Not “Since Paul before Nero,” is the descriptive phrase J. B. Gambrell (1841–1921) used for the famous address George W. Truett (1867–1944) delivered on “Baptists and Religious Liberty.”1J.B. Gambrell, “Foreword,” in Baptists and Religious Liberty (Nashville, TN: Sunday School Board, 1920), 3.It took place on May 16, 1920 with approximately ten to fifteen thousand individuals gathered on the east steps of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was held in the nation’s capital city. This gathering at the Capitol building was not an official Convention session. However, most of those in attendance that day were faithful Southern Baptists who gathered to adjudicate denominational business. For Gambrell to laud Truett’s address in such a way demands attention be given to what the famous pastor of First Baptist Dallas said on the steps of the Capitol. In describing the magnitude of Truett’s address, Lee Canipe writes that “Perhaps no single event in the first quarter of the twentieth century better exemplified the intersection of Baptist theology and American democracy than this celebrated sermon from the Capitol steps.”2Lee Canipe, A Baptist Democracy: Separating God and Caesar in the Land of the Free (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2011), 128. Canipe is correct in later pointing out that while moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention held up Truett’s address as the epitome of religious liberty, they missed the forest for the trees. Truett’s case for religious liberty and the Baptist cause is interwoven with a vision for building up American civilization.3Canipe, A Baptist Democracy, 128-129. One missing piece in properly understanding Truett’s address is the shadow of World War I and the Baptist witness during that time. Specifically, one cannot properly understand Truett’s aim in 1920 without seeing it within the scope of Gambrell’s presidential address to the SBC the year before in 1919. This essay will examine Gambrell’s address as a catalyst for Truett’s address in 1920 as well as explore how Truett presented a balanced vision of religious liberty and civic duty.
“A New Indoctrination is Called For”: J.B. Gambrell’s Defense of Baptist Polity in 1919
When Southern Baptists gathered in Atlanta in 1919, the United States continued to celebrate their victory in World War I. Southern Baptists joined with all Americans in relishing the victory of the Allies. As they gathered in Atlanta to conduct the business of the convention, J. B. Gambrell arose to deliver the annual address. Elected as president in 1917, Gambrell’s address in 1919 demonstrated the way that Baptists globally saw the war as being a battle for Baptist principles such as democracy while at home seeing those very values attacked. Beginning his address, Gambrell declared that “Baptists are the friends of liberty, both civil and religious, the world over. Their inner principles make them so, and they can’t help it, unless they abandon their fundamental beliefs.”4J.B. Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” in Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1919 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce Company, 1919), 17. Gambrell, along with many others, painted the recent conflict as a battle between autocracy and democracy. If there was any group who championed the value of democracy, it was Baptists. For Gambrell and Southern Baptists, though, the civil government in the United States undertook actions that threatened the very distinctives cherished by Baptists.
With the war won, Gambrell explained that “some things ought to be said, in the spirit of conducted Christian frankness, for the good of the country and in the interest of Christianity itself.”5Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 19. Baptists were a patriotic people ready to serve their country and do all they could to support the soldiers at home and abroad. However, the United States War Department conducted themselves in a way that Gambrell and his fellow Baptists saw as violating the Constitution of the United States. In surveying the past year, Gambrell noted that “The religious war work policy of the Government was framed in a way to make of none effect the religious rights of a vast majority of the civilian population of our country and of the rights of a great majority of the soldiers in the army.”6Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 19. While this was a strong statement from the elder statesman, it conveyed the feelings many Southern Baptists had at the close of the decade. The 1910s produced the first serious attempts at Christian ecumenicism. Groups such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) embodied this move away from denominationalism. The YMCA especially earned the ire of Southern Baptists since the United States War Department turned over Protestant ministry to the soldiers over to the YMCA. Gambrell, along with others, disdained the way that the YMCA conducted worship services viewing the “Y” as cheapening the gospel and downplaying biblical truth.7Andrew C. Smith, Fundamentalism, Fundraising, and the Transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1919-1925 (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 2016), 49-50. Southern Baptists raised alarms though because of how the YMCA received preferential treatment by the United States Government. Not only were all Protestants forced to come under the oversight of the YMCA when they ministered to the soldiers, Southern Baptists saw the government as buying into an ecumenical program. Gambrell and others pointed a public statement form the Third Secretary of War who explained that they desired the “breaking down, rather than emphasizing, denominational distinctions.”8Smith, Fundamentalism, Fundraising, and the Transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1919-1925, 50-51. Southern Baptists were mystified that while Baptist principles of liberty and democracy triumphed in the war, they were under assault by their own government.
