The legacy of George W. Truett
By / Aug 30

On May 6, 1867, George Washington Truett entered the world in a rural farmhouse in Clay County, North Carolina, as the seventh child of Charles and Mary Truett. The family resided on a 250-acre farm just two miles west of the mountain village of Hayesville. The Truetts farmed half the land for crops, and the other half was mountainous, so young Truett’s boyhood was spent cutting down trees, splitting rails to make fence posts, and preparing the timber logs to be taken to the local saw mill. Throughout his adolescence, young George saw his need for a Savior, but not until he turned 19 did he make what he referred to as the “supreme decision” of his life. After a move to Texas with his family, he would accept the call to preach at the urging of his church in 1890, setting him on a path to assume the pastorate of First Baptist Dallas.

Pastor of First Baptist Dallas

On Aug. 4, 1897, First Baptist Dallas voted 74 to 3 in favor of calling Truett as pastor. His youthful enthusiasm coupled with a wisdom and maturity beyond his years gave him instant appeal with the people. He and his wife Josephine were welcomed into one of the most established and notable churches in the state with a stately, brand-new, and beautiful sanctuary that still serves the congregation today. His starting salary was $1,800 a year — quite a sum in those days! 

Immediately, the people of Dallas accepted their new pastor with waves of optimism and expectancy filling the atmosphere of every worship service. Crowds swelled and new members joined the church in growing numbers. As the coming years unfolded, the reputation of the pastor and church extended far beyond Dallas; it was a nationally known ministry. For a period of time, the church was the largest in the world until its numbers were eclipsed in the 1920s by J. Frank Norris at the First Baptist Church in Fort Worth. Truett would remain at FBC Dallas for over four decades. He also served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1927–1929) and as president of the Baptist World Alliance (1934–1939).

George Truett and religious liberty

Two events catapulted George W. Truett onto the national scene and made him a household name among Christians in the United States. The first came in 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson requested that Truett spend a few months encouraging and preaching to the United States Armed Forces battling the Germans in the European theater. Truett readily accepted his nation’s call to “preach to the soldiers in the camps and in the blood-sodden trenches beyond the Atlantic.”

On July 31, 1919, Truett sailed from New York to England, eventually headed for the battlefields of Europe. He wrote in his diary, “The German Bastille must fall. . . . The Am [sic] people have their minds made up about this war, and they unhesitatingly believe that our Allied Armies are God’s instruments to right the greatest wrong in all human history.” Truett doubtless believed that the war was just and must be won at all costs.

In October, he arrived in France. For several weeks he spoke to the troops in the camps, in mess halls, and out in the trenches, as close to the front lines as chaplains were allowed to venture. The war revealed Truett’s true human spirit. He lived in the primitive camps with the men, ate their food with them, got wet and cold alongside them, and slogged through the mud and freezing winter temperatures to minister to them. He saw more than his share of suffering and death and wrote repeatedly in his diary of the “horribleness of war” and “the awful deso-lation of war on every hand.”

The second event that led to Truett’s fame was his famous address on religious liberty, delivered on the steps of the United States Capitol in 1920. In the midst of the early challenges of the 75 Million Campaign, Southern Baptists were in need of a word of encouragement as they gathered in the nation’s capital for their annual meeting in May 1920. Truett was chosen to represent the Baptist faithful in delivering a major address on religious liberty. He rose to the occasion. Fifteen thousand people gathered outdoors to hear his address from the east steps of the United States Capitol. The crowd was a who’s who of American dignitaries including Supreme Court justices, military leaders, cabinet officials, members of the Congress and Senate, ambassadors, and thousands of Baptist faithful who had traveled to Washington, D.C., for the annual convention. Robert Coleman led the crowd in singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” followed by several hymns, including “Rescue the Perishing” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.”

Without the aid of a public address system and without notes or a teleprompter, Truett delivered the most famous address of his long and illustrious career. He spoke of the past, the present, and the future, and he emphasized that the foundation of all religious liberty is found in the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. Truett spoke of the incomparable apostasy that resulted from church-state unions and warned against such in America’s future. He viewed every state church on earth as a spiritual tyranny. Near the end of his remarks, he boldly proclaimed the exclusivity of Christ, stating that evangelism is the primary task of the church. He declared, “Salvation for sinners is through Jesus Christ alone, nor is there any other name or way under heaven whereby they may be saved.” This major address forever branded George W. Truett as the champion of the separation of church and state.

