Radical Soul Liberty: Our Fundamental Natural Right

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Radical Soul Liberty: Our Fundamental Natural Right
By Charles Wellborn

[Dr. Charles Wellborn is Professor of Religion Emeritus, Florida State University and for 20 years was Dean of the Overseas Campus in London.]

(The following is a slightly expanded version of a statement made to the Conference on Religious Liberty convened in London, England in July, 1999. The conference was sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and the Baptist Union of Great Britain).

The title of our session this afternoon is "Challenges to Mere Toleration." The title is a pejorative one, chosen by someone with definite convictions about the meaning of religious liberty. The term "mere toleration" raises immediate questions about the adequacy of that concept.

Let me position myself. I am a practicing Christian and have been for more than half a century. My conversion to the Christian faith came when I was a World War 11 veteran, newly discharged from combat service, and my commitment to my faith is rooted in a deeply personal spiritual experience which I cannot with any integrity deny or compromise. Secondly, I am a Baptist Christian by tradition and conviction. A fundamental part of my Baptist stance is an adherence to the doctrines of the priesthood of the believer, the primacy of the authority of personal religious experience, the separation of church and state, and radical soul liberty. I identify with historical figures such as John Bunyan, Roger Williams, and John Leland, all of whom risked their lives in defense of religious freedom.

Against that background the concept of religious toleration satisfies neither my spiritual nor intellectual conscience. As a case in point, I use the British situation since we are meeting here in London. I am an expatriate American who has lived in Britain for more than twenty years, because of vocational commitments. I confess that never in that time have I experienced any practical limitation of my religious freedom, But I am a professional political ethicist and the theory of an established church with close links to the state disturbs me. I agree with the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich who this week in The Times wrote, "The church of God must be free … The church must in conscience take responsibility for its own life, rather than having its constitution, faith, rules, and appointments in the grip of others."

I would only add to the Bishop`s statement that not only his own church, the Church of England, much of which I admire and respect, but every other church, religious group, and, indeed, every single individual is entitled to that same freedom.

Toleration is an offensive word to me because it necessarily implies that one established group has the right and power to grant others the right to differ. If an authority has the right to grant toleration, it also has the power, at least in theory, to withdraw that toleration.

In actual practice, despite that underlying theory, British law often acts effectively to protect the religious rights of the individual. A recent minor incident vividly illustrates that point. A fundamentalist Christian preacher chose the front steps of an Anglican cathedral as his pulpit. There was no service being conducted in the church. The doors of the church were closed. The church authorities ordered him to leave. He refused. He was arrested for a breach of the peace. When he appeared before the local magistrate, he was immediately freed. The judge said in his statement, "Whatever an individual may say whether it is regarded by others as heretical, offensive, or even absurd, he/she has the right to say it, so long as he/she does not materially infringe upon the rights of others. Io deny that right is to undermine seriously the whole concept of a democratic society." To my mind that anonymous justice should be enshrined as a minor hero in the pantheon of religious liberty.

The concept of radical soul liberty, as I have chosen to call it, involves a drastically different approach from that of religious toleration. It holds to the conviction that every human being, as a creation of God, is of infinite value and therefore divinely imbued with the right-and the responsibility-to work out his or her own relationship with God in an individual and unfettered way. No earthly authority, whether governmental or ecclesiastical, can override that natural, inborn right. Indeed, any effort to impose by external means religious belief on individuals is doomed to failure. Conformity of behavior can be coerced, but the sanctuary of a person`s soul is invulnerable. Human beings will finally choose what they believe, regardless of the pressures brought to bear upon them.

The concept of radical soul liberty has complex dimensions, and I can only briefly summarize some of them here. To hold to the right of one`s own religious freedom is clearly to hold also to the equal right of every other person. Here the American Puritans failed to be consistent. Avidly jealous for their own freedom, they failed to extend that right to others, and at this point Roger Williams rightly departed from them, both theologically and geographically.

The problem of the Puritans was simple. They were irrevocably convinced that their interpretation of the Scriptures was absolutely correct, and they could brook no disagreement. Williams challenged them with a radically different interpretation, and they could not accept or tolerate it. .Thus, religious freedom in New England was smothered under a majority religious imperialism, buttressed by legal and governmental authority.

No one has ever argued more persuasively for religious freedom than did the American Founding Father, James Madison, a primary moving force in the Bill of Rights. Setting himself against Patrick Henry`s attempt to put in place a kind of religious establishment in Virginia, he contended that to violate the separation of church and state would infringe upon the natural liberties of citizens; unbalance the equality among them; make civil magistrates judges of religious truth, which they are not competent to judge; corrupt the churches themselves; and jeopardize the multiculturalism which is fundamental to the American Dream. Those somewhat bizarre individuals who seek to argue today that the authors of the American Constitution did not specifically intend to prescribe church-state separation need to reread their Madison-or indeed read it for the first time.

Radical soul liberty, however, requires more from the religious believer than a simple adherence to the concept of church-state separation. It demands a positive affirmation of the religious freedom of every individual; regardless of his or her beliefs-or non-beliefs. I am convinced that this affirmation carries with it the necessity-and this is a difficult area for many earnest Christians-to abandon the stance of religious imperialism: the unchallenged certainty that one is, religiously, totally and without any possibility of error in possession of truth.

