Response to Brent Walker`s Review
By C. Truett Baker, President Emeritus
Arizona Baptist Children`s Services
Note: In the interest of dialogue on a vital issue, the editor asked Truett Baker to allow his letter to be published, followed by a response from reviewer Brent Walker. Truett is a friend from college days and a strong believer in our Journal.
Brent Walker`s review of Philip Hamburger`s book, Separation of Church and State (February, 2003), motivated me to obtain a copy. I liked what he had to say about the book. However, his comments were more of a defense of his own church-state relation`s point of view than a fair review of the book. I could have overlooked that liberty he took, but I have a great deal of difficulty overlooking his point of view. I understand Mr. Walker`s position as I have read his comments on this subject on several occasions and it is a popular viewpoint. Mr. Walker employs a tool we all use unwittingly from time to time when we feel so strongly about a subject-fitting the facts to justify our position.
No doubt, I am guilty of the same thing but my position is based upon thirty-five years of experience in balancing obligations to Caesar and to God. From 1984 to 1999 I was President of Arizona Baptist Children`s Services. We provided foster care and behavioral health services to children in state custody and were paid for those services as any other legal guardian would pay for their children`s care. We contracted with the State of Arizona to provide that care. We did not accept "government support" as the staunch separationist are fond of describing that process. Our programs were licensed by the State; otherwise we could not have provided the care. Licensing was required regardless of our contract relationship and we were monitored both by state licensing and state contract management in addition to Joint Commission oversight.
We did not discriminate in hiring on a religious basis and yet we shared our Faith through voluntary Bible study and worship services. More professions of faith were made each year in our programs than were experienced by many of the Southern Baptist churches in the state. We did not force our faith on the children. That doesn`t have to be done. People are drawn to the Gospel-not repelled by it. We were often told by state caseworkers that they preferred to send their children to us because of the values they learned and they knew the kids would be safe with us. At no point did we disregard the law or try to manipulate it to suit our purposes. Neither did we compromise our faith. We literally rendered to "Caesar" what the state required and rendered to God what He required of us.
In the best of all possible scenarios, the Church should pay for the care of troubled and homeless children. If all Christians tithed, that could happen. In this case, our budget was several times greater than that of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention. The other option was to simply get out of the child-caring work altogether and let non-sectarian agencies and the state provide the care, disregarding the meeting of children`s spiritual needs. It has always amazed me how intelligent, well meaning Christian leaders like Brent Walker would rather let children be cared for by secular agencies, where impressionable children would not hear about Christ, rather than cared for in Christian agencies who work with the state.
The jurisprudence history of First Amendment matters is a relatively late development. It actually began in 1925 with Gitlow v. New York. I guess we can attribute any motive we want to the founding fathers, but one point of view is that the First Amendment was intended to apply only to the Federal government since the statement begins, "Congress shall make no law…" There was absolutely nothing that would have prevented the establishment of a state church and many believe this was part of the motive behind the amendment. Only much later was the venue enlarged to include government at all levels. There is example after example in Europe and Colonial America when government provided funding to help the poor and disadvantaged but used "church wardens" and other church means to distribute the aid. Objection to that cooperation was rare.
Why do we not see our strict-separationist friends lobbying Congress to revise the Internal Revenue Code to remove tax exemption for church property and minister`s housing allowance? (Talk about government subsidy!!) Why don`t we change the law to allow denominations to support their own chaplains in the military as we support missionaries? Why don`t we object to state/local building codes which dictate building standards and health standards in our church kitchens?
Why can`t church and state work together without feeling that one will dominate the other? The state has a role in health and safety and the Church has a role in pursuing its spiritual mission. In fact, the state has a responsibility to protect churches. Why shouldn`t the Church have a role in providing a spiritual influence with the state? Accommodation is a dirty word to the separationist. That scares me because it smacks of fundamentalism. There was absolutely nothing in the ethical statement of Jesus to render to Caesar what belongs to him and to God what belongs to Him that, mitigates against church and state working together toward the common goal of serving mankind.
Having said that, I am concerned about President Bush`s "Charitable Choice." He would exempt faith-based agencies from the rules by which others must play. Showing that partially opens a door through which I don`t want to go. For years fundamentalist groups have lobbied state legislatures to exempt their organizations from state licensing, i.e., Evangelist Lester Roloff in Corpus Christi, TX. That would then enable the organization to treat people any way they wish and ignore any health and safety standards they chose to ignore. Government is remiss in its responsibility when it allows this to happen in the name of church-state separation. Again, the state has a place in organized religion and the church has a place in the public square. This can be done by each respecting the venue of the other and neither attempting to dominate the other. The paranoia and persecution complex mentality of earlier centuries is not appropriate in the 21st Century.
