Author Topic: Baptists demanded separation of church and state  (Read 1404 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Lanya

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3300
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« on: December 12, 2007, 06:19:39 PM »


"The Trail of Blood . . ."
[...........]

16. We give some examples of the hardships of the Baptists in Virginia, and yet strange as it may now seem Virginia was the next place on earth after Rhode Island to adopt religious liberty. But that was more than a century away. But the hardships--as many as 30 preachers at different times, were put in jail with the only charge against them--"for preaching the Gospel of the Son of God." James Ireland is a case in point. He was imprisoned. After imprisonment, his enemies tried to blow him up with gunpowder. That having failed, they next tried to smother him to death by burning sulphur under his windows at the jail. Failing also in this, they tried to arrange with a doctor to poison him. All this failed. He continued to preach to his people from the windows. A wall was then built around his jail so the people could not see in nor he see out, but even that difficulty was overcome. The people gathered, a handkerchief was tied to a long stick, and that stuck up above the walls so Ireland could see when they were ready. The preaching continued.

17. Three Baptist preachers (Lewis and Joseph Craig and Aaron Bledsoe) were later arrested on the same charge. One of them, at least, was a blood relative of R. E. B. Baylor, and possibly of one or more other Texas Baptist preachers. These preachers were arraigned for trial. Patrick Henry, hearing of it and though living many miles away and though a Church of England man himself, rode those miles horseback to the trial and volunteered his services in their defense. Great was his defense. I cannot enter into a description of it here. It swept the court. The preachers were freed.

18. Elsewhere than Rhode Island, religious liberty came slowly and by degrees. For example: In Virginia a law was passed permitting one, but only one, Baptist preacher to a county. He was permitted to preach but once in two months. Later this law was modified, permitting him to preach once in each month. But even then, in only one definite place in the county, and only one sermon on that day, and never to preach at night. Laws were passed not only in Virginia but in colonies elsewhere positively forbidding any Mission work. This was why Judson was the first foreign missionary--law forbade. It took a long time and many hard battles, in the Virginia House of Burgesses, to greatly modify these laws.

19. Evidently, one of the greatest obstructions to religious liberty in America, and probably all over the world as to that, was the conviction which had grown into the people throughout the preceding centuries that religion could not possibly live without governmental support. That no denomination could prosper solely on voluntary offerings by its adherents. And this was the hard argument to meet when the battle was raging for the disestablishment of the Church of England in Virginia, and also later in Congress when the question of religious liberty was being discussed there. For a long time the Baptists fought the battle almost alone,

20. Rhode Island began her colony in 1638, but it was not legally chartered until 1663. There was the first spot where Religious Liberty was granted. The second place was Virginia in 1786. Congress declared the first amendment to the Constitution to be in force December 15, 1791, which granted religious liberty to all citizens, Baptists are credited with being the leaders in bringing this blessing to the nation.

21. We venture to give one early Congressional incident. The question of whether the United States should have an established church or several established churches, or religious liberty, was being discussed. Several different bills had been offered, one recommending the Church of England as the established church; and another the Congregationalist Church, and yet another the Presbyterian. The Baptists, many of them, though probably none of them members of Congress, were earnestly contending for absolute religious liberty. James Madison (afterwards President) seemingly was their main supporter. Patrick Henry arose and offered a substitute bill for them all, "That four churches (or denominations) instead of one be established"--the Church of England, or Episcopal, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and the Baptist. Finally when each of the others saw that IT could not be made the sole established church, they each agreed to accept Henry's compromise. (This compromise bill stated that each person taxed would have the right to say to which denomination of these four his money should go.) The Baptists continued to fight against it all; that any combination of Church and State was against their fundamental principles, that they could not accept it even if voted. Henry pleaded with them, said he was trying to help them, that they could not live without it, but they still protested. The vote was taken--it carried nearly unanimously. But the measure had to be voted on three times. The Baptists, led by Madison and possibly others continued to fight. The second vote came. It also carried almost unanimously, swept by Henry's masterful eloquence. But the third vote had yet to be taken. Now God seemingly intervened. Henry was made Governor of Virginia and left Congress. When the third vote came, deprived of Henry's irresistible eloquence, the vote was lost.

Thus the Baptists came near being an established denomination over their own most solemn protest. This is not the only opportunity the Baptists ever had of becoming established by law, but is probably the nearest they ever came to it.

22. Not long after this, the Church of England was entirely disestablished in America. No religious denomination was supported by the Central Government (a few separated State governments still had establishment), Church and state, so far as the United States was concerned, were entirely separated. These two, Church and State, elsewhere at least, had for 1,500 years (since 313) been living in unholy wedlock. Religious Liberty was, at least here in the United States, resurrected to die no more, and now gradually but in many places slowly, it is spreading throughout the world.

