Something near and dear to Baptist history — religious liberty — “is being sorely tried today,” said Mark DeVine, associate professor of divinity history and doctrine at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham.
Early Baptist leader Thomas Helwys became the first person in history in 1612 to call for “radical religious liberty, extending even to atheists” and for his views Helwys was arrested, tried, convicted and jailed, DeVine told The Alabama Baptist.
Yet religious liberty as Baptists and Americans in general have known it throughout history will suffer a critical setback if a new U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) report is followed.
Civil rights guarantees
In the Sept. 7 report, USCCR declared nondiscrimination protections “are of preeminent importance in American jurisprudence” and religious exemptions from safeguards for such classifications as sexual orientation and gender identity “significantly infringe upon” those civil rights guarantees.
USCCR Chairman Martin Castro wrote in a statement included in the report, “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”
With such language, USCCR and Castro indicated the rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people should prevail when they clash with the rights of Americans who have religious conscience objections.
The legal and legislative advances of the LGBT and same-sex “marriage” movements have prompted debate for at least the last decade on how the conflict between religious liberty and what has become known as sexual liberty should be resolved. USCCR is now on record favoring sexual liberty.
Relating the history of the U.S. Constitution to the report and Castro’s comments “must shock anyone familiar with the views and intentions of the framers of the Constitution … who believed religious liberty was essential to provide a moral anchor and guide for the United States,” DeVine said.
“Under the guise of tolerance, a new intolerance for religious belief is gaining strength in the land of liberty,” he said.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), called the USCCR language on religious freedom a “logical, moral and political disaster.”
“For this administration to argue that religious liberty is merely a euphemism for unlawful discrimination demonstrates how deeply entrenched our federal government is in a culture war mentality against religious dissidents,” Moore told Baptist Press in written comments.
“Freedom of conscience isn’t privilege or luxury; it is the first freedom, without which no other freedom can exist,” Moore said. “This hostile attitude toward tens of millions of law-abiding Americans is tragic, and my prayer is that it would quickly give way to a recognition that soul freedom is worth defending for all.”
Tom Fuller, a Beeson professor, said of Castro’s comments, “While there certainly have been … those who appropriate the principle of religious liberty to justify actions that do not bring honor to the name of Jesus Christ, the categorical dismissal of a First Amendment protection belies a prejudice and discrimination of another sort.”
In the report titled, “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles With Civil Liberties,” the commission endorsed briefing panelists’ statements in support of other findings undoubtedly of concern to religious freedom defenders, including:
4A doctrine that distinguishes between beliefs (which should be protected) and conduct (which should conform to the law) is fairer and easier to apply;
4Third parties, such as employees, should not be forced to live under the religious doctrines of their employers [unless the employer is allowed to impose such constraints by virtue of the ministerial exception];
4A basic [civil] right as important as the freedom to marry should not be subject to religious beliefs;
4Even a widely accepted doctrine such as the ministerial exemption should be subject to review as to whether church employees have religious duties.
In addition to its findings, USCCR made recommendations narrowing religious liberty protections. It said courts, legislators and policy-makers “must tailor religious exceptions to civil liberties and civil rights protections as narrowly as applicable law requires.”
Two USCCR commissioners contributed statements to the report that disagreed with the majority.
Relating back to the work of Baptists in history, Fuller said, “[Baptists] have fiercely advanced the cause of religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all Americans in days past, and we should continue to do so in this new and challenging time. But we must do so in a Christlike spirit of humble confidence in the finished work of Jesus Christ.”
No compromise
Fuller also said, “We should be equally passionate about defending religious liberty for all without compromising the essentials of our own faith. Ultimately our security is not grounded in legislative preferences but in the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work.”
USCCR, established in 1957 as a nonpartisan entity, consists of eight members, four appointed by the president and four by Congress. The president names the chairman and vice chairman of the panel. (BP, Neisha Roberts)
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