Truett’s legacy

Building proved the greatest of all of Truett’s attributes and lasting accolades. He built things that lasted. He built a great church. He started other churches in Dallas, such as Gaston Avenue Baptist Church and Cliff Temple Baptist Church, which grew into megachurches in their own right. The Baptist Standard, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baylor Medical Center, the Relief and Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Buckner Orphan’s Home, and many other organizations all have one thing in common: George Truett was a vital factor in their founding or development. He served on the boards of each of these entities and helped raise vast sums of money for their support. His significant part in the founding of two of them, Baylor Medical Center and the Relief and Annuity Board, has changed the lives of millions of people over the past century. Biographers and historians have said that among George W. Truett’s greatest attributes was his keen ability not only to envision new and innovative ministries, but also to inspire the masses to adopt his vision and see it come to fruition. He built things, and the things he built have lasted over several generations.

This excerpt is adapted from the forthcoming book from B&H Academic, In the Name of God: The Colliding Lives, Legends, and Legacies of J.Frank Norris and George W. Truett.

The History of the Pro-life Movement
By / Jun 11

In August of 2017, Iceland made headlines because children born with Down syndrome were on the decline. However, this was not the result of medical advances or treatments for the genetic condition. Rather, it was revealed that women who found out their child had a diagnosis (or possible diagnosis) of Down syndrome were almost certain to have an abortion. 

The news prompted swift reaction. Supporters of abortion saw this as a natural result of women having the right to choose what to do with their bodies and what kind of children they wished to bring into the world. But pro-life and disability advocates condemned the news and a culture that would discard children. It was but one moment in the long history of the pro-life movement—one that speaks up for those who have no voice and declares that these hidden persons possess inherent dignity and worth.

Pro-life advocacy before Roe v. Wade

Prior to the 19th century, abortion had been legal (in some instances) throughout much of the United States. Most of the early regulations were aimed at protecting women from unsafe practices, with “quickening”—when the baby could be felt moving—serving as a line for when an abortion was permitted. However, as medical technology advanced and scientists were able to see the combination of genetic material from the parents that resulted in a fertilized egg, the line moved further backward. By the early 1900s, almost every state had criminalized abortion, though this was rarely enforced

In America, we often think of the pro-life movement arising from the decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973. It is also often cast as a clear political divide, with those on the right opposing the practice and those on the left supporting it. However, as Daniel Williams has shown in his history of the pro-life movement, it has roots going back to at least the 1930s and 1940s, and there was no clear political divide.1Daniel Williams, Defending the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v Wade (Oxford, UK: Oxford Unviersity Press, 2016).

At that time, Catholics (and it was primarily Catholics) were the strongest opponents of abortion on the grounds that it (along with contraception) was a violation of the official church teaching on the sanctity of human life. These Christians drew on the long tradition of Catholic social teaching and argued that care for the poor was a duty for Christians. On the basis of their theology, they found it easy to advocate for FDR’s New Deal program which created a stronger social safety net for the poor. And in the context of that moment, it was the poor, just as today, who were the most likely to receive (and suffer) from an abortion. Because of the limits on when doctors could provide abortions legally, it was common for women to obtain illegal and unsafe procedures which threatened their life.

Protestants were largely unconcerned with the cause of abortion. Though some fundamentalists opposed the practice, most evangelicals were silent on the issue. And mainline Protestants, who made up the largest section of the religious landscape at the time, were moving from apathetic to sympathetic supporters, especially in the 1960s. 

Expansion of abortion access and pro-life advocacy beyond Catholicism

In the 1960s, several states passed laws based on a revision to the legal framework proposed by the American Law Institute which allowed abortion for the physical or mental health of the mother, fetal deformity, or if the pregnancy were the result of rape, incest, or some other illegal action. Colorado was the first to pass the law, followed by North Carolina, and California (signed by then Gov. Ronald Reagan). 

In 1970, New York debated and ratified a bill that permitted abortion-on-demand up to the six-month mark. Then in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 in Roe v. Wade—drawing on a 1965 ruling that found a right to privacy with regards to contraception—that a person had a right to privacy in matters of abortion and states could not restrict abortion during the first trimester, though some restrictions could be implemented in the second and third trimesters. This framework would later be discarded in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey which found that women could have an abortion before viability, and any restriction must not cause an undue burden on the mother’s right to seek an abortion. 