23. But even in the United States, the Church and State idea died hard. It lingered on in several of the separate States, long after Religious Liberty had been put into the Constitution of the United States. Massachusetts, where the Church and State idea first found a lodging place in America, has, as already stated, finally given it up. It had lived there over two and one-half centuries. Utah is the last lingering spot left to disfigure the face of the first and greatest nation on earth to adopt and cherish "Religious Liberty." Remember there can be no real and absolute Religious liberty in any nation where the Government gives its support to one special religious denomination.
[................]

http://users.aol.com/libcfl/trail.htm
Planned Parenthood is America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care.

sirs

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27078
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2007, 07:02:02 PM »
We already have it.  It's called the 1st amendment      ::)
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2007, 11:09:46 PM »
The saying is that when you have two Baptists, you have three opinions.

The Baptist Church has no hierarchy, and has never wanted one. Each church is pretty independent of the national organization.

I grew up in a town that was dominated by a Southern Baptist college. There was one enormous Second Baptist Church (they lost the first one in the civil war or something) but there were four smaller Southern Baptist churches scattered around the edges of town, and usually one or two was not on speaking terms with the major one, which was as big as the county courthouse.

I was raised as a Methodist. A united Methodist, since the Northern and Southern branches had rejoined one another in the 1930's. The American (Northern) and Southern Baptists were no longer divided over slavery, but they have never rejoined into one group. This has something to do with the fact that Black Baptists are welcome in the American Baptist organization ands perhaps less so in the Southern Baptist organization. I am not a Baptist and have not researched this.

Separation of Church and State is an exceptionally good idea.

This is because God has always been especially silent when it comes to politics.
 
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2007, 12:59:04 AM »


This is because God has always been especially silent when it comes to politics.
 

Arn't the scriptures full of advice ment for govenors , wernt there several Judean kings chosen by prophets like Samuel?

I don't understand your meaning.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2007, 01:05:53 AM »


"The Trail of Blood . . ."
[...........]

16. We give some examples of the hardships of the Baptists in Virginia, and yet strange as it may now seem Virginia was the next place on earth after Rhode Island to adopt religious liberty. But that was more than a century away. But the hardships--as many as 30 preachers at different times, were put in jail with the only charge against them--"for preaching the Gospel of the Son of God." James Ireland is a case in point. He was imprisoned. After imprisonment, his enemies tried to blow him up with gunpowder. That having failed, they next tried to smother him to death by burning sulphur under his windows at the jail. Failing also in this, they tried to arrange with a doctor to poison him. All this failed. He continued to preach to his people from the windows. A wall was then built around his jail so the people could not see in nor he see out, but even that difficulty was overcome. The people gathered, a handkerchief was tied to a long stick, and that stuck up above the walls so Ireland could see when they were ready. The preaching continued.

17. Three Baptist preachers (Lewis and Joseph Craig and Aaron Bledsoe) were later arrested on the same charge. One of them, at least, was a blood relative of R. E. B. Baylor, and possibly of one or more other Texas Baptist preachers. These preachers were arraigned for trial. Patrick Henry, hearing of it and though living many miles away and though a Church of England man himself, rode those miles horseback to the trial and volunteered his services in their defense. Great was his defense. I cannot enter into a description of it here. It swept the court. The preachers were freed.

18. Elsewhere than Rhode Island, religious liberty came slowly and by degrees. For example: In Virginia a law was passed permitting one, but only one, Baptist preacher to a county. He was permitted to preach but once in two months. Later this law was modified, permitting him to preach once in each month. But even then, in only one definite place in the county, and only one sermon on that day, and never to preach at night. Laws were passed not only in Virginia but in colonies elsewhere positively forbidding any Mission work. This was why Judson was the first foreign missionary--law forbade. It took a long time and many hard battles, in the Virginia House of Burgesses, to greatly modify these laws.
http://users.aol.com/libcfl/trail.htm

Between the years 1790-1792, Thomas Maxwell was inprisoned for preaching the doctrine of the Baptist faith, several times. On one occasion while in prison, after the manner of St. Paul, he converted the keeper of his jail together with his entire family. Thomas Maxwell not only fought the arm of the devil with feisty zeal, but played a conspicuous part in the American Revolution." HISTORY OF ELBERT COUNTY, GEORGIA, 1790-1936 by John McIntosh, Publ. by Stephen Heard Chapter DAR. "Made a prisoner during the reign of persecution. He preached through the gates of his prison, and in his anxiety to see his congregations, bruised his nose against the bars until it would bleed."




http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mysouthernfamily/myff/d0023/g0000013.html



An ancestor of mine , oh what he could have done with the internet.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2007, 08:47:31 AM »
This is because God has always been especially silent when it comes to politics.
 

Arn't the scriptures full of advice ment for govenors , wernt there several Judean kings chosen by prophets like Samuel?

I don't understand your meaning.
=================================================================================
My meaning is this:

God has had nothing to say about politics for the past 2000 years. He has made zero comments about the conflicts between the Christians and the Moslems, despite the fact that the Moslems claim that their prophet Mohammad, was the last and greatest prophet. God has been mute about the Reformation and the zillion wars fought over religion in Europe during thris peroid. He has said zilch about the French, American, Chinese, Mexican and has offered bupkiss in commentary about the Cold War, WWI. WWII, Chairman Mao or any other political conflict anywhere.

