Baptist identities.
Gourley, Bruce T.
The distinguishing character, or identity, of Baptists was forged
quickly in a hot fire. Early Baptist Thomas Helwys, testifying to a new
faith that would eventually give rise to the Baptist nomenclature, in
1612 shocked the English-speaking world. That year in England he
published a book titled A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity,
publicly distilling the founding principles of the newly-born sect and
voicing the most radical of agendas. Foremost he demanded equal freedom
of conscience for all--Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, everyone--in
the most important sphere of life: religion.
The book served as an ideological dagger in the heart of the West,
a world long structured on religion mandated by absolute monarchical
rule and Church alliance. By sending the king a copy of the book and
including a handwritten note reminding James I that he was neither God
nor commanded authority over the consciences of his subjects, Helwys
demonstrated audacious boldness. For his impetuousness Helwys was jailed
in Newgate Prison, where he died a martyr's death some four years
later. Yet Baptist calls for freedom continued, presaging the
Enlightenment.
TWo centuries of beatings, torture, and jailings on two continents
failed to dilute Baptists' revolutionary freedom principles. Those
convictions, Joshua Shepherd ("Ye Are Called Unto Liberty")
reminds us, engendered incredulous opposition during the American
Revolution from some of the leading men determined to win political
freedom from Great Britain.
The coming of age of Baptists, however, presented new opportunities
and challenges. Cognizant of their freedom heritage, many
early-nineteenth-century northern Baptists embraced abolitionism and
human equality as universal, righteous values worthy of national
implementation. Conversely, white Baptists of the South positioned black
enslavement as theological doctrine requiring government enforcement.
Roger Williams' "wall of separation" between church and
state largely fell aside as Baptist leaders of the South heralded the
Confederacy as an explicitly Christian nation.
Attaining post-war majoritarian status, an ideology of religious
superiority seeped into national Baptist consciousness. By 1890 North
Dakota Baptists, yet fresh upon the high western prairie, spoke of the
need to preserve Protestants' "religious privilege" in
America (Chris Price, "Spreading American Values and the
Gospel"), pushing aside Baptists' historical commitment of
religious equality for all, including Roman Catholics.
The wresting from white southerners of bodily freedom for African
Americans via the Civil War allowed black Baptists to express their own
denominational identity. Hang Zou and Warren C. Hope, in "Black
Missionary Baptist Ministers and the Burden of the Great
Commission," argue that while Missionary Baptist ministers in
Southwest Georgia of the late nineteenth century viewed missionary work
as important to their pastoral identity, parishioners, exercising their
own autonomy, remained ambivalent about the matter. Baptists'
freedom principles determined the outcome of the friction between clergy
and laity.
Focusing on a later generation of black Baptist leadership, Wesley
Carter in "C. T. Vivian: Champion of Civil Rights" presents
freedom and equality as central to Vivian's Baptist identity.
Finally, David J. Cameron, in "With Their Own People:
Mexican-American, African-American, and Anglo Baptists in Texas,
1900-1965," explores the nuances and friction engendered by
distinctly ethnic Baptist identities in the state of Texas, wherein
Anglo Baptists' paternalism precluded equality.
Collectively, this edition of the Journal thus explores many
dimensions of evolving Baptist identities, revealing some of the ways
that Baptists in America through the centuries and in response to
changing circumstances remained true to, repositioned, or refuted
Baptists' historical commitment to freedom and equality.
Bruce T. Gourley
Executive Director
