BJC = [JMD.sup.2]: the contributions of Joseph M. Dawson and James M. Dunn to the Baptist Joint Committee: like the old Campbell's Soup television jingle about "soup and sandwich," Joseph M. Dawson and James M. Dunn "go together.".

Both of their portraits hang on the same wall in the Baptist Joint Committee (BJC) conference room in Washington, D.C., as if to continue their watching over the work of the agency that they both headed. Dawson was the first executive director of what was then the Joint Conference Committee on Public Relations (1946-1953). Dunn was the executive director in 1981-1999. Both were born and bred in Texas, both have the same initials, and both will be remembered by history as fierce champions of religious liberty and church-state separation.

Dawson and Dunn profoundly shaped Baptist social ethics throughout the twentieth century. Dawson was twenty-one years old at the turn of that century, and Dunn "retired" at the end of it. While their legacies continue to influence Baptist and American life, from the Brazos to the Potomac and beyond, the focus of this article is on their understanding of the proper relationship between church and state and religion and politics, in the context of their BJC leadership.

After a brief overview of their general approach to the subject, and with a nod to David Letterman, I will outline what I judge to be Dawson's and Dunn's "Top 10 Contributions" (five each) to the preservation of religious liberty during their service as executive directors of the Baptist Joint Committee.

Dunn's Understanding of His Life's Work

Dawson and Dunn both approached their life's work as a ministry, as nothing short of a calling of God and grounded firmly in their Baptist heritage. Dunn often outlined his understanding of this spiritual enterprise by a living metaphor:

   Drop a pebble in a pond. Watch the ripples. Concentric circles go
   out from the center. That spot takes on life. Energy emanates.

      That little snapshot symbolizes the Baptist vision of religious
   liberty. It is a dynamic vision; there is nothing static about it.
   Baptists see religious liberty as springing from and directly
   related to the center of the divine-human encounter. (1)

In Dunn's metaphor, the first circle represents "soul freedom," the theological taproot based squarely in the Genesis creation accounts and the imago dei. We are created in the image of God, free and able to respond to God as we choose and thus are "response-able." "We all are wired up for freedom," Dunn has often said. This volitional faculty is inherent in all humanity, an "'I' at the center of our being that even Almighty God will not trample." (2)

The second concentric circle rippling from the pebble is religious liberty. If soul freedom is the theological underpinning, religious liberty is the "moral and ethical inevitability" that naturally flows. (3) Because God will not defy our freedom, heaven forbid that we should violate each other's. Dunn's vision of religious liberty is universal, freedom not just for Christians or Baptists, but freedom for all. This moral imperative also has self-serving implications. One of Dunn's most prolific sound bites was: "If anyone's religious liberty is denied, everyone's is endangered."

The third circle is church-state separation--the constitutional corollary to the theological and ethical precepts. A sensible separation between the institutions of church and state is good for both. But Dunn has always been quick to argue that separation should not result in hostility to religion or a complete walling off of one from another. Sometimes it may be no more than a "strand of barbed wire." The separation principle does not require a segregation of religion from politics, God from government, or Christians from their duty of citizenship.

In the final analysis, neither God (soul freedom), nor one's neighbors (religious liberty), nor the state (separation) will or should be allowed to vitiate that voluntary response to God that is the essence of one's humanity.

Dawson's Understanding of His Life's Work

Although he rarely if ever used the term "soul freedom," Dawson understood that liberty began with a gift from God, based on "Divine Revelation as expressed in Christianity." (4) Liberty had nothing to do with any grudging toleration from the hand of the state. Toleration is a "weasel word," Dawson would often say, that fails to capture the essence of individual freedom. Dawson's understanding of freedom was highly Christological: "[Jesus'] message centered on the dignity, worth, and competency of the individual, emphasized the power to choose and promised deliverance from fear of death." (5)

In his speaking and writing, Dawson stressed the principle of religious liberty. For him, religious liberty was "the right and security of every person and group for freedom of conscience, belief and practice, together with free association and unrestricted propagation of faith." (6) Dawson revered his colonial predecessors who championed religious liberty, including Roger Williams, Isaac Backus, and John Leland. Dawson also saw religious liberty to be a universal right for all, not one guided by self-interest. (7)

