Two Streams of Concern for the Patriot and the Baptist

Two Streams of Concern for the Patriot and the Baptist

As unrest concerning the Chinese coronavirus shelter orders grows, we’re hearing more and more from Christians citing rights, and heritage. I think that works so long as we speak only of Christian heritage dating back to the founding of the United States. As a Baptist who has spent considerable time looking at the history of the ancient Anabaptists ^[1] I see two separate issues at play. As a Baptist, I do not believe my heritage as a Christian, and as an American are synonymous. 

Freedom to assemble, the liberty to worship God according to one’s own conscience is well-grounded in American heritage.

Many Christians in America are willing to defend that liberty today, viewing it at threatened by current policies that seem random and, in some ways, pointed against churches. It is interesting that so many of these churches are not Baptist but stringently fight for what was provided to them by the Baptists in the earliest days of our country. While our country’s history, heritage, and Constitution do provide freedom of assembly and the liberty to worship God according to one’s own conscience, this argument marries church and state. It provides that our freedom of worship is a matter of state. This marriage of church and state is a fundamental and historic principle of Protestantism (as well as Catholicism).

Separation of Church and State is the genuine history of the Baptists

The ancient Anabaptists had little to nothing to do with the State. This position put them at odds with almost every government in which they found themselves from the very first days of Christianity, whether it was the Jewish state of Israel in Paul’s day, the Romans through the 4^th century or the Catholic led monarchs of Europe until the founding of the United States. Anabaptists, the forefathers I follow, held they had but one sovereign, Jesus Christ. Thus, they would not abide to attend the state-sanctioned churches.^[2] They met in secret meetings^[3] in the woods, in barns, and in the backrooms of buildings.^[4] They never protested governments for the right to worship because they did not receive their command to worship from the government. They did what they did because God convicted them to do it. 

·      They were quiet about their meetings

·      They were persistent to continue their meetings

·      They were witnesses outside their meetings

Baptists today have simply become another of the great melting pot of protestant churches. 

·      We have buildings

·      We have debt because of those buildings

·      We have advertised times to meet in those buildings

·      We depend on those meetings for both our outreach and our finances

·      We rely on our American liberties to keep it all functioning

Perhaps it is time to return to simple worship, without the Protestant trappings. Perhaps it is time to worship God because He is God and not because the government gives us the freedom to do it.

We are privileged to live in the United States. I am not at all opposed to exercising our rights of redress. Those legal means at our disposal to appeal to our government are truly a blessing. I am just concerned that we have put too much stock in them.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

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[1] And believing that our roots rightfully trace back to them.

[2] And were persecuted for it.

[3] Believing in assembly, but not wishing to be punished for it.

[4] And, when caught, were persecuted for it.