With the backdrop of the War Department’s actions, Gambrell trumpeted that “Many Baptists have suffered fines, imprisonments, scourgings, and martyrdoms for religious freedom.”9Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 19. The War Department’s policy of giving oversight to an ecumenical-driven organization like the YMCA stood as an assault on the beliefs that Baptists cherished. Gambrell repeated the words of the government official that the War Department’s religious aims were to deemphasize denominational differences. Never one to hold back, Gambrell charged that “this un-American, unconstitutional, whimsical notion” violated the rights of all non-Catholic Christian denominations.10Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 19. Liberty and democracy were the banners of the Baptist movement, as well as Protestants to an extent. Instead of allowing those ministers free access to the military camps, the War Department granted “the Catholic communion, essentially autocratic” the ability to minister in the camps with “the moral power of the Government behind it to boost its interests.”11Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 19. While ecumenical spirits might have been high in some corners, the Southern Baptist Convention did not reciprocate such feelings. Furthermore, the American military carried out a policy contrary to the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution. Gambrell did not see this as an hour for when Baptists needed to retreat on what distinguished them from other groups. After reviewing the actions of the government that disturbed him, Gambrell pronounced that Baptists needed to lead on the issue of religious liberty just as they had done so in the past. Baptist history, as well as the gospel, were the sources for a new generation to take up the banner of going forth to call all men everywhere to believe in Christ. In finishing up this section of his address, Gambrell issued the call that “A new indoctrination is called for.”12Gambrell, “Address of President Gambrell,” 20. These words emphasized that Southern Baptists did not need to retreat or shy away from their long-held beliefs. World War I, both in the aims of the war and in perceived policies at home, caused Gambrell and other Southern Baptists to recommit themselves to the building of the Baptist witness. Gambrell’s call for “a new indoctrination” provided the stage for one year later when George W. Truett stood on the steps of the very symbol of the United States Government and cast the Baptist vision for liberty and life.
“The seed in our Baptist garden”: Religious Liberty Cherished by Baptists
When J. B. Gambrell called for “a new indoctrination” when it came to teaching and defending Baptist identity, he could not have asked for a better effort in that direction then what George W. Truett provided at the next annual gathering of Southern Baptists. On Sunday, May 16, 1920, a crowd of between ten thousand to fifteen thousand gathered on the eastern steps of the United States Capitol. A special permit granted this assembly the right to meet. As the Southern Baptists were in town for their annual meeting, this special meeting drew attention for the subject of this address from Truett. Before Truett spoke on “Baptists and Religious Liberty,” the crowd sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and other hymns before Truett spoke.13Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1920 (Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce Company, 1920), 115. In the foreword to the publication of the address, Gambrell highlighted the symbolism in this address. He spoke of how “The shadow of the Capitol of the greatest and freest nation on earth, largely made so by the infiltration of Baptist ideas through the masses” fell upon not just the Southern Baptists gathered but also an audience composed of high-ranking officials, foreign dignitaries, and many denominations. Gambrell’s words inferred that the vision he set forth in his 1919 Presidential Address was coming alive in Truett’s remarks. He described how Truett laid out the case that Baptists historically “have always stood, for full and equal religious liberty for all people.”14Gambrell, “Foreword,” in Baptists and Religious Liberty, 3. For Gambrell, the address looked back at the guiding principles of Baptists historically while laying out a vision for the future. Emphatically linking the spirit of his 1919 address with Truett’s exposition of Baptists and religious liberty, Gambrell boldly stated that this “address advances the battle line for the denomination.”15Gambrell, “Foreword,” in Baptists and Religious Liberty, 4. With such a framing when Truett’s speech was published, Gambrell painted the backdrop figuratively as one of Baptist call to arms.