As a no-holds-barred believer in church-state separation, Dawson was dubious of the power of government to do anything other than to destroy or at least diminish the vitality of religion. He often wrote that "the sole function of the American state is to recognize [religion's] existence and protect its liberty." (8) Such an institutional separation was "best for the church and best for the state." (9)

Dawson's insistence upon a religiously neutral state prompted him to embrace a word that was as unpopular then as it is today--"secularism." In articles, speeches, and even his autobiography, Dawson defended the word. Although acknowledging that "secular" sometimes connotes humanism and materialism, he argued that "when one says ours is a secular state or that our public schools form a secular system, he means they are outside church control, simply that." (10) Any attempt to "sanctify the secular" ought to come from the church, not the state. (11)

Moreover, Dawson would never say that church-state separation strips religion from public life or excuses bad citizenship on the part of Christians. He wrote, "separation of church and state means separation on an official, organizational, legally contractual level. This allows freest interaction between both on a moral and spiritual level." (12) As he said many times: "If religion is to guide and control the state ..., it must do so morally and spiritually." (13)

Although highly educated and well read, neither Dawson nor Dunn was an ivory tower intellectual. Both were inveterate activists. They were "doers of the word." Their remarkable deeds are what have had the greatest influence.

"Top 10 Contributions"

Following are my picks for their "Top 10 Contributions," beginning with Dawson.

1. A Friend of the (Supreme) Count. Early in his tenure as executive director, Dawson led the Joint Committee to file friend-of-the-court briefs in two seminal Supreme Court cases: Everson v. Board, 330 U.S. 1 (1947) and McCollum v. Board, 333 U.S. 203 (1948). These cases helped fashion the Court's post-World War II Establishment Clause jurisprudence dealing with funding for parochial education and religion in the public schools.

Everson involved the challenge to a New Jersey statute that allowed reimbursement to be made to the parents of parochial school children for transportation expenses. The Joint Committee's chairman, E. Hilton Jackson, a Washington lawyer, filed a brief arguing that the practice was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, however, disagreed. Although all nine justices wrote or joined opinions that were strongly separationist, a majority of five decided that the funding practice benefited primarily students and their parents, not the parochial schools. Therefore, the scheme did not breach the wall of separation between church and state. Ironically, the opinion was authored by Justice Hugo Black, a Baptist who had served briefly on the Committee before his appointment to the Court. The fact that the Court unanimously endorsed a robust understanding of the Establishment Clause while upholding the funding scheme caused Dawson to remark cheerfully that "We had lost a battle, but won the war!" (14)

McCollum involved a challenge to a program that provided voluntary religious instruction by religious groups in a public school classroom. The Joint Committee again filed a brief arguing that such practice violated the Establishment Clause. In an 8-1 decision, also authored by Justice Black, the Court agreed with the Committee's position and struck down the on-campus "released time" program.

Although most of its Baptist constituents applauded the Committee's participation in Everson, the reaction to its position in McCollum was hostile. Dawson observed that "Nothing our Committee ever did caused so much turmoil," and he even traveled to Nashville to defend the Committee's position before the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. (15)

Dawson's involvement in these two cases is significant. It established the precedent of filing friend-of-the court briefs, which the Joint Committee has done more than one hundred times since then. His leadership set the tone of robust interpretation of the Establishment Clause that continues to inform the Committee's view, and it presaged the harsh criticism the Committee often would suffer at the hands of both friends and foes.

2. Setting up Shop. Although the Joint Committee and its predecessors had been in existence for some ten years, Dawson was obliged to create a viable organizational framework for the Committee's work after arriving in Washington, D.C., in 1946. He wasted little time in launching a monthly newsletter, which he called Report from the Capital. Beginning in October 1946 and continuing to this day, Report from the Capital has been published on a regular basis, usually monthly, but several years during the 1990s, every two weeks, as the Committee's flagship publication.

