June 29, 2007

Truett's Famed Religious Liberty Sermon Celebrated in D.C.

By John Pierce
 

WASHINGTON, D.C — Eighty-seven years after George W. Truett thundered a well-received call for separation of church and state to more than10,000 Southern Baptists gathered in the nation’s capital, a smaller, yet more diverse, group of Baptists paid tribute to the legendary Baptist pastor’s enduring message and heard calls for a renewed commitment to full religious liberty.

The June 29 event sponsored by the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty took place in Fountain Plaza near the U.S. Capitol where Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, gave his May 16, 1920 address from the east steps calling for guaranteed religious liberty for all people.

While noting that President George Washington laid the physical cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793, Congressman Chet Edwards (D-Texas) said, “It’s true foundation is on the first freedom — freedom of religion.”

Edwards said former Baylor University chancellor Herb Reynolds, who died last month, gave him a copy of Truett’s sermon several years ago that “made an indelible imprint on my mind and spirit” and caused the defense of religious liberty to “become my political calling in life.

“Our religious freedom must be protected by each generation,” Edwards warned. “There are politicians in each generation, in the name of religion, who would do it great harm.”

Edwards, along with fellow Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) addressed the crowd, composed mostly of persons attending meetings of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches, USA. BJC Executive Director Brent Walker introduced Edwards and Scott as leading members of Congress committed to preserving religious liberty.

Scott spoke of current church-state challenges such as President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives program that “allows discrimination with federal funds.” He urged Baptists committed to full religious liberty to “continue to make your voices heard.”

Alliance of Baptists leader Stan Hastey referenced the “sunny May day” in 1920 when Truett, influenced by John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, and the reading of Baptist newspapers that came to his North Carolina home as a child, gave his famed address.

“By every account it was a remarkable occasion,” said Hastey, whose introduction was followed by nine Baptist leaders reading excerpts from Truett’s lengthy and influential sermon.

The readers were: Amy Butler of Washington’s Calvary Baptist Church, Steven Case of First Baptist Church of Mansfield, Penn., Quinton Dixie of Indiana University-Purdue University, Pamela Durso of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, Jeffrey Haggray of the D.C. Baptist Convention, Robert Marus of Associated Baptist Press, Julie Pennington-Russell of First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., William D. Underwood of Mercer University and Daniel Vestal of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

“Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right,” read Vestal from Truett’s sermon. “…God wants free worshippers or no other kind.” Haggray echoed Truett’s affirmation that religious liberty “was preeminently a Baptist achievement.”

Large sections of Truett’s address, not read at the Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty, dealt with Baptist doctrines and even challenged Roman Catholic theology and practice. Yet Truett concluded that “ a Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty for his Catholic neighbor, and for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else.”

At the rally’s conclusion, BJC General Counsel Holly Hollman said the religious liberty enjoyed by Americans today is worth the efforts of Truett and others before and since who have given themselves to the cause.

“Religious liberty is our right,” said Hollman, “and its protection our responsibility.”

(John Pierce is executive editor of Baptists Today, an autonomous, national news journal based in Macon, Ga.)