Throughout this struggle, the debate was still largely a Catholic issue. No major Protestant groups were on record as opposing abortion, with only sporadic instances at the individual level. In fact, some were even supportive of the regulations at the time. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, passed a resolution at its 1971 annual meeting affirming the sanctity of life, but also calling on Southern Baptists to work for legislation that would allow for abortion in the cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother. 

However, in the 1970s, with the rise of the Religious Right and the work of figures such as Paul Weyrich (a Catholic) and Jerry Falwell (a Baptist), evangelicals would mobilize on the issue and bring it into the social consciousness of the average individual. This blending of Catholic and Protestant groups marked a pivotal turning point for the movement as it breathed new life and energy into it. The Catholics had already built out an infrastructure for working against abortion, most notably the National Right to Life Committee which was started in 1968 by Monsignor James T. McHugh at the request of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. However, Catholics had been losing the fight at almost every instance as state after state passed more liberal abortion laws. They also found themselves unable to bring in the support of others because of the anti-Catholic bias that was common in American religion at the time. 

With the support of Protestants, particularly evangelicals who were politically minded, the movement came to be a major wedge issue. Though recent scholars such as Randall Balmer have cast doubts on the claim that it was abortion which galvanized the leaders of the Religious Right, providing evidence of the late opposition to the cause, there is also substantial evidence that for many rank-and-file evangelicals, this topic captured their hearts like nothing else.2Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2007). 

Through the rise of sonogram machines (and the ability to see the child in utero), as well as literature and images that showcased the brutality of the procedure, most notably the 1984 film The Silent Scream that depicted an abortion, pro-life advocates began to work to counteract the narrative that this was a matter of personal choice. Drawing on the language of the Declaration of Independence, pro-life advocates argued for a “right to life” of the unborn. Additionally, they advocated before the courts and in state legislatures and Congress for just treatment. In 1976, the movement secured the passage of the Hyde Amendment which prevents the use of federal funds for abortion. And in 1984, the Mexico City policy, enacted by President Reagan, prevented U.S. aid to foreign countries being used for abortion. 

Contemporary pro-life movement: “Womb to Tomb”

In the recent decades, the fight has largely moved to the Supreme Court and individual state houses. There has been little significant change at the federal level which has led to an increased focus on state legislation. At the state level, pro-life advocates have succeeded in passing a number of anti-abortion regulations that severely limit the practice. Some have been aimed at pushing the line of viability further and further back (such as with fetal heartbeat bills), while others have restricted access through holding abortion clinics to the same standards as other medical providers. These regulations and bills face challenges at the Supreme Court which has made the nominating process so contentious for recent appointees, with some senators questioning just how strongly the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, which opposes abortion, bears on the judicial rulings of Catholic nominees.3Sohrab Amari, “The Dogma of Dianne Feinstein,” New York Times (September 11, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/the-dogma-of-dianne-feinstein.html. 

The face of the pro-life movement has also changed in recent years. What was once a (largely) white Catholic movement has come to be increasingly characterized by religious and racial diversity. With the influx of evangelicals and charismatic groups (and even some who are atheists), the pro-life movement has become more religiously diverse. Further, Latino and African American pro-life advocates, who are overrepresented in abortion statistics, have become important members in the coalitions working for systemic change in abortion laws. 

Further, the pro-life movement has gone beyond just advocating for change to legal laws and now works to make abortion unthinkable. Through the vital work of pregnancy resource centers, churches and nonprofits provide medical care to women who would be seeking an abortion. This is a direct challenge to the work of organizations such as Planned Parenthood which profit from providing easy access to abortion for low-income and minority women. 

Additionally, the pro-life movement has, in recent years, expanded its vision from looking only at abortion to a more holistic pro-life ethic that is “womb to tomb.” While not disregarding the work that still remains to be done in advocating for the unborn, pro-life advocates have articulated a theology that recognizes the inherent dignity of individuals, no matter their race, mental capacity, or stage of development. Looking to combat all challenges to human dignity, this new pro-life movement has advocated for changes to the way immigrants and refugees are treated, opposed euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, and advocated for reform to systemic and racial inequality, recognizing that each individual is made in the image of God.