The BJC initially was founded by the Northern Baptist Convention (now American Baptist Churches, USA) and the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1939, the predominately African-American denomination, the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., joined the Committee. In addition to strengthening participation of other African-American Baptists, Dawson was able to attract representatives from the Seventh Day Baptists, the Baptist General Conference (Swedish tradition), and the North American Baptist Conference (German heritage). These groups continue to play a vital role in the now fourteen-member-body coalition of the BJC.

Finally, Dawson was instrumental in founding Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in 1947. POAU is now Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Dawson counted his role in forming POAU and serving as its first secretary one of his most important contributions to the defense of religious liberty. Joining the organizational meeting at the historic National Baptist Memorial Church in Washington were Brooks Hays, member of Congress and Baptist lay leader, and representatives of various other religious groups and organizations. According to Dawson, "POAU had not a penny on which to operate" and thus began in a single room in the offices of the Joint Committee. Though physically proximate, Dawson was careful to point out their different missions. Eager that the public not be confused, Dawson averred in his autobiography that "the Baptist Committee existed primarily for study and pronouncement, while POAU proposed action." (16) Thus, Dawson not only expanded the coalition of Baptists but established the precedent of working with other religious and civil liberties groups. Americans United continues to be a valued coalition partner with the BJC.

3. Speaking Out and Writing. Dawson made important contributions through his writing and speaking on Baptist distinctives and religious liberty. In addition to Report from the Capital and other BJC pamphlets and publications, Dawson published three books during and after his tenure as executive director. His volumes, Separate Church and State Now (1948), America's Way in Church, State, and Society (1953), and Baptists and the American Republic (1956) contributed markedly to Baptists' understanding of church and state. James Dunn reflected on Dawson's incredible significance: "[Dawson] was an understandable, visible and articulate spokesman for so many years. His voice was heard. His words were read. His presence was felt in the Baptist family for at least seventy-five years. That was almost 60 percent of the then history of the Southern Baptist Convention." (17) According to Dunn, "Dawson wrote virtually the only books written by any Southern Baptist in this period on ... separation of church and state." (18)

4. Truman and the Holy See. In their respective histories of the BJC, Stan Hastey and Pare Parry considered the Committee's opposition to the appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican to be the most time-consuming and important issue during Dawson's tenure. (19) In 1947, President Harry S. Truman assured Dawson and other Baptist leaders that he would recall the then-ambassador Myron S. Taylor from the Vatican. When Truman refused to follow through with that promise, Dawson launched a withering attack against the Baptist president. The controversy subsided when Ambassador Taylor voluntarily resigned. Despite another promise not to appoint a successor, Truman expressed his intention to tap General Mark Clark for the post. The Joint Committee responded by publishing a tract which began "an earthquake [that] shook the country when President Truman nominated a full ambassador to the Vatican." (20) Dawson publicly accused Truman of changing course "for political purposes, to get votes in the big industrial cities of North and East, not in the interest of the nation." (21) Apparently the Vatican objected to Clark because of his military background, and Clark withdrew. Truman left office without nominating another person for the post.

Although previously on cordial terms, and despite having worshiped together on occasion at First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., the battle over the ambassador to the Vatican chilled the relationship between Dawson and Truman. "Truman apparently never forgave me, as a letter from the White House in my files would tend to substantiate," Dawson cryptically wrote in his autobiography. (22) After later seeking an appointment with Truman to discuss other matters, Dawson received a curt response from the president's secretary informing him that "no useful purpose could be served by the conference." (23) Thus, Dawson set the direction for the Committee's position on an issue that would surface periodically for the next fifty-plus years and established a precedent of speaking the truth to power no matter the politician's party or denomination.

5. Religious Liberty Abroad and the United Nations. Dawson left a powerful legacy in international religious liberty issues. In March 1945, he attended a conference in Cleveland held to flesh out the Dumbarton Oaks Accords for the formation of a "union of nations in behalf of peace." (24) In fact, he served as chairman of the conference's committee on religious liberty. John Foster Dulles opposed Dawson's committee report favoring full religious liberty.