Did Truett advance the “battle line for the denomination” as Gambrell stated? As one reads the address, the already famous pastor of First Baptist Dallas did not pull his punches in making the case that the Baptist vision of liberty and democracy was what built America. The review of the historical record by Truett began by taking his listeners not just back to Washington, Jefferson, and Madison but to the Baptists of old. From their earliest days, Baptists were the main, and sometimes, only defenders of religious liberty. Truett described religious liberty as the greatest contribution made by America to the world which led him to say that “it was pre-eminently a Baptist contribution.”16George W. Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty (Nashville, TN: Sunday School Board, 1920), 6. What did it mean though to be advocates of religious liberty? Truett argued that the Baptist cause always included a defense of liberty both in the civil and religious realms. Philosophically, Baptists understood that each human being possessed “the natural and fundamental and indefeasible right” to worship God according to his conscience.17Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 7 In seeking to get to the heart of the matter, Truett made a careful distinction between religious toleration and religious liberty. Toleration was not the same as liberty. Truett explained that “Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. Toleration is a gift from man, while liberty is a gift from God.”18Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 7 Such a distinction between toleration and liberty was seen as the bedrock of the Baptist view of the conscience and what the American experiment advocated for. As Canipe pointed out, Truett’s arguments for religious liberty and the separation of church and state “rested largely on the assumption that Baptists shared a common goal with the American state in promoting freedom around the world.”19Canipe, A Baptist Democracy, 142. The very DNA of American democracy was borrowed from the Baptist cause. Yet, Truett’s argument for religious liberty and the separation of church and state were not mere philosophical conclusions drawn from some abstract reasoning. These principles cherished by Baptists were the ecclesiological manifestation of biblical and theological reasoning.
Truett rooted the Baptist defense of religious liberty in the absolute lordship of Christ. The difference between Baptists, Roman Catholics, and other Protestant groups was found in the Baptist priorities of a regenerate believer’s church, a free church in a free state, and the necessity of spiritual awakening to worship God. The state could not do what only the Holy Spirit could do. Whether a Baptist was from England, America, or elsewhere, the reason he contended for unrestricted religious liberty was due to his belief in the lordship of Jesus Christ.20Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 9. Where did Baptists develop this view of the lordship of Christ and how can believers know the will of Christ? Truett pointed to the supremacy of the Bible and described the New Testament as the law of Christianity.21Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 9-10. These foundations were what Truett then built his speech upon which delineated the differences between the Baptist vision and the Roman Catholic vision. In language similar to Gambrell’s 1919 presidential address, Truett denounced the practices of Rome as autocratic and robbing the individual of the right to choose how to worship and approach the Lord.22Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 19. Truett perpetuated the understanding that many Baptists possessed that World War I was a contest between absolutism and individualism. Democracy, represented by Americans and Baptists, triumphed over the old order. The older order of state churches, infant baptism, and clerical hierarchy needed to go. Truett plainly stated that “the Baptist is the very antithesis of his Catholic neighbor in religious conceptions and contentions.”23Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 11. While the Allies won the war, Truett did not see the religious contest over. In no uncertain terms, Truett exhorted his audience to remember that “Every state church on the earth is a spiritual tyranny. And just as long as there is left upon this earth any state church, in any land, the task of Baptists will that long remain unfinished.”24Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 16. While Truett’s concept of the church as a pure democracy sounds more American than Baptist congregationalism at times, there is certainly an inherit continuation of his Baptist vision with those Baptists who went before him.
