Randall Balmer\u2019s book, Thy Kingdom Come<\/em>, turns in chp 2 to ask this question: \u201cWhere have all the Baptists Gone?\u201d and looks at the First Amendment. Here\u2019s the overall thesis of the chapter: \u201cAmerica needs more Baptists \u2014 real<\/em> Baptists, not counterfeit Baptists like Roy Moore or Rick Scarborough or Richard Land or Jerry Falwell, all whom are Baptists in name only\u201d (68). Why does he say this? Randall Balmer\u2019s book, Thy Kingdom Come, turns in chp 2 to ask this question: \u201cWhere have all the Baptists Gone?\u201d and looks at the First Amendment. Here\u2019s the overall thesis of the chapter: \u201cAmerica needs more Baptists \u2014 real Baptists, not counterfeit Baptists like Roy Moore or Rick Scarborough or Richard Land or Jerry Falwell, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[476],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nChp. 2 of this book sketches the history of the disestablishment clause<\/em> in American law, demonstrates that it was derived from Roger Williams, a Baptist, and demonstrates that the clause was thoroughly defended by George Washington Truett (major Southern Baptist figure), and Balmer argues that is now being thoroughly undermined by recent zealotic Baptists who aren\u2019t consistent with their own history. Hence, the opening quotation: Baptists who meddle as some do today by seeking to impose Christianity on the State are denying their heritage.
\nHere are the major underlying issues: Does Christian entanglement in politics lead to Constantinianism? (The use of power and law to force the faith.) And, one I\u2019d like to see Balmer address, How much variance can a Christian permit between the Christian thinks is right and what a State legislates? (At some point do they say \u201cthis is what the law states, but it is wrong, and I\u2019m working to change it?\u201d)
\nHe picks on two figures in this chp: Rick Scarborough, of whom I had not even heard, and Roy Moore, the famous Ten Commandments judge. The chp has a nice survey of the disestablishment clause \u2014 and his focus (unlike the famous Stephen Carter book The Culture of Disbelief<\/em>) is on getting Christians to mind their manners when it comes to what is justifiable legally. (Carter argued that the separation of Church and State was a law designed to keep the Feds out of our business nor us out of theirs, though Christians cannot form a law that gives Christianity privilege.)
\nHere are some quotations, and Balmer always has a few shots worth quoting.
\n\u201cthe red-meat rhetoric of the Religious Right\u201d (40).
\n\u201cBaptists have always been suspicious of entanglements with the state\u201d (41).
\nScarborough \u201cdetermined to eviscerate the First Amendment\u201d (46). And he cites him saying \u201cThe whole concept of separation of church and state is a myth propagated by liberal judges\u201d (46).
\nHe shows that Lyman Beecher learned that \u201cdisestablishment has had an electrifying effect\u201d for religions.
\nWhere, he asks, have all the real Baptist gone?
\nHe finds the SBC\u2019s move to the Religious Right, the takeover of the SBC, and the appeal of Reconstructionism undermines Baptist principles.
\nHere\u2019s a major point he is making, and I\u2019m not sure there is enough discussion of this point. Is it true or is it not? \u201cWe must recognize that religion flourishes best at the margins and not at the centers of power\u201d (68).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"