Undaunted, Dawson attended the United Nations organizational meeting in San Francisco. He carried to that meeting petitions of 100,000 Baptists asking that the proposed United Nations Charter include a guarantee of religious liberty for all. Dawson was not successful in having his proposed language included, but his efforts bore fruit two years later when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing the "freedom of thought, conscience and religion ... and freedom ... to manifest one's religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

The Dawson years were filled with many other accomplishments. Stan Hastey noted that "during the Dawson years, the Joint Committee became a potent factor on the public scene and in Baptist life as well." Although acknowledging Dawson's sometimes "unnecessarily strong" statements against and in confrontation with Roman Catholics, Hastey concluded:

   [T]he years 1946 to 1953 were of crucial importance to the life of
   the new agency. The period was characterized by growth of influence
   and power both in Washington and within the Baptist constituency.
   The vital issues in the church-state field were faced squarely and
   courageously. Finally, ... the Baptist Joint Committee on Public
   Affairs won a number of most significant victories which would
   have no doubt been lost without its presence in Washington,
   D.C. (25)

I find it more difficult to identify James Dunn's five most significant contributions. Dunn served nearly two decades to Dawson's seven years, and I served with Dunn during his second decade at the Joint Committee, rendering my objectivity somewhat suspect.

As a general proposition, Dunn took seriously the First Amendment's protections for the free exercise of religion. This commitment to the First Amendment is ironic because Dunn is commonly regarded as an Establishment Clause hawk--fighting state-sponsored prayer and school vouchers. However, he devoted at least as much time arguing that church-state separation protected free exercise as he did advancing Establishment Clause values, and he put in the shoe leather to prove his point. Dunn's greatest accomplishment, however, was his ability to keep the agency alive and even thriving during the onslaught by and the divorce from the Southern Baptist Convention.

1. Prayer Pushers and Student Clubs. Shortly after Dunn arrived in Washington, Ronald Reagan proposed a school prayer amendment. The BJC vigorously opposed tinkering with the First Amendment to encourage government-sponsored prayer in schools, and Dunn accused the President of "despicable demagoguery" and playing "petty politics with prayer." (26)

In an effort to find an acceptable alternative to the prayer amendment, the Committee supported the practice of allowing students to gather voluntarily before and after school for prayer and other religious exercises in club meetings. In 1983, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), a Baptist and a friend of Dunn's, introduced legislation in the Senate "to provide that it shall be unlawful to discriminate against any meetings of students in public secondary schools." After eighteen months of negotiations, this incipient legislation became the Equal Access Act of 1984, passing the Senate 88-11 and the House 337-77. The BJC, particularly its general counsel, John W. Baker, provided critical leadership in the bill's drafting and passage.

The BJC also helped develop guidelines to assist in the law's implementation and, in 1990, urged the Supreme Court to uphold its constitutionality. In Board of Education v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990), the Court not only upheld the Equal Access Act but also interpreted its provisions broadly to strengthen its application in the public schools.

Dunn's leadership in the effort to pass the Equal Access Act and to defend it in court was important for several reasons. It indicated a strategic decision on his part not simply to say "no" to bad ideas but to say "yes" to a common sense, constitutionally acceptable alternative. He was right to criticize President Reagan and his school prayer amendment; and Dunn's credibility and effectiveness were heightened because he advanced a better idea. He also demonstrated the BJC's willingness to work with both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill to promote religious liberty. In this effort, Dunn had worked with Republicans such as Hatfield and Democrats such as Carl Perkins of Kentucky. The project also demonstrated Dunn's courage to break from the typical coalition structures. In supporting the bill, the BJC worked with some erstwhile opponents, including the National Association of Evangelicals and Christian Legal Society, and the Committee was willing to fend off criticism from usual allies such as Jewish and civil liberties organizations who at first opposed the Equal Access Act. Finally, Dunn's and the BJC's leadership in equal access set the tone for future efforts to urge accommodation of students' exercise of religion in public schools while fighting state-sponsored prayer and religious exercise.

2. Peyote and Anarchy. If Dunn's greatest achievement during the 1980s was the passage and defense of the Equal Access Act, his most significant legislative effort in the 1990s was the passage and defense of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA).

