The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
John Boyle. Reprinted in Sandoz, Ellis, ed. 1991. Political Sermons of the Founding Era, 1730–1804. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, pp. 327–68.
McLoughlin, William G. 1967. Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition. Boston: Little, Brown.
Richards, Peter Judson 2001. “‘A Clear and Steady Channel’: Isaac Backus and the Limits of Liberty.” Journal of Church and State 43 (Summer): 447–82.
Wood, Jerome H., Jr. 1977. “For Truth and Reputation: The New England Friends’ Dispute with Isaac Backus.” New England Quarterly 50 (September): 458–83.
Baptists
The nation’s largest Protestant denomination with over sixteen million members is the Southern Baptist Convention. It is only one of a number of Baptist groups, almost all of which take a high view of biblical inspiration and of the importance of the Bible as a guide to personal conduct. In contrast to both the Episcopal and Presbyterian traditions, Baptists reject any hierarchy above local churches. 42Similarly, Baptists generally eschew creeds, fearing that they might displace emphasis on Scriptures. Like the Restoration movement, often associated with Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ, Baptists try to replicate the early church, with the so-called Landmarkism movement within the group actually claiming that the early church was Baptistic rather than Catholic in orientation (Hudnut-Beumler 2018, 70).
Essentially an offshoot of Puritanism, Baptists had distinctive views of baptism, which they consider to be an ordinance that does not have saving value but that provides testimony to an inward conversion. Consistent with their view of Scripture, they believe that such baptism should be by full immersion in water (rather than by sprinkling) and that, because it is a symbol of an inward work, it should not be performed (as Puritans did) on infants but only on those who can make a conscious decision to follow Christ.
Although they were otherwise fairly theologically close to the Puritans, Roger Williams, who is often identified as the first Baptist in America, was expelled from the Massachusetts colony and went on to found the state of Rhode Island. Perhaps in part because they were members of such a minority, Baptists were among the first to advocate for separation of church and state, particularly with respect to an established church or using tax money for its support; they believed that such support invariably led to the corruption of the church’s mission, which was called, consistent with Galatians 1:4 and 2 Corinthians 6:17, to avoid worldliness. This view was forcefully articulated by John Leland and Isaac Backus and embodied in the establishment clause of the First Amendment. James Madison had been particularly appalled by the incarceration of Baptist pastors in Culpepper, Virginia, for preaching without licenses from what was then the established church of the state.
Baptists and Methodists—a movement founded by John Wesley (1703–1791), which, like Puritanism, was originally designed to refine the Episcopal Church rather than to establish a new denomination—were at the forefront of revivalist campaigns during the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century, which often depended on ministers whose qualifications centered on their perceived sense of calling to the ministry rather than on theological education. Although some Baptists were strict Calvinists who believed in double predestination (neither the elect nor the nonelect could change their eternal destinies), revivalists tended to lean toward the Arminian view that individuals had a choice as to whether to accept or reject salvation by believing in Christ. This has been true of subsequent Baptist evangelists like Billy Graham. Like other major denominations of the day, Baptists broke into Northern and Southern wings on the basis of biblical interpretations opposing or supporting slavery.
Baptists believe it is the duty of every Christian to help spread the gospel, and they have been active in mission movements. They have traditionally advocated strict modes of personal behavior and in earlier years often expelled members who fell short of such standards. Although some have since liberalized these views, Bill Leonard observes that their “sin-list” typically “included alcohol, illicit sex, gambling, card playing, dancing, motion pictures, tobacco, tattoos, rock music, and assorted other public and private evils” (2005, 232). In the 43nineteenth century, Baptists were strong advocates of temperance and often included a temperance pledge as part of their qualifications of membership. In the twentieth century, they have joined battles against pornography, sponsored a “true love waits” campaign designed to combat premarital sex, and generally have opposed same-sex marriage. Many have also opposed liberal abortion laws. Unlike many other denominations, Baptists put primary emphasis on the power of each individual congregation, and while associations of such churches may from time to time expel or disassociate themselves from a particular congregation, they cannot otherwise exercise power over it. Recent years have witnessed deep divisions within the Southern Baptist Church (Barnhart 1986).
In the 1970s, Baptist minister Jerry Falwell helped create the Moral Majority, which emphasized opposition to moral vices and a number of today’s megachurches are led by Baptist pastors. In more recent years, the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, a small independent Primitive Baptist congregation that believes that God has chosen his elect and brings judgment on all others, has garnered headlines by demonstrating at funerals of American soldiers and proclaiming that their deaths are a result of God’s condemnation of a nation that permits homosexuality and other behavior that its members consider to be immoral. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment shielded its members from civil liability for such actions in Snyder v. Phelps (2011). Its pastor Fred Phelps, who was also a civil rights attorney, died in 2014.
See also Backus, Isaac; Falwell, Jerry; Graham, Billy; Leland, John; Madison, James; Puritans; Williams, Roger
For Reference and Further Reading
Barnhart, Joe Edward. 1986. The Southern Baptist Holy War. Austin: Texas Monthly Press.
Barrett-Fox, Rebecca. 2016. God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Canipe, Lee. 2011. A Baptist Democracy: Separating God and Caesar in the Land of the Free. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
Hudnut-Beumler, James. 2018. Strangers and Friends at the Welcome Table: Contemporary Christianities in the American South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Leonard, Bill J. 1987. “Independent Baptists: From Sectarian Minority to ‘Moral Majority.” Church History 56 (December): 504–17.
Leonard, Bill J. 2005. Baptists in America. New York: Columbia University Press.
McLoughlin, William G. 1991. Soul Liberty: The Baptists’ Struggle in New England, 1630–1833. Hanover, NH: Brown University Press.
Rosen, Leo, ed. 1975. Religions of America. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 433 (2011).
Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Battle Hymn of the Republic is also among the nation’s most biblically inspired songs. It was adopted from “Say, Brothers, Will You Meet / On Canaan’s Happy Shore.” Described as “a Southern camp-meeting spiritual,” it was first published by the Methodist circuit-rider Stith Mead in a hymnbook in 1807 under the title “Grace Reviving in the Soul” (Stauffer 2015, 124). In its original 44form, it was structured as a call-and response with the question, “O brothers will you meet me, On Canaan’s happy shore?” met with the response, “By the grace of God I’ll meet you, On Canaan’s happy shore.” The chorus intoned:
We’ll shout and give him glory, we’ll shout and give him
glory,
We’ll shout and give him glory, for glory is his own. (Stauffer 2015,