with every pass what Coleridge once called the “veil of familiarity”?
Making the Familiar Unfamiliar
Our modern world seems comfortable with dull familiarities and hollow names. As its idols, it has eyes but does not see, ears that cannot hear creation declaring God’s glory. Oh, that? That is just a hill, an ocean, a mailman. Oh, that? That is a church, a pastor, a religious ritual called “communion.” Two-dimensional words thrown at realities that shall outlive the sun. Its metallic voice denies this world is enchanted, laughs to think that God’s eternity presses down upon us.
Against this veil, beautiful writing is a battering ram. Shelley put it this way:
Poetry [and poetic language] lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world; it makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. . . . It compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we know. It creates anew the universe, after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recurrence of impressions blunted by reiteration. (Percy Shelley, A Defence of Poetry)
The most imaginative Christian preachers and writers employ their lyrical hearts and prophetic powers to stir and awaken us to war with the hasty and bland word as an act of resistance against seeing this life as a hasty and bland reality. They stare. And stare. And see. And say, hill: “Earth pregnant with history.” “A pimple on the ground’s face.”
Then they delete. Reread Scripture. Stare again, and say, hill: “A place pagans climbed to reach their gods.” “A place once crowned with Jerusalem, God’s own city.”
When you ask and seek and knock for new doors into what is, you employ what John Piper calls “poetic effort.” But we dare not stop at the name. Poetic effort moves beyond the initial way of saying it, to soar higher, swim deeper, alight upon that “sweetness of speech [that] increases persuasiveness” (Proverbs 16:21). It is a hunt, an expedition, an obsession for words fitly spoken — apples of gold in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11). It is salty speech, an apt answer, a poem, a parable, a labored and lovely sentence. It is a turn of phrase that we hope the Spirit uses to turn the reader’s heart from sin to the Son.
It is to bend the bowstring back, straining to send the arrow farther, deeper. Poetic effort is lexical sweat, keyboard calisthenics, the reworking of a sentence and paragraph again and again, arranging and rearranging twenty-six little letters that form little words that grow into little sentences and little pages and little books, each reaching, straining to grasp even the hem of his garment. Poetic effort.
Man’s First Words
Let’s travel back to behold the first time a man pushed past a name to describe more beautifully (and thus, more fully) the enchantments he felt and saw.
Gazing upon Eve, Adam’s heart vented beautifully:
This at last is bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh;she shall be called Woman,because she was taken out of Man. (Genesis 2:23)
Don’t overlook the significance: From the very beginning, music stirred within man. The first time we hear the voice of man in the pages of Scripture, it’s lyrical. Let us finally put to death the Neanderthal man grunting monosyllables beside his fire — when the first man’s heart overflows with wonder and gratitude, it cascades forth as poetry. When Adam sees Eve, he doesn’t go and measure her height and weight. He doesn’t stop at a name. He serenades her.
He exclaims,
This at last is bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh . . .
At last. This marks the closest thing to exasperation unfallen man can achieve in paradise. Adam’s journey to Eve was meandering.
God appraised, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” and he promised, “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Creature after creature, God brings before Adam for inspection. Imagine Adam staring at the duck — and the duck staring back. The duck did not fit the bill (neither would the rhinoceros, the eagle, or the lion). Did his heart begin to sicken from hope deferred? He names them and sends them away.
Exhausted, Adam falls into a strange night. God wakes him to a dream, the fulfillment of the promise. Who is this, fairer than moonlight, sweeter than Eden’s fruit? Her eyes, caves unexplored. Her cheeks, new meadows. Her voice, soon to be his favorite song.
This at last is bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh.
She is him, but not him. His bones, his rib — enfleshed, reshaped, beautified.
Oh, she shall be called Woman,because she was taken out of Man.
He from dust; she from him. He staggers beneath God’s kindness. His wife, his helper, taken from him to fit with him on mission. Eve, the mother of all living, his wonder in paradise.
Eyes of the Poetic Life
The first words out of man’s mouth in Scripture form a poem. Man is poetic because his God, in whose image he is sculpted, is the Highest Poet. God is the Great Lover of beauty, and the Great Beauty Triune.
Expressive Adam, we may not necessarily say, practiced poetic effort — he seems to simply wake to sing his final draft without the thorns and thistles we encounter in our own composition. What he seemed to do seamlessly, we say and write with first drafts, deletions, edits, scouring for that word, that phrase, that image, that captures the naked reality God sets before us. A reality seen and marveled at by all who know and love the truth.
But let me further clarify. What I invite you to is not simply to add some color to your preaching or prose or evangelism — more metaphor and more creativity to your writing. I invite you deeper into the poetic life, to reclaim that due wonder at the world and her God.
This is often what we love most about those enchanted Christian writers, isn’t it? We don’t return to them so much for their pens, as for their eyes — eyes that saw the unseen, beheld God and his glory draped over all the world. The poetic life, the Godward life, is not just for artsy types who like that sort of thing, but for those who know they live in the concluding chapter of the best tale that could be told.
When Names Fall Away
Dumb idols cannot enrapture like our God. Even out of Eden, his cursed world still boasts of vivid blues and deep reds, still grows mangos and whispers sunsets. Our God upholds the galaxies with a word and then bends down to paint the cardinal red.
And we know that this is all but a stage to unfold the story where God’s Beloved Son spoke the galaxies into existence by a word and then bent down to paint a cross red. Hill, that is a hasty name for Queen Golgotha as she stooped low to enthrone her Creator. And at the end of this story (and in another sense at its beginning), the higher husband, the New Adam who slept a darker sleep and woke to a better dream, will sing with higher significance to his perfected Eve:
This at last is bone of my bonesAnd flesh of my flesh;She shall be called the church,Because she was taken out of the Son of Man.
We refuse to stop at names until names flee into irrelevance when we see him face to face.