In April 1990, the Supreme Court dropped a constitutional bombshell that virtually destroyed the Free Exercise Clause. In the so-called Native American Peyote case, the Court's majority ruled that government would no longer be required to demonstrate a "compelling state interest" to justify burdening the free exercise rights of its citizens. As long as the law was facially neutral and generally applicable, a religious claimant has no right to an exemption. To do otherwise, according to Justice Scalia, would be to encourage "anarchy."

Recognizing the decision's devastating effect on religious liberty, the BJC again spearheaded an effort to provide an appropriate legislative remedy. Led by then-general counsel Oliver S. Thomas, the Committee organized a broad and diverse coalition of religious and civil liberties groups to seek legislation that again would require government to show a compelling interest before it would be permitted to burden someone's exercise of religion. After more than three years of rigorous politicking, RFRA passed the House unanimously and the Senate 97-3 and was signed by President Bill Clinton in a Rose Garden ceremony on November 16, 1993.

As with equal access, the BJC defended RFRA's constitutionality in the Supreme Court. However, unlike equal access, the Court struck down the parts of RFRA that purported to bind the states. In turn, the BJC led efforts to pass additional legislation, finally succeeding with the adoption of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 under the leadership of then general counsel Melissa Rogers. RFRA, however, continues to ensure strong protection for religious liberty at the federal level, and comparable legislation and constitutional provisions provide the same protection at the state level. All of this, in Dunn's inimitable estimation, was to "add a little legislative Viagra" to the law of free exercise. (27)

3. Taxman! During Dunn's tenure, the BJC worked with the Internal Revenue Service to maintain tax exemption for religious organizations and to otherwise guard churches' autonomy against intrusive governmental regulation. The Committee chaired a group of attorneys from various religious organizations that met periodically with the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service to discuss and resolve tax and tax exemption issues. For example, when President George H. W. Bush proposed requiring churches to report to the IRS annual gifts of $500 or more, along with the donors' names and Social Security numbers, Dunn cried foul at the top of his lungs. The administration sheepishly backed down. When the Senate Finance Committee proposed doing away with tax exemption for church pension and welfare boards, the BJC filed a statement protesting the change, maintaining that taxation of these boards would be tantamount to taxing churches. The proposal was defeated.

These efforts to protect the tax exemption and autonomy of churches went hand and glove with Dunn's insistence that the best thing that government can do for religion is to leave it alone. The government should not give religious institutions money (grants or vouchers), but neither should the government take money away (through taxation).

4. International Religious Liberty. Following Dawson's precedent, Dunn understood that religious freedom was part and parcel of human rights abroad. During Dunn's tenure, the BJC insisted on legislation to end double taxation of missionaries in both the United States and their host countries, saving Baptist missionaries millions of dollars. Dunn prepared and personally handed to Secretary of State George Shultz a list of 116 prisoners of conscience in the then USSR. The State Department was successful in obtaining their release. The BJC also worked to ensure that military personnel in the First Gulf War were allowed to receive Bibles and other religious materials for their own use through the U.S. mail. The BJC sought and obtained amendments to the International Religious Freedom Act (1997) in order to ensure the rights of conscience for everyone, not just Christians. The BJC sponsored a conference at the historic Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church in London, in 1999, titled "Beyond Mere Toleration: Religious Liberty as a Basic Human Right," attracting speakers and attendees from twenty countries.

5. Battlin' Baptists. For all of Dunn's heroic work on issues and policy concerns, perhaps the most significant legacy was the ability to lead the BJC through the Southern Baptist controversy and to ensure that the Committee emerged as a healthy agency. The story of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC and its dispute with the BJC is well known. I will simply highlight several areas in which I judge Dunn's leadership to have been determinative in the outcome of that battle.

Some have suggested that had Dunn been more conciliatory, the rupture could have been avoided. Not so. Events have shown that the stakes were either a full-blown takeover or a divorce. The former did not happen; the latter did.

Although the SBC contributed about 60 percent of the BJC's financial support for 1988-1989, the SBC's Public Affairs Committee was never able to take over the agency. To maintain its "jointness," the BJC bylaws did and do not allow any one group to gain hegemony no matter how much it contributes. Thus, Southern Baptists had to curry alliances with other BJC bodies to seek a majority position. All-out efforts to take over the BJC failed in large measure because of Dunn's credibility and good will with other groups, such as the conservative Baptist General Conference and the Northern American Baptist Conference.

