The second political
apocalypticism with very little religious tolerance, espoused by the Fifth Monarchists of the 17th
vision is of a theocratic as
century.
Believing that God was about to establish his millennial kingdom on earth accompanied by the rule of the saints, they wanted to move quickly from pluralism to unity with no room for religious diversity. Only a minority of Baptists have ever been attracted to this, but Coffey concludes, “Insofar as there are Baptists today who endorse the theocratic blueprint of Christian reconstructionism, a movement partly inspired by dreams of the millennium, this second vision survives.”3 But Coffey sees the greatest proportion of Baptists
as being firm upholders of what he calls the “Christian nation” position, with its assumption that Christianity should be at the heart of the political nation. The holders of this view “have not been averse to supporting systematic discrimination against ‘outsiders’ who did not share the
Helwys’ plea for religious freedom is truly remarkable because nobody was really discussing it at that time in England. . . . putting this forward would be
spreading dangerous religious ideas, would be seen as threatening the security of the state.
The third [position] tries to see everything through a consensus around the concept of a Christian society – a consensus that may be more wishfully imagined than real, and its proponents might use it to discriminate against divergent religious views, especially of other faiths.
orthodox Protestant faith.” It is not difficult to see how this has worked out in different ways in the concepts of “Christian England” or “Christian America.” I believe that in England it has led to some reluctance of Baptists to be true to their roots in full religious freedom because there are times when they have been very happy to hang onto the coat tails of the Established Church of England in its more ready access to the State on crucial issues. Each of these positions leads to a different view of
religious freedom and its limits. The first allows full religious freedom, and encourages dialogue about the collective morality of a society, but begs the question about how and where that moral consensus is to be achieved. The second is hardly tolerant at all of other religious beliefs and practices because of its imminent expectation of the full establishment of the Kingdom of God. The third tries to see everything through a consensus around the concept of a Christian society – a consensus that may be more wishfully imagined than real, and its proponents might use it to discriminate against divergent religious views, especially of other faiths.
So despite our Baptist rhetoric on this issue, if we are
to accept Coffey’s thesis, the outworking of our Baptist commitment to religious freedom is not as straightforward as it might first appear. And I believe that is still the case today.
Anthony Peck is BWA regional secretary for Europe and
general secretary of the European Baptist Federation. This is an excerpt from a lecture delivered at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic.
1
2 3
J Coffey, “From Helwys to Leland: Baptists and Religious Tolerance
in England and America, 1612-1791” in Bebbington (ed) Studies in Baptist History and Thought: The Gospel in the World, Paternoster, 2002, pp 21-2.
op.cit., 2 p 34
op.cit., p 35
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