And there is considerable evidence to show that the pro-life argument is having an effect. At every turn, there are threats (as with the recent laws passed in Virginia and New York legislatures), but the United States is growing increasingly pro-life.4Mark Weiner, “NY Senate passes historic expansion of abortion rights” Syracuse.com (January 22, 2019), https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2019/01/ny-senate-passes-historic-expansion-of-abortion-rights.html.; Alexandra DeSanctis, “Virginia Bill Would Legalize Abortion Up to Birth,” National Review Online (January 29, 2019), https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/virginia-bill-would-legalize-abortion-up-to-birth/. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the rate of abortions has fallen below pre-Roe levels and continues to drop.5Guttmacher Institute, “Induced Abortions in the United States,” (September 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states# Though some of this is attributable to easier contraceptive access and decreasing rates of teen pregnancy, it is also the result of the work of the pro-life movement setting forth the dignity of the unborn for almost a century. What began with mostly Catholics alone now includes thousands from across the ideological and religious spectrum each year proclaiming the value of each person from womb to tomb.6Alexandra Desanctis, “The Pro-Life Movement You’ve Never Heard of,” National Review Online (March 19, 2020), https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/04/06/the-pro-life-movement-youve-never-. As David French has noted, though there has been gridlock in Washington, the culture itself is becoming more pro-life.7David French, “Do Pro-Lifers Who Reject Trump Have Blood on Their Hands,” The Dispatch (August 23, 2020), https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/do-pro-lifers-who-reject-trump-have. One reporter estimated that almost half of the attenders at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2010 were under the age of 30.8Robert McCartney, “Young activists adding fuel to antiabortion side” Washington Post (January 24, 2010), https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/23/AR2010012302400.html. And with the advances of medical technology, the point of viability continues to be pushed further back as early in some cases as 22 weeks.9Matthew A. Rysavy et al., “Between-Hospital Variation in Treatment and Outcomes in Extremely Preterm Infants” The New England Journal of Medicine 372, no. 19 (May 2015), 1807-9.

In looking ahead, a post-Roe world—a major goal for the movement—would bring the cause back to the states to advance legislation. And with an end of abortion, there would undoubtedly be an increased need for the pro-life movement to show that it is not just opposed to abortion but truly cares about mother and child, from womb to tomb.

  • 1
    Daniel Williams, Defending the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v Wade (Oxford, UK: Oxford Unviersity Press, 2016).
  • 2
    Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2007).
  • 3
    Sohrab Amari, “The Dogma of Dianne Feinstein,” New York Times (September 11, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/the-dogma-of-dianne-feinstein.html.
  • 4
    Mark Weiner, “NY Senate passes historic expansion of abortion rights” Syracuse.com (January 22, 2019), https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2019/01/ny-senate-passes-historic-expansion-of-abortion-rights.html.; Alexandra DeSanctis, “Virginia Bill Would Legalize Abortion Up to Birth,” National Review Online (January 29, 2019), https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/virginia-bill-would-legalize-abortion-up-to-birth/.
  • 5
    Guttmacher Institute, “Induced Abortions in the United States,” (September 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states#
  • 6
    Alexandra Desanctis, “The Pro-Life Movement You’ve Never Heard of,” National Review Online (March 19, 2020), https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/04/06/the-pro-life-movement-youve-never-.
  • 7
    David French, “Do Pro-Lifers Who Reject Trump Have Blood on Their Hands,” The Dispatch (August 23, 2020), https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/do-pro-lifers-who-reject-trump-have.
  • 8
    Robert McCartney, “Young activists adding fuel to antiabortion side” Washington Post (January 24, 2010), https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/23/AR2010012302400.html.
  • 9
    Matthew A. Rysavy et al., “Between-Hospital Variation in Treatment and Outcomes in Extremely Preterm Infants” The New England Journal of Medicine 372, no. 19 (May 2015), 1807-9.

10 things you should know about John Stott
By / Apr 27

Editor’s note: John Stott would have turned 100 this year. And to celebrate his life and legacy, we wanted to share this article about Stott’s life from Tim Chester’s book Stott on the Christian Life.

