Marty Tate on the Separation of Church and State

The Biblical Doctrines of Separation of Church and State and Religious Liberty

by Marty Tate 61 Stave Mill Rd Dunlap TN 37327 dmtate@bledsoe.net

I am afraid that we have fallen into, or are in danger of falling into some ideas about religious liberty that are unbiblical and that go against historic Baptist doctrine.
We are going to look at the Old and New Testament scriptures that deal with this, but first I’d like for you to answer these two questions:

1. Does the Bible teach the separation of church and state?
2. Does the Constitution contain the separation of church and state?

We have been on the receiving end of a Christian media blitz for quite some time now.
If you tune your radio to a Christian station or if you happen to get on the mailing list of any one of a hundred “ministries” you have been bombarded by the notion that the separation of church and state is a myth.

It brings in lot of money when you send mail out to the masses and put the fear of the godless humanists into us by telling us that the humanists are pushing the separation of church and state, but that such separation of church and state really never existed

The character of the American people at the founding of America was without question Christian, but did our Founding Fathers believe in the separation of church and state?

Absolutely!

Before we get too far down this path, let’s define what we mean by the “separation of church and state.”

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

That means just what it says. Congress is forbidden to make any law of any sort that deals with religion; Congress is not allowed to set up a state church or denomination; Congress is not allowed to prohibit anyone from the free exercise of their religion. The restriction is upon Congress, not upon “religion.”

The phrase “separation of church and state” came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association.

When Thomas Jefferson used the phrase “separation of church and state” he meant that the Federal government was forbidden by the Constitution to touch the issue of religion. He certainly did not mean that Christianity could not influence the government nor that public religious expression was forbidden, but that is the re-definition of the phrase “separation of church and state” that has been forced upon us by the courts over the past 50 years.

The pagan humanists do not like to retain God in their knowledge, and so they have been very active in re-defining the terms of the debate so that now “separation of church and state,” as far as the average person is concerned, means that there is to be no mention of the God of the Bible in public. When people think of religious liberty, they think they have the right to never be offended by people who actually believe in the God of the Bible.

But Baptists have long adhered to the truth of the doctrine of liberty of conscience and Biblical separation of church and state. Baptists and other dissenters against church/state religions have been persecuted for the last 2000 years!

Baptists were persecuted by pagans until Constantine wedded the state to the church, beginning the Roman Catholic system. Then the Roman Catholics picked up the persecution of Baptists and carried it on through the next 1500 years. After the Protestant Reformation, the harlot’s daughters picked up the temporal sword and persecuted our forefathers with as much zeal as mother Rome had done, and if either one were in the position of power today they would do so again!

Baptists are not Protestants! Baptists protested against the persecution of church/state religion for 1200 years before Luther or Calvin was ever born!

“Until 1899, every Baptist historian in the world acknowledged the Baptists as ancient people tracing their principles back to Christ and His disciples…” (James Beller, The Coming Destruction of the Baptist People pp. 1-3)

Not only Baptist historians, but Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and other Protestant historians are forced to concede that Baptist principles are ancient.

Spurgeon said:

“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians…Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others.”

There is the key: The Baptists have been persecuted by the pagans, the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, but Baptists have persecuted NO ONE! Baptists have held the doctrine of liberty of conscience for the last 2000 years in the face of some of the most severe persecution that the demon-inspired enemies of God could dream up! Their history has been obscured and suppressed by their enemies, even though it was written in their very life’s blood.

Although we have been taught that the Pilgrims and Puritans came to America seeking religious freedom, there was no religious freedom for the Baptists and other dissenters against the religious establishment. The Pilgrims tolerated other sects. The Puritans persecuted other sects. The Baptists sought full religious liberty.”

During the 1600-1700’s:

“The Congregationalists in Massachusetts established a state church system and demanded attendance at worship, taxes for the upkeep of the buildings, and that infants be baptized. In other colonies, the Presbyterians did the same, and in Virginia, the Anglicans were busy beating and killing the non-conformist Baptists…Thomas Gould died from his suffering for not having his child baptized by the ‘standing order.’ His other crime? He pastored a church in his house without a license.