Dunn's leadership likewise ensured that draconian budget cuts through SBC defunding efforts would not sink the agency. Although the BJC budget was cut by more than half in 1990, Dunn provided leadership that led to the giving of replacement funds by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Alliance of Baptists, state Baptist conventions, and individual supporters. Significantly, no staff member was laid off because of these budget cuts.

Dunn also provided leadership to build a significant endowment to ensure the BJC's future. When Dunn arrived in 1981, the BJC had only $5,000 in the bank; when he retired, he left a $1,000,000 endowment. Much of the original corpus came from a delicately renegotiated settlement with the SBC by which the BJC received $180,000 from funds placed in the Southern Baptist Foundation in 1967 to be used by the BJC for capital purposes and expenses.

Bill Moyers, reflecting on Dunn's leadership during the SBC fight, said:

   Rarely have I witnessed such courage and perseverance as were
   exhibited by James Dunn.... He and the Baptist Joint Committee
   survived to fight another day, and another, and another,
   subsequently winning some of their most important victories in
   the continuing battle for religious liberty. What is his secret?
   He believes in a very big God. (28)

Conclusion

The often cited credo, "Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other," may have been a tad over used, but it aptly describes Dawson's and Dunn's biblically grounded social ethic and policy activism. As churchmen thoroughly steeped in Baptist heritage, they understood, as Dunn often has said, "You don't speak for Baptists. You speak to Baptists." Well, they spoke for many Baptists and to an entire culture in need of a prophetic witness as to the centrality of religious liberty and the indispensability of church-state separation. Those of us who carry on the fight stand on their broad Texas shoulders everyday.

(1.) James M. Dunn, Truth with the Bark on It: The Wit and Wisdom of James M. Dunn (Washington, D.C.: Baptist Joint Committee Staff Commemoration of Retirement, 1999), 13.

(2.) James M. Dunn, "The Baptist Vision of Religious Liberty," Walter B. Shurden, ed., Proclaiming the Baptist Vision Religious Liberty (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 1997), 33.

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) Joseph Martin Dawson, "The Church and Religious Liberty," The Review, and Expositor, 50 (April, 1953): 148.

(5.) Ibid.

(6.) Ibid., 147.

(7.) James M. Dunn, The Ethical Thought of Joseph Martin Dawson (Th.D. dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1966), 237.

(8.) James M. Dunn, "J. M. Dawson: Shaper of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty," Shapers of Southern Baptist Heritage (Nashville: The Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1987).

(9.) Joseph Martin Dawson, Baptists and the American Republic (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1956), 14.

(10.) Joseph Martin Dawson, A Thousand Months to Remember: An Autobiography (Waco: Baylor University Press, 1964), 257.

(11.) Joseph Martin Dawson, "Sanctifying the Secular," The Review, and Expositor, 47 (July, 1950): 304-09.

(12.) Dawson, Baptists and the American Republic, 13.

(13.) Joseph Martin Dawson, Separate Church and State Now (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1948), 91.

(14.) Dawson, Separate Church and State Now, 194.

(15.) Ibid., 195.

(16.) Ibid., 202.

(17.) Dunn, "J. M. Dawson: Shaper of Public Affairs."

(18.) Dunn, The Ethical Thought of Joseph Martin Dawson, 209.

(19.) See Stanley L. Hastey, A History of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, 1946-1971 (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1973); Pam Parry, On Guard for Religious Liberty: Six Decades of the Baptist Joint Committee (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1996).

(20.) Hastey, A History of the Baptist Joint Committee, 87.

(21.) Dawson, A Thousand Months, 203.

(22.) Ibid.

(23.) Hastey, A History of the Baptist Joint Committee, 87.

(24.) Dawson, A Thousand Months, 160.

(25.) Hastey, A History of the Baptist Joint Committee, 102.

(26.) Dunn, Truth with the Bark on It, 24.

(27.) Ibid.

(28.) J. Brent Walker, James Dunn: Champion for Religious Liberty (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1999), xiii.

J. Brent Walker is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Washington, D.C.