1. Stott had multiple careers.

I wonder who you think John Stott is. You may know him as the evangelist who preached at student missions around the world. You may know him as a careful exegete whose contributions to the Bible Speaks Today series remain invaluable guides. You may know him from his preaching and the way he let the text itself shape the sermon so that you felt God himself addressing you. You may know him as a defender of evangelical orthodoxy against the threat of liberal theology. You may know him for his commitment to the Church of England and his famous confrontation with Martyn Lloyd-Jones after Lloyd-Jones had urged British evangelicals to leave their denominations to create a pan-evangelical body. You may know him as an advocate of social involvement who exhorted Christians to serve within the secular world. You may know him as a supporter of Christians leaders from the Two-Thirds World and the founder of the Langham Partnership. But did you know about all these facets of his ministry? It can sometimes feel as if Stott lived a dozen lives.

2. The main influence on Stott’s preaching was someone he never met.

The culture into which Stott was converted was one where preaching was only loosely related to the Bible. Yet a few years later, his preaching was electrifying congregations with sermons that gained their power from the text itself. Stott had spent the intervening years at university in Cambridge, and I believe it was a Cambridge preacher who transformed his preaching: Charles Simeon, the vicar of Holy Trinity. But Stott never met Simeon because Simeon was preaching in the 19th century—a century before Stott went to Cambridge. Stott met Simeon only through Simeon’s writings. “Simeon’s uncompromising commitment to Scripture,” Stott once wrote, “captured my imagination and has held it ever since.” In his London apartment Stott had various pictures on his wall of some of the places that had been significant in his life, but he had only one portrait—a portrait of Simeon.

3. Stott belonged to only one congregation.

Stott’s father was a doctor and lived in Harley Street, the area of London traditionally associated with the medical profession. The nearest parish church was All Souls, Langham Place, and it was there that Stott was taken as child. Stott spent his school days at boarding school and it was at Rugby School that he was converted. After graduating from Cambridge University, he was ordained and became a curate, or trainee pastor, back at All Souls under the then-rector Harold Earnshaw-Smith. But within months, Earnshaw-Smith had suffered a heart attack and Stott was largely left in charge. Five years later Earnshaw-Smith died and in September 1950, Stott became the new rector. Though not entirely without precedent, it was unusual for a curate to move straight to the senior role in the same parish. Stott remained at All Souls as Rector and then Rector Emeritus for the rest of his ministry. Only in the last few months of his life did he move to a retirement home outside London.

4. Stott was a successful student evangelist.

In November 1952, Stott returned to Cambridge, the university where he had studied, to be the main speaker at the triennial evangelistic campaign of its Christian union. Attendance was so great that at the final meeting, people had to be turned away. For the next twenty-five years, Stott spoke at numerous university missions all round the world before returning to Cambridge for his final university mission in 1977. The substance of his addresses, honed in many different contexts, became his book Basic Christianity, first published in 1958. It has sold over 2.5 million copies and been translated into over fifty languages, becoming the standard evangelistic book for a generation of Christians.

5. Stott was a pioneer in lay mobilization.

It’s pretty normal for churches today to organize people into home groups and mobilize them for evangelism. But Stott was one of the pioneers of this. In the 1950s and 1960s he began applying the approaches he had learned from student missions to the local church. In the 1950 issue of the All Souls church magazine that announced his appointment, Stott wrote: “The task [of evangelism] is beyond the power of the clergy. . . . There are only two alternatives. Either the task will not be done, or we must do it together, a task force of Ministers and people thoroughly trained and harnessed as a team for evangelism.” Stott introduced a regular guest service to which people could invite friends and launched a six-month training program (with a written exam at the end). Later he published his ideas along with their rationale in his book One People: Clergy and Laity in God’s Church (1969).

6. Stott was a major influence in changing evangelical views of sanctification.

I’m the chair of the Keswick Convention. Originally founded in 1875, it’s one of the oldest conferences in the world. People often associate the Convention with the “holiness movement”—a movement characterized by the belief that the power of sin can be overcome through an act of surrender to God. It was a dominant view throughout evangelicalism in the first half of the 20th century. This association of the Keswick Convention with the “holiness movement” is kind of correct. It’s just fifty-five years out of date! For in 1965, John Stott addressed the Convention, expounding Romans 5-8 in his characteristic clear, careful fashion. 

The Convention had never, in fact, been monolithic and it was beginning to change. But Stott’s address marked a decisive turning point that impacted not only the Convention but evangelicalism more broadly. His key point was that, while our union with Christ makes sin incongruous, it does not make it impossible. It’s because sin is not impossible that Paul calls on us to count ourselves dead to sin—to live in a way consistent with our new identity in Christ (Romans 6:11). In The Contemporary Christian Stott describes sanctification as a process involving “ruthless repudiation” and “unconditional surrender.”

