Religious Freedom Award Remarks
By Foy Valentine, Founding Editor
Note: On August 25, 2005, at the fifth Texas Baptist Heritage Awards Banquet, four Texas Baptists were recognized for their role in leadership, missions, denominational service, and religious freedom. Foy Valentine was honored for his unique contributions to religious liberty. The editor requested Dr. Valentine to allow the Journal to publish his remarks that evening-though not typical of his regular article, the speech is typical Valentinisque food for the soul.
A sincere and hearty word of appreciation must be offered to the planners of this program for choosing me to receive the Fifth Annual George W. Truett Religious Freedom Award at this Texas Baptist Heritage Awards Banquet.
Thank you.
Thanks, too, to my family members and to my many friends who have honored me by letters, phone calls, personal visits, and now by your presence on this occasion.
The relationship between church and state is the most important subject in the history of the West.
Religious liberty`s corollary, the separation of church and state, is the most important contribution the United States of America has made to world civilization.
There has never been an American doctrine of church-state separation, only a Baptist doctrine that has had great influence in America, according to America`s best known and most widely respected church historian, Martin Marty.
My own interest in the subject is life-long.
I was nurtured in family lore related to French Huguenot ancestors. (Both Foy and Valentine have French Huguenot roots.)
In 1953, as the newly elected director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, I was drawn like bees to honey to involvement in the religious liberty/church-state issue. My heart burned within me at the courageous and principled stands taken by the newly organized Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. For some fifty years I have served as a Trustee of this immensely influential organization, now called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, working on most of its committees, as Chair of its Executive Committee, and twice as its President.
In my own speaking, preaching, teaching, writing, organizational work, and stewardship in support of the religious liberty/church-state separation principle, I have stood on the shoulders of giants. Chief among these giants have been George W. Truett, J. M. Dawson, and Glenn L. Archer.
Dr. George W. Truett`s famous sermon, "Baptists and Religious Liberty," preached on the East Steps of the United States Capitol, marks this great man of towering genius as an eminent champion of this worthy cause.
In his very mature years, Dr. J. M. Dawson left his native state of Texas to head the work of what was to become the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. From that bully pulpit, Dr. Dawson made immeasurable contributions to the cause of religious liberty and church-state separation.
At Dr. Dawson`s initiative, Glenn L. Archer came from his law school deanship in Kansas to head the work of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Glenn L. Archer`s towering strengths and unflinching commitment to church-state separation enabled him to fulfill with remarkable effectiveness what he deemed to be his special calling from God.
I respectfully salute these three giants who, though dead, are yet speaking.
Now, the heaviest possible shot must be fired across the bow of the ship carrying the current detractors of church-state separation.
Blithely ignoring the lessons of history, these detractors would sell our birthright for a mess of pottage.
Piddling dribbles of tax money are being doled out for "faith-based initiatives"-and for votes.
Pitiful little photo-op grants are being scheduled to buy silence on church-state separation today and votes for tomorrow.
Roving through the garden of religious liberty cultivated by wise pioneers in the past, these detractors, like Goths rampaging through Rome in her dotage, are bent not just on breaching the wall but on destroying it altogether so that not one stone is left on another.
In the name of George W. Truett and in the name of Liberty`s Lord, let Baptists rise up now to stop these detractors. And let Baptists with one heart, one mind, and one will raise high the banner of religious liberty/church-state separation. As Chaucer put it, if gold rust, how shall Iron be clean? What our forebears secured at great sacrifice letus not basely relinquish.