One of my spiritual heroes in the New Testament is the man who came to Jesus with the simple plea, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." Every person`s creed is a mixture of faith and doubt, certainty and uncertainty. One must live and act according to his certainties, but he must also live with his doubts. Our doubts remind us that, like the Apostle Paul, we see through a glass darkly. We must live by the truth that we believe we know, but a realistic awareness of our human situation-that we are limited in our space-time box and likewise limited by our own pervasive sinful natures-means that we cannot claim rightly total knowledge of ultimate truth. That I simply means that God, by definition, is bigger than any of us, and that we cannot confine Him in the narrow walls of our own confessions and catechisms. Radical soul liberty demands, therefore, the virtue of honest humility and a stance of openness to others who differ from us in spiritual understanding.

The abandonment of religious imperialism does not imply any form of wishy-washy religious compromise-a willingness to settle for the least common denominator in faith in order to achieve some sort of vaporous unity of all. That usually means a superficial mouthing of universal platitudes without substance. Every person is entitled to proclaim his faith, as he understands it, thereby submitting it to the reasoned and experiential response of others. And, equally, every individual is entitled to "convert," to use a Christian term; that is, to alter, even drastically, his religious convictions, if he or she so chooses. An American should not be foreordained, by culture and tradition, to be a Christian; neither should a Muslim or a Hindu. a Buddhist or a Jew, be so ordained. Radical soul liberty will settle for nothing less than free, informed, personal religious choice.

Radical soul liberty includes the right of every individual to witness freely to his or her faith. This is where, for Christians, the Great Commission is important. We are commanded to tell others, wherever they may be, that our personal encounter with the Christ has brought us forgiveness, justification, joy, and peace-salvation. Wherever and whenever another human being responds to our witness and experiences those same things, that is the fulfillment of our mission. But we also have the obligation to listen and to learn from others, even those who most violently disagree with us. A person`s individual choice is made more meaningful and lasting the more he or she understands the differing approaches to spiritual truth.

It may be salutary at this point for Baptists to remember that some of our denominational ancestors believed so strongly in the importance of mature, meaningful religious decision that they practiced only "adult baptism." Modern Baptists have largely retreated from that position, but I venture to suggest that many thinking Baptists today are sometimes concerned about the loose application of the so-called "age of accountability." As for myself, I am willing to leave that decision to Christian pastors and congregations, but the principle remains intact.

The New Testament uses the Greek word "koinonia" to describe its fellowship of believers, living together in mutual respect and concern, bound by the underlying and supreme virtue of agapeic love-unselfish care for and concern for the other. "Koinonia" is a decisive term in the Christian community. Every person who has ever been a Christian pastor realizes that there is always a "church within the church-an inner group of those who have more fully understood and accepted the demands of their faith. The "koinonia" is always and everywhere the prime source of whatever spiritual power is generated by the Christian church.

I believe the meaning of "koinonid` can be expanded without diminishing its special significance for the Christian community. There is, I think, a kind of potential "koinonia" of God-fearing, God-loving, God-seeking people in the world. The basic needs of people transcend their differences. Their vocabularies are vastly different, and their struggle for spiritual understanding takes many forms, but the "void in their souls," to use the words of St. Augustine, is identical. They want God and all which that implies. They seek Him. "Seeker," incidentally, is a word which Roger Williams used to describe himself in his later days. Surely the loving God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ cares for all these human souls and reaches out toward them. I believe that, in their common humanity, God-lovers, God-fearers, and God-seekers have a possible ground on which to live together, love together, and learn together in the face of an increasingly secular world where all serious thought of God has been abandoned by many.

Wriing in 1952 in The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr made the point that "the most effective force for community is religious humility. This includes the charitable realization that the vanities of the other group or person, from which we suffer, are not different in kind, though perhaps in degree, from similar vanities in our own life. It also includes a religious sense of the mystery and greatness of the other life, which we violate if we seek to comprehend it too simply from our standpoint."

I venture to say that a recognition of this kind of "koinonia" could offer one of our best hopes in this tragically divided world. The challenge of secularism is rampant, and it offers no real solution to our problems-only more division, more hate, more violence. Unhappily it is clear that many American Christians have forgotten what "koinonia" means. I think particularly of the bitter conflict among Baptists over secondary doctrinal issues. Mutual respect and Christian love have too often been thrown overboard in a raw struggle for power. Emotive ethical issues such as abortion have generated more heat and hatred than love and reasonable discussion. Insult hostility, denigration, and violence are not the characteristics of a Christian community. The Body of Christ has been left beaten and bleeding.

Not just in America, but around the world, the situation is much the same. Northern Ireland is nominally a Christian community, but for many thousands of people in that unhappy province, any sense of "koinonia" between Protestants and Catholics has disappeared. Too often, the religious zealots on both sides are those who carry the banners of conflict. Beyond the bounds of nominally Christian areas-places like Bosnia, Serbia, and the Near East-any sense of human kinship and a shared responsibility as children of God is clearly absent, even among those who claim in one way or another to be children of God.

I wish I knew some magic formula to institute a movement to revive and renew a sense of "koinonia," first of all, among my fellow Christians, but also among that larger community who seek God and good in the world. Sadly, I do not. I am convinced that there cannot be that badly needed spiritual awakening in our society without it. I can hope, and I can pray. I know that sounds idealistic. To dream of a world in which God-lovers, God-fearers, and God-seekers live and love and learn together is Utopian, perhaps. But when in human history have we made any real progress without the persistent prodding of the idealists and the dreamers?

Let me close by emphasizing again my main points. Radical soul liberty is our basic human right. If we surrender that natural right, we will eventually lose all other freedoms. The American Declaration of Independence proclaims that every human being is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without radical soul liberty there can be no real life, no genuine liberty, no lasting happiness. But radical soul liberty is a universal right-one which cannot be sustained in our unhappy world without the development of a true sense of "koinonia."

Religious freedom and "koinonia"-like love and marriage, horse and carriage-go together.