Separation

We’re holding a Welcome Class at First Baptist McMinnville. It’s meant (kind of obviously) to welcome people to the church – newcomers, visitors, anyone wanting to know more about the congregation and American Baptists. So the focus is on  Baptist freedoms, with an appreciative nod to Walter Shurden’s The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 1993). Shurden lists the freedoms of Bible, Soul, Church, and Religion. It’s the last one, Religious Freedom, that addresses the tension between church and state.

My memory of Baptist history isn’t so good when it comes to details, but I was taught about Roger Williams, his refusal to bend to the will of the Church of England or the Puritans in the New World, and after much harassment founding the colony of Providence. The First Baptist Church of Providence is still a standing and vital part of our denomination.

The separation of Church and State, which Williams fussed over, has been a tense thing in the churches I’ve served. There were always a few individuals who embraced the concept fully, while others gave it lip service or ignored it altogether. As a student at Northern Baptist Seminary I was assigned along with two classmates to preach at Raymond Street Baptist Church, a mission church without a pastor. It was located in Mayor Daly’s Bridgeport neighborhood. We wore clerical collars to gain admittance to the Catholic Hospital without having to recite the Apostle’s Creed.

One of said classmates thought it would be fitting, in 1972, to remove the American flag from the podium. This decision did not sit well with the church members. The only support I know of came from one Anna Ashe, a 91 year-old prohibitionist who had accompanied Carrie Nation around the Midwest smashing bar windows and chasing drunks down the city streets. When I met her she still carried a black umbrella with which she would threaten to rap someone over the head if they disagreed with her.

But pushing back against government and corporate interference is part of our calling. And when I read books and articles, lots of them allude to this topic. A recent one comes in a conversation between Danny Branch’s lawyer Henry Catlett, and the detective, Mr. Bode. (Berry, Wendell. Fidelity: Five Stories. 1992: Pantheon Books, pp 162ff).

Some time ago Danny’s father, Burley Branch, became ill and was taken to a hospital where he lapsed into a coma. He was intubated, barely kept alive for a long time. Then according to the hospital personnel someone came to Burley’s room with a gurney and carted him off into the night.

Police detective Bode is certain Danny Branch, who can’t be found, is responsible for this, even though there is no evidence – nor a specific crime with which to charge him. So the detective goes to Danny’s lawyer and asks for his cooperation in tracking Danny down.

“Can’t help you,” Henry said. “It’s a matter of patriotism.”

“Patriotism? You can’t mean that.”

“I mean patriotism – love for your country and your neighbors. There’s a difference, Mr.  Bode, between the state, or any other organization, and the country. I’m not going to cooperate with you in this case because I don’t like what you represent.”

“What I represent? What do you think I represent?”

“The organization of the world.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means, “Henry said, “that you want whatever you know to serve power. You want knowledge to be power.  … You’re here to represent the right of the state and other large organizations to decide for us and come between us. The people you represent will come out here without asking our opinion, and shut down a barbershop or a little slaughterhouse because it’s not sanitary enough for us, and then let other businesses – richer ones – poison the air and water.”

“I’m not in charge of the state,” Kyle Bode said. “I’m just doing my duty.”

After a bit Henry’s father and partner, Wheeler, joins the conversation.

Bode says, “Well, anyway, all I know is that the law has been broken, and I am here to serve the law.”

“The law exists only to serve.”

“Serve what?”

“Why, all the many things that are above it. Love.”’

As supportive as the government may seem, it will be supportive of the church only so long as the church serves the government’s purpose. There is even the risk that the church will become dependent because of the government’s largesse. Perhaps it sounds paranoid for wanting the church to keep its distance from the state, but I think Wendell Berry might have been an American Baptist.