Whatever advice he offered his Chosen People, the Jews, does not seem to have resulted in them even hanging onto the tiny sliver of land he is purported to have bestowed upon them, since they were dragged off by pagan Persians and evicted by pagan Romans. One might think that He could offer some advice on the current mess in Palisrael, but nope, he has uttered nary a word. He is supposed to have given everyone a new Mormon Testament (one might hope for a Supreme Being with better writing abilities or ghost writers here and for the Koran), and then neither Joseph Smith nor Sun Myung Moon nor countless other self-proclaimed prophets have  gotten any endorsements.

One might think that he decided, based on his OT appearances, that after that period, He has renounced his hobby of meddling i human politics. Or perhaps all those Hebrew prophets were only hearing voices, as insane people tend to do these days, claiming to receive messagesw from God or Xenu or the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2007, 04:42:51 PM »
So you do not see the hand of God in anything , much as I see it in everything.

This is a matter of personal perspective.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2007, 08:22:15 AM »
How do you explain that God was seriously into micromanagement of a tiny state for a century or so, always cseeking to control his small band of chosen people through prophets, and then after the Persians and the Romans, he deposits Jesus, who never wrote one word down, and then vanished and is never heard from again?

How can that possibly make sense?

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2007, 05:47:44 PM »
How do you explain that God was seriously into micromanagement of a tiny state for a century or so, always seeking to control his small band of chosen people through prophets, and then after the Persians and the Romans, he deposits Jesus, who never wrote one word down, and then vanished and is never heard from again?

How can that possibly make sense?



Jesus , who traveled with an entourage had many of the things he said recorded , that he wrote little himself seems to have impressed you a lot , but I can't see why.

Jesus as the Son of God sits on the right hand of the father serving as the advocate of mankind , this is not absence.

I plan to have a little talk with him myself later today , twice yesterday , you should try it .

yellow_crane

  • Guest
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2007, 09:33:45 PM »
How do you explain that God was seriously into micromanagement of a tiny state for a century or so, always seeking to control his small band of chosen people through prophets, and then after the Persians and the Romans, he deposits Jesus, who never wrote one word down, and then vanished and is never heard from again?

How can that possibly make sense?



Jesus , who traveled with an entourage had many of the things he said recorded , that he wrote little himself seems to have impressed you a lot , but I can't see why.

Jesus as the Son of God sits on the right hand of the father serving as the advocate of mankind , this is not absence.

I plan to have a little talk with him myself later today , twice yesterday , you should try it .


When you pray, you initiate a psychological change within your psyche.

Basically it boils down to voluntarilly getting out of the driver's seat and trusting (the bugaboo) that someone will get in.   The same notion is reflected in the joke about the guy hanging on to the root on the cliff, and he is faced with having to let go in order to restore safety.

It does not matter to whom or to what you pray to--only that you feel and commit to the acquiescence.  Some Gods, it should be noted, will be more reliable, but the operative force is usually commensurate with the yield enacted.

The correct prayer, it should be noted, in any valid religion or current, is one made of emotion, and not thought.  Thought usually connotes intercession of prayer by negotiation.

Of course, you have to be sincere in your prayer--an atheist usually will have to giggle himself through it, even when alone.  Their pretense is that they will be sincere when it is proven to them--a canard which permits them to stay in the driver's seat.

The humor precedes the anger, which displaces fear.   Try to think of a time when you have a discussion with an atheist that there was not eventually profuse scoffing and snorting, voice range desperation--little dismissals out the side chute of anger.  One theory is that it is a pathological God concept--stressful dynamic with father, who is transferred into the God role.  Many who suffer father dysfunction are still waiting for him (Him) to acknowledge.   When an atheist talks about prayer, they are talking about acknowledgement.  Only acknowledgement will suffice for proof. 

Probably the most immediate and most infallible proof of a spiritual experience is to fast.

Usually, your average person goes through an emotional journey when committing to a three-day fast, and most will not make it without structure.  When you fast, you percolate with emotional response.  Both Jesus and Moses had immense spiritual experiences by fasting for forty days.  No msysterium or mumbo-jumbo--just fast. 


Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Baptists demanded separation of church and state
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2007, 11:09:53 PM »
Jesus , who traveled with an entourage had many of the things he said recorded , that he wrote little himself seems to have impressed you a lot , but I can't see why.

The Jewish religion was exceptional at the time of Jesus and before, because it was written down in the Torah. Jesus, who was called a Rabbi, or priest, would have had the requirement to be literate, and wise Rabbis, even in those days, wrote things down. It was the supposed entire reason Jesus came to Earth was to found a new version of the old religion. But instead of writing things down, he entrusted several followers to write th9ings dowm=n, and by entrusted, I mean that nowhere did he ever ask them to write anything. They just did, many many years after the fact. several decades, actually. Like me writing about Vietnam, that long ago.

NOT an effective way to get things done.

There should have been a Book of Jesus. But there isn't.
============================================

Jesus as the Son of God sits on the right hand of the father serving as the advocate of mankind , this is not absence.

What does sitting have to do with anything?: Sitting is passive. Nothing is accomplished by sitting. So he is the Holy Couch Potato.
Pardon me while I am still unimpressed.

I have frequent conversations with my cat, and I suspect I get a far more meaingful response from her than you do from Jesus.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."