While Truett spoke pointed words about Roman Catholics, he was equally as forceful in addressing the paedobaptist brethren who attended his speech. Truett spent significant time in walking through the incomplete nature of the Reformation due to the retention of infant baptism and a state church. Truett pointed to the fact that men like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli “shrank from the logical conclusions of their own theses” in holding on to infant baptism and a state church.25Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 20. For Truett, the lordship of Christ and the supremacy of the Bible produced a free church in a free state, a democratic church, believer’s baptism, and the need to preach the gospel in the public square. As Gambrell harkened his audience to remember the Baptist martyrs, Truett called his audience to remember the names of Henry Dunster, Roger Williams, John Clarke, and Obadiah Holmes. All these men suffered at the hands of a state church because they dared to uphold Baptist convictions.26Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 21. The Baptists traveled the road often alone in defending the right of every man to believe and worship according to his conscience. Yet, in a striking statement, Truett summarized his vision as one where “A Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty for his Catholic neighbor, and for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else.”27Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 12. Truett’s examination of the historical record demonstrated that Baptists got it right not just for themselves but for others. It was a view cherished not out of mere pragmatism but because of biblical and theological convictions. Truett rejoiced to see others coming to the Baptist saying that “we are very happy for all our fellow religionists of every denomination and creed to have this splendid flower of religious liberty, but you will allow us to remind you that you got the seed in our Baptist garden.”28Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 24. Yet, Truett issued a warning against Baptists resting on their laurels. The present and the future demanded their attention.
“Perils and Obligations”: A Constructive Baptist Vision for Liberty
Truett’s apology for religious liberty was not a libertarian version of freedom. Sadly, Baptist historian Walter Shurden sought to take the message of Truett and twist into a version of religious liberty and separation of church which would have been unrecognizable to Truett and Gambrell.29See Walter B. Shurden, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms, (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 1993). From Truett’s perspective, his defense of religious liberty included a call for the present age that set forth a positive and constructive vision. As Truett transitioned to how Baptist principles of the past were to equip for the future, he stated that “Liberty has both its perils and its obligations. We are to see to it that our attitude toward liberty, both religious and civil, both as Christians and as citizens, is an attitude consistent and constructive and worthy.”30Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 24. Liberty can be easily twisted and abused. Truett recognized this fact so much so that he did not possess a vision of freedom unrestrained from morality and virtue. In a rather striking statement, Truett explained that “The spirt of law is the spirit of civilization. Liberty without law is anarchy. Liberty against law is rebellion. Liberty limited by law is the formula of civilization.”31Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 26. The vision set forth by Truett was not that freedom was gained for freedom’s sake. In Truett’s mind, the nation was to strive towards laws that were righteous and humane. The historic Baptist vision of religious liberty was not secular anarchy. Truett, one of the greatest champions for Baptist religious liberty, argued that “Every man of us is to remember that it is righteousness that exalteth a nation, and that it is sin that reproaches and destroys a nation.”32Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 26-27. Civilization required for laws that were righteous and for a Baptist like Truett, the Bible ultimately did shape the concept of what was right and was wrong. Democracy, both in an American and Baptist context, required its citizens to be desirous of the good for society. Truett was neither advocating for some type of quasi-Christian Nationalism nor was his defense of religious liberty a libertarian free-for-all. Truett presented a balanced vision of how freedom and democracy required Christian virtue.
Democracy, in both a civil and religious sense, presented many challenges and demanded certain obligations to be met by the citizens in that society. Truett was not naïve, and he understood that unfettered liberty posed serious perils. This is why Truett saw education as the backbone for a well-ordered democracy. Truett built his case that “a democracy, a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, the people are the rulers, and the people, all the people, are to be informed and trained.”33Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 31. How was this training and knowledge to be imparted? For Truett, the answer was found once again in that preeminent Baptist belief: the absolute lordship of Christ. Truett declared, “A democracy needs more than in intelligence, it needs Christ…Our schools are afresh to take note of this supreme fact, and they are to be fundamentally and aggressively Christian.”34Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 31. In speaking to his own denomination, Truett sought to rally Southern Baptist to renew their commitment to education. In many ways, Truett’s call for Baptists to pursue the building of educational institutions harkened back to the Philadelphia Baptists in the 1760s launch what became known as Brown University. He also stood in the lineage of Southern Baptist leaders like James P. Boyce (1827-1888) and B.H. Carroll (1843-1914) who founded Southern Baptist seminaries to train pastors and missionaries. Baptists saw education as the key to the proper building of a democratic society and that education was a Christian one.
Truett though never wanted his audience to forget the main goal: wining souls unto Christ. When it comes to building of societies, Truett modeled what was the heart of the Baptist program from the very start: fervent evangelism. He explained that “Preceding and accompanying the task of building our Christian schools, we must keep faithfully and practically in mind our primary task of evangelism, the work of winning souls from sin unto salvation, from Satan unto God.”35Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 31. This was no vision of the social gospel movement that saw redemption in terms of societal improvement. Nor was this a top-down “Christianize the culture” approach that various strands of Christian Nationalism proposed. Truett blended the populist and institutionalist streams of Baptist life together. Whether it was the churches, the schools, the mission agencies, or the religious papers, Baptists were not to miss the command to go to the people with the message that Christ alone was hope of salvation. That message was not just for those in America though. No sense of isolationism could be attributed to Truett. He proclaimed that “While thus caring for the homeland, we are at the same time to see it that our program is co-extensive with Christ’s program for the whole world.”36Truett, Baptists and Religious Liberty, 34 The Baptist statesman was ever the Baptist preacher. The grand vision of building Baptist institutions was never to overshadow the simple call to preach the gospel to every creature.
Truett’s vision for the Baptists in 1920 was one that was steeped in the past. One can hear echoes of two great American Baptist luminaries of the past: Isaac Backus (1724–1806) and John Leland (1754–1841). As Eric C. Smith helpfully points out, historians often conflate the views of Backus and Leland together failing to see nuanced differences between the two men.37Eric C. Smith, John Leland: A Jeffersonian Baptist in Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 91. Backus, a man who helped found the Warren Association of Baptist Churches and was a member of the board of trustees at Brown, represented a more institutionalist Baptist vision. Leland, a man who was suspicious of any centralized authority, did not support missions’ societies nor did he advocate for the building of schools. However, Smith rightfully notes that it is wrong to label Leland a “strict separationist” for Leland believed in the necessity of Christian truth being proclaimed in the public square. Leland never argued for what men would later describe as a “totally secular public square.”38Smith, John Leland, 94. In both Gambrell and Truett, the voices of Backus and Leland can still be heard. Like Backus, they saw a day when the Baptist vision was coming more and more to fruition. That vision was one of religious liberty but not at the expense of morality and virtue. Baptists needed to build organizations like schools to train and mold minds in the way of the truth as it is found in Jesus Christ. Like Leland, they were passionate in their emphasis on the separation of church and state. They also were never wanting to forget though the plain preaching of the gospel to the common man. While much history separated the generation of Backus and Leland from Gambrell and Truett, a common Baptist thread remained. The very best of the Baptist vision is one that argues for religious liberty, but it does not stop there. Baptists were to use that liberty for the purpose of building up and preparing men for the day of the Lord. This balance provided the core for the Baptist way.
Conclusion
Gambrell called for a new indoctrination. Truett called for education that trained minds in the way of Christ. Both men lauded democracy, liberty, and separation. However, those concepts were not to be divorced from the lordship of Christ, the authority of the Bible, and the need to wins souls to Christ. The vision of Gambrell in 1919 provided the spark for the 1920 address by Truett on religious liberty. Both events in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention are far removed from the context of the modern era. However, Baptists continue to research and debate over what the Baptist vision should be for the state. The legacies of Gambrell and Truett are great places to begin. They present a balanced vision that calls Baptists to cherish liberty in a responsible, Christ-honoring way. This is the old “new indoctrination” that Baptists need.