7. Stott wrote the Lausanne Covenant.

Over 2,500 delegates met from the Lausanne Congress in 1974 in an attempt galvanize evangelicals toward the task of world evangelization. But Lausanne also did much to provide theological coherence to the evangelical movement and was an important milestone in placing social action firmly on its agenda. The resulting Lausanne Covenant is a key document in the history of 20th-century evangelicalism. Though agreed by the Congress as a whole, it was Stott who had the unenviable task of bringing the perspectives expressed in the Congress together in one document.

8. On the one hand . . . on the other hand . . .

Stott believed in what he called “BBC”—“balanced biblical Christianity.” He refused to polarize if he could avoid doing so, but neither did he opt for a docile version of the middle ground. We need to develop this balanced, biblical Christianity, Stott wrote, “by combining truths which complement one another and not separating what God has joined.” So a common feature of his writing are the twins phrases: “On the one hand . . . ” and “on the other hand . . .”. He would identify two contrasting approaches before combining the best of both. 

For example, he would often refer to “holy worldliness.” He rejected two extremes: living in a religious ghetto that ignores the surrounding world on the one hand and being shaped by the world around us on the other hand. Instead he combines both: a deep involvement in the world for the sake of mission combined with an uncompromising commitment to God’s Word.

9. Stott saw over 2,500 different species of birds.

Stott was a passionate ornithologist. At first his interest in natural history was focused on butterflies. But, when a cushion landed on his butterfly collection in the midst of a sibling squabble, he switched to birds. At school he started a natural history club. Later, when he started being asked to speak overseas, the church council at All Souls agreed to this wider ministry as long as Stott always added on a few days of bird-watching to his trips. A life-time later, Stott had spent time bird-watching on every continent—ticking off the final continent when friends gave a bird-watching trip to Antarctica for his 70th birthday. By the end of his life he had seen over 2,500 different species (out of an estimated total of 9,000).

10. Stott’s great ambition was Christ.

A TV reporter once asked Stott, “You’ve had a brilliant academic career; first at Cambridge, Rector at twenty-nine, Chaplain to the Queen; what is your ambition now?” Stott replied, “To be more like Jesus.” Stott’s classic presentation of the gospel in Basic Christianity starts not with humanity’s need (which forms part 2) or with Christ’s saving work (which forms part 3) but with the person of Christ. This is what Stott found compelling about Christianity. As we see Christ’s glory, we want to serve him; as we see his beauty, we want to imitate him. This is the repeated refrain of one of Stott’s final books, The Radical Disciple: 

If Christian maturity is maturity in our relationship with God, in which we worship, trust and obey him, then the clearer our vision of Christ, the more convinced we become that he is worthy of our commitment.

So if we want to develop truly Christian maturity, we need above all a fresh and true vision of Jesus Christ.

If only we could see Jesus in the fullness of who he is and what he has done! Why then surely we should see how worthy he is of our wholehearted allegiance, and faith, love and obedience would be drawn out from us and we would grow into maturity. Nothing is more important for mature Christian discipleship than a fresh, clear, true vision of the authentic Jesus.

For the discipleship principle is clear: the poorer our vision of Christ, the poorer out discipleship will be, whereas the richer our vision of Christ, the richer our discipleship will be.

Content adapted from Stott on the Christian Life by Tim Chester. This article first appeared on Crossway.org; used with permission.

The role of church history in teaching children virtue
By / Apr 15

If you were a child of the evangelical 1980s and 90s, you likely saw a VHS tape containing a morality tale. Whether it was McGee and Me, Quiggly’s Village, or a plunger-headed cucumber fighting rumor weeds and fibs from outer space, you were told tales of the dangers of lying, envy, and other numerous sins with the help of cartoons, puppets, and animated vegetables.

I don’t remember all the plot lines of such shows, but I do have vivid memories of great tragedy befalling the protagonists when they committed various vices that spun out of control.

While there’s a place for discussing the merits and drawbacks of such entertainment, the aim of cultivating virtue—and warning against vice—is very appropriate. It smacks of the philosophy of the Proverbs. You might say Proverbs was written, among other things, as a warning to young people against vices. The sage tells the young man to avoid joining gangs for a false sense of belonging. Wisdom creates a hedge for the youth against the deadly allure of illicit sex.

Now this is important. Stories cultivate moral sensibility. In her book On Reading Well, Karen Swallow Prior makes this case deftly: when we read books well, we practice moral judgments and further develop our own moral convictions. Stories reduced to mere morality tales are not good literature, but all narratives when told truthfully will develop our understanding of virtue.

How much more does history, when told truthfully, serve us—and our kids—with the formation of virtue.

History is full of women and men who exhibit virtue. And unlike morality tales, these history-shaping men and women live in a very real world, a world like our own. To quote Voltaire, “History doesn’t repeat itself. Man always does.”1Quoted without source attribution in Barabara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), xiv. No matter what era we study, we are still gripped by our shared imago Dei. Our humanity connects us with figures across history. Indeed, humanity gives us access to models of virtue, and examples of vice.

For every virtue has at either extreme a vice. If the path of virtue is a road, then on each side is a ditch. Virtue is about staying on the road, and not walking into either ditch. If virtue is about keeping to the center, vice is found in among the cattails.

Arius’ overgrown ambition

History has many figures among the cattails. One of them was a man named Arius, and there are three things you should know about him:

First, he was handsome, gifted, and a golden-tongued teacher. He was an influencer. If Twitter was a thing back in 300 A.D., Arius would have had the blue check.

Second, Arius is an example of the failure of temperance. Arius served under Alexander, the man who held office as the bishop of Alexandria, arguably the most important church office in the ancient world at the time. Arius wanted that office, and his ambitions birthed in him a jealousy that eventually overtook him.

Third, in his jealousy, Arius began making up lies about Alexander. And then things got really out of hand. Consider gathering your kids in the family room, or my favorite—around the campfire—and telling them this tale: 

The young jealous Arius dug up an old heresy, one we now call modalism, and he accused Alexander of denying that God is one in three persons. Alexander tried to reason with Arius. This first charge was an easy charge for Alexander to defend, but Arius’ jealousy carried him to the next phase, and the rumor weeds grew. 

Next, Arius stirred up other bishops and the people. Arius began to explicitly teach that Jesus was not God from eternity. He famously said, “There was a time when the Son was not,” effectively denying Christ’s full deity and saying the Son was a created being. Then, Arius went even further and said that the Spirit was not God.

And as if this wasn’t enough, Arius worked hard to recruit allies to his cause. He used his gifts to gather around himself a group that aligned with Arius’s innovative teaching. To complicate matters, all this took place during the rule of Constantine, the newly converted Christian emperor. Constantine had hoped to use Christianity to reunite the faltering Roman empire. The last thing Constantine wanted was for his Church to split over what he saw as a petty theological issue. 

So what began with Arius’ unbridled ambition and jealousy grew into an enormous political controversy. Constantine called a meeting, inviting 1,800 bishops from across the empire, representatives from the Christian East and West. 

The meeting took place in modern day Iznik, Turkey, a city that was then called Nicaea. Roughly 300 bishops actually came, which is a rather good turnout considering how costly and time consuming such a journey would have been in those days.

The meeting was long. We’re talking March-to-August long. The council determined that Arius had indeed diverged from the Church’s teaching, and they affirmed a statement from which the Nicene Creed we recite today originated. Arius, along with his followers that wouldn’t yield, were banished. 

Now, if only that were the end of the story. The trouble is that the Council was unable to fully uproot Arius and his followers’ vices. The proud man and his adherents regrouped, and many (though not Arius) found ways to wiggle back into church fellowship. They used clever words, avoiding language that was condemned at Nicea, without actually changing their heretical theology.

Athanasius against the jealousy weed

Just five months after the Council of Nicaea, Alexander died, and a young man named Athanasius was elected as his successor. He had served as Alexander’s assistant, and he’d played a critical role at the council. 

Athanasius was a man of virtue. He wasn’t a brash man but was known instead for being gentle and pastoral in his approach. And yet he took the Arian threat seriously. He held tightly to the truth of the Scriptures and the deity of Christ without yielding to the political pressure to merely keep the peace. 

Athanasius’s commitment to truth made him a problem for Arius and his followers. They saw him as an enemy to be thwarted. But because of Athanasius’ virtue, they were hard pressed to find an accusation that would stick. Nevertheless, they tried.

One of the factions of Arius’ followers went so far as to fake a man’s death, hide him in another city, produce a severed hand (probably from a real corpse), and then claim