As someone who found myself swimming in these Baptist waters only recently in life, perhaps the thing I was most surprised to learn about was Baptist advocacy. You see, my only context for Baptists, prior to finding myself in this community, were those southern kin of ours whose Baptist identity has come to be a symbol with misogyny and homophobia, a symbol of oppression and strict uniformity rather than these Baptist freedoms that we cherish.
But Baptist advocacy, I have learned, is foundational to the very beginning of the Baptist movement. Early Baptist leader, Thomas Helwys, advocated for the religious freedom of all people – whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, and even heretics. Advocating that all people have the right to religious freedom because one’s religion is not for the king to decide. And for saying so, he was arrested by King James I and died in prison.
Other Baptist leaders have continued this advocacy. Roger Williams, who fled religious persecution first in England then in the Massachusetts Bay colony, founded the colony of Rhode Island as a place of religious freedom for all and established there the first Baptist congregation in colonial America. And John Leland, who played an important role in convincing James Madison to include religious liberty in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
There are those like Maria W. Stewart, a Black women born in a free family, who was an abolitionist, exercising her freedoms of religion and speech to defy the U.S. government and speak publicly about religion, women’s rights, abolition and prejudice.
And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, an advocate and a prominent leader in the civil rights movement, who spoke about religious liberty saying that “the church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.” And throughout his life, he got into lots of good trouble for his beliefs and advocacy, being imprisoned many times for his advocacy before being assassinated.
These figures and so many more unnamed leaders and advocates are crucial to Baptist history and what it means to be Baptist. To be Baptist is to demand freedom, freedom of religion, yes, and so many other freedoms that are wrapped up with it. Freedom to exercise religion, for some folks, means the right to discriminate or perpetrate violence against certain other groups of people. For some, freedom of religion means freedom to hate, to dehumanize, to harm other groups of people. So when it comes to Baptist advocacy, it also means rejecting these twisted understandings of religious freedom.
I have had the great honor of working these last two years for BJC, or the Baptist Joint Committee for religious liberty, an organization of a nearly 90-year history of advocating for faith freedom for all. We work not merely for Baptists or even Christians, but for the rights and freedoms of all our neighbors, regardless of religion, race, sexuality, gender, documentation, or any other identity marker.
And today, following in the centuries-long heritage of Baptist advocacy, we resist the ideology of white Christian nationalism – this authoritarian threat to our constitutional democracy and to Christian faith. Christian nationalism merges American and Christian identities, suggesting that to be a good Christian one must be an American with certain political beliefs and to be a good American one must be a Christian with certain theological beliefs.
As Christian nationalism works its way into our local, state, and federal government, it uses Christian religion as a weapon to oppress and systematically strip rights away from women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and more – in order to protect and further concretize the privilege and domination of white, Christian men. None of us are safe against this authoritarian threat, and as Baptists and Christians, we have an important role to play in resisting this threat and advocating for policy and practices that promote a more just, equitable, and inclusive society. As white Christian nationalism continues to fuel our political leaders to engage direct violence toward us and our neighbors, Baptist advocacy is as important as it has ever been.
These are alarming times, yet I consider it gift that I have had the opportunity to participate in this mission with BJC and to explore my vocation and witness through this work. This legacy of advocacy is why I have remained in these Baptist waters – because to be Baptist is to advocate not only for my personal rights or those of my community of belonging, but for the rights of all those who are threatened by the State.