Best for the church and best for the state.

While putting together this issue of Baptist History and Heritage, I realized that it will be distributed in early November--at about the same time that Americans are going to the polls to elect a new president. In what has been an extremely long campaign period, organizations concerned about First Amendment issues have been confronted by numerous questions, especially with regard to the free exercise of religion and the establishment of religion clauses. In September, the Alliance of Defense Fund sought to recruit pastors to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), called this effort "a misguided idea and brazen attempt to blend the worship of God with electoral politics." (1) Baptists, and indeed all Americans, are in need of education about the importance of' the First Amendment, and Baptists are indeed fortunate to have the BJC in Washington, D.C., providing a clear voice and a strong message about religious liberty and church-state separation.

Since 1936, the BJC has been working to protect and promote freedom, not just for Baptists but tot all people, and in those seventy-two years, the committee has had amazing leadership. Its first full-time director was J. M. Dawson, who served from 1946 to 1953. Dawson accepted this role at the age of sixty-seven, after a long pastoral ministry in Texas.

Three years after he retired as director of the BJC, Dawson wrote Baptists and the American Republic, in which provided a look back at the historical foundation on which he had built much of his life's work. Presenting an overview of the role Baptists played in making religious freedom a reality in the United States, Dawson concluded that religious freedom was an intentional gift from God, a gift that early Baptist leaders in America had recognized and fought to establish.

Before moving into the chapters on those early Baptists who contributed to religious freedom, Dawson set forth five concepts that the Joint Committee, as it was called then, sought to define and then to educate the public about:

(1) "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. In a free society religion is expected to apply to all of life, to public service as well as other spheres of activity"; (2) "Separation of church and state means that all churches exist on a purely voluntary basis, that they are all equal before the law, and that the Government of the State shall not practice discrimination by singling out one or more churches for special recognition or favor"; (3) "Church-state separation means there shall be no general assessment of taxes for support of any kind of religious institution"; (4) "Church-state separation, as construed in the United States, means no religious instruction shall be given by any church in the public schools, and no facilities of tax-supported public schools shall be used by the churches for their religious doctrines"; and (5) "Separation of church and state is best for the church and best for the state." (2)

Fifty-two years after the publication of Dawson's book, the BJC continues in its commitment to these five concepts. The BJC's mission statement affirms this continuing commitment, proclaiming, "The mission of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is to defend and extend God-given religious liberty for all, furthering the Baptist heritage that champions the principle that religion must be freely exercised, neither advanced nor inhibited by government." (3) Baptists truly have much for which to be thankful, including the leadership of the BJC in promoting the First Amendment freedoms in a thoughtful and healthy way.

Pamela R. Durso

Editor

(1.) "Walker decries 'Pulpit Freedom Sunday,"' http://www.bjconline.org/news/news/ 09.23.08%20Pulpit%20Sunday.htm, accessed October 10, 2008.

(2.) Joseph Martin Dawson, Baptists and the American Republic (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1956), 13-14.

(3.) "Mission Statement," http://www.bjconline.org/about/mission.htm, accessed October 10, 2008.