Baptists were originally champions of religious liberty. And by “liberty” I don’t mean the freedom to discriminate against others according to petty prejudices. I mean the kind of liberty that recognizes the need for individuals to follow their own consciences, free from coercion by the state or by one’s fellow man. Unlike the established churches of Europe, Baptists in America pioneered the concept of the separation of church and state.

None other than Thomas Jefferson himself acknowledged the early Baptist heritage which informed his own inclusion of a “wall of separation between Church and State” (his words) into the structure of the United States government (read his letter to the Danbury Baptists here). Not everyone in early America wanted that separation, but the view that won out championed the need for a religiously neutral public square (for more about that, see my “Religious Liberty is a Two-Edged Sword“). Baptists where I live seem to have completely forgotten their history and their heritage.

Which is why I’m happy to see Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, reaffirming the need for this freedom to extend to all ideologies, not just religious ones. The freedom of religion must by extension include a freedom from religion or else it is not truly freedom at all. When Openly Secular‘s Todd Stiefel reached out to him about the campaign, he agreed to offer a statement of his own affirming his support for the Openly Secular campaign.

Akin says:

We do believe together that no one should be coerced when it comes to their particular religious beliefs. Whether they are religious or not religious, they should have the freedom to express what they believe, and they should be able to do so without hatred, without discrimination. They should not be put down because they happen to disagree with another person in terms of what they believe.

Thank you, Dr. Akin. I’ve been saying this for years but that’s the first time in recent memory that I’ve heard a Southern Baptist spokesperson embrace a fully consistent view of religious liberty, extending the concept even to those of us who do not share a belief in supernatural beings. And from a conservative seminary president, no less. Here’s hoping more will follow his lead.