“In 1629 the Virginia Assembly forbade any minister lacking Episcopal ordination to officiate in the colony, and this rule was enforced by severe penalties up to the Revolution. Baptists were also taxed for the support of the Episcopal Church, and their property was seized and sold to pay such taxes.” (Greg Dixon, The Trail of Blood Revisited, p. 8)

Our Baptist forefathers believed and preached that:

1) the conscience of a man was answerable to God and God alone;
2) that the conscience was beyond the reach of the civil government, even though the civil government is ordained by God; and
3) that the church was to be completely separate and free from interference from the state.

This concept of the separation of church and state or religious liberty can be found in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.

Let’s consider what the Old Testament has to say.

• Under the Old Testament law, the priesthood was limited to the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron.

• The royal line of Israel was limited to the tribe of Judah and the family of David after the death of Saul.

So you see that the government of Israel and the priesthood of Israel were separate. As a matter of fact, the kingdom was taken from Saul because he intruded into the priest’s office according to 1 Samuel 13:7-14.

King Uzziah was stricken with leprosy for intruding into the priest’s office. See 2 Chronicles 26:15b-21.

So there was a separation of powers between the religious realm and the political realm, even in theocratic Israel. However, this did not stop the prophets from preaching “thus saith the Lord” to the king when the king apostatized and led the people astray into idolatry.

We see this principle in our First Amendment. The government is prohibited from dealing with religious matters, but Christians are not prohibited from having an effect upon the government.

We can find the principles of separation of church and state in the Ten Commandments.

The first table of the law, or the first four commandments, has to do with man’s responsibility towards God; the second table, or the last six commandments, has to do with man’s responsibility towards other men.

The second table is the only one that the civil government is allowed to deal with, because these are where overt acts come into play.

Roger Williams was tried in court and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for teaching that “the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such case as did disturb the civil peace.”

Over 100 years after Williams, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in which he said virtually the same thing:

“to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty…it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order”

I may hold any opinion I wish. It is not until my opinion becomes illegal action that the civil government may interfere. Of course, that would open up the question of whether or not conscience required obedience to God over obedience to the civil government. A man may be coerced into obedience, but you still have not reached his conscience or his opinions. These are completely out of the reach of another man! Only the Holy Spirit of God can change the heart!

The New Testament also clearly teaches the principles of the separation of church and state and religious liberty.

The principle of the separation of church and state is seen in Matthew 22:21:
Jesus said: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Many have misinterpreted this passage to mean that the government is to be obeyed in every single matter. Scripture does not bear this out. God is the only Sovereign, and God is the only one to whom we owe our complete obedience. Civil government, although ordained by God, is not God, and may not step into God’s jurisdiction. There are some things that are out of Caesar’s reach. It would be sin to render to Caesar those things that belong to God, and/or for Caesar to demand our obedience when it would require disobedience to God!

The established Protestant denominations of colonial times required attendance at their church services by law. History records that many Baptists (and other dissenters) were persecuted for their refusal to attend. In 1651, Dr. John Clarke and Obadiah Holmes were arrested for holding an unauthorized meeting (i.e. a Baptist church service) in a private home on a Sunday. They were fined heavily and Holmes was beaten severely.

If the passage from Romans 14 isn’t clear enough, the Holy Ghost gave us Colossians 2:16-17. We aren’t to allow others to judge us in these matters of the days we keep and the foods we eat. We are free from Sabbath keeping. We are not required by the New Testament to keep the Sabbath.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not arguing against holding church services on Sunday. Each church is autonomous and has the right to determine its meeting times and places before the Lord according to the Bible, but when the Protestant denominations held official status in the colonies, persecution was the order of the day in matters of conscience.

Jesus warned the disciples against religious persecution in Luke 9:49-56.

First, the disciples wanted to make sure that they held door so that only those who were approved by them were allowed to be disciples. John told the Lord that he had forbad another man, who was not part of their group and yet was casting out devils in the name of Jesus. From the parallel account in Mark 9:38-41 we know that apart from Jesus no one had any power to cast out devils. Jesus said: Forbid him not…

Jesus did not allow the disciples to become the arbiters of who was in and who was out. He did not allow them to establish themselves as the door of entrance into an established religious circle; there is already a door of entrance and His Name is Jesus.

We see this in the independence and autonomy of the local church. All independent Baptist churches are just that: independent. We don’t answer to any denominational entity or head. Each church has Christ as its Head and its only Lawgiver and its pastor as the under-shepherd. No ecclesiastical body has any authority over any New Testament church.

In Luke 9:54 we find the disciples wanting to do a little religious persecution.

These Samaritan dogs had not received Jesus, so James and John wanted to be like Elijah and call down fire from heaven to consume them. They wanted to persecute these people in a matter of conscience and religion, but Jesus rebuked them for their persecuting spirit! Jesus told them that He had come to save men’s lives, not destroy them. That is how we are to operate today. We are to persuade men’s hearts and minds through the gospel message; not coerce them into outward obedience by the force of law or persecution.

James Madison, in his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments of 1785 said:

“We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, ‘that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.’ The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man… Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man.”

Man must be convinced by the gospel, because he cannot be forced to believe anything.

In John 18:33 & 36 we see that Jesus did not call upon the temporal sword of the civil magistrate in His time of need.

When Jesus was before Pilate He very plainly said that His kingdom was not of this world, and wasn’t about to overthrow the government.

Jesus is very much the King of kings, but His is not a temporal kingdom. It is an eternal kingdom that is not revolutionary against the civil government. However, the early churches were revolutionary in that they preached the gospel and saw people saved and brought under the Headship of King Jesus and it shook the Roman Empire to its very foundations; so much so that the Caesars saw the Christians as a threat to their political order.

When people are born again, they quit worshipping Caesar and start preaching another king, one Jesus. This is why the Baptists did not take up arms against the British until they were convinced that they would be free from persecution in matters of religion and conscience.

Dr. Samuel Jones and Isaac Backus addressed the First Continental Congress on behalf of the Philadelphia Baptist Association about this very thing.

Dr. Jones says that “[we] met the delegates in Congress from that State (Massachusetts)…to see if we could not obtain some security for that liberty which we were fighting and bleeding at their side. It seemed unreasonable to us that we should be called to stand up with them in defense of liberty if, after all, it was to be liberty for one party to oppress another.” (William Cathcart, quoted by Dr. Greg Dixon, The Trail of Blood Revisited, p. 13)

After receiving assurances of complete liberty, the Baptists officially recognized the Continental Congress and the War for Independence. Baptists distinguished themselves on the battlefield, both as soldiers and as chaplains.

After the war Baptist principles continued to find acceptance, and eventually were set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Americans in general and Baptists in particular are largely ignorant about the influence of the Baptists upon Jefferson and Madison. Suffice it to say that without the help of Baptist Elder John Leland, the Constitution would probably not have been ratified; at least not when it was.

As recorded by Thomas Armitage, Jefferson was known to visit the Baptist church near Monticello, and was impressed with their model of church government. Dr. D.B. Ray writes that due to that fact: “The government under which we live was formed and fashioned upon the model of a Baptist church.”

Much like the church of Philadelphia, I believe America had set before it an open door. For the first time in the history of the world, a nation was founded upon the principles of religious liberty. For over 200 years we have enjoyed this liberty, but that door is fast closing!

Thank God for our Baptist forefathers who loved not their lives unto the death.

Thank God for America, and the principles of liberty that she once stood for.

Thank God that we still enjoy religious toleration, if not religious liberty.

Pray God that we will take full advantage of the time we have left, and the small crack in the door of liberty to preach the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.

From Pastor Marty Tate, Peaceful Valley Baptist Church, Rising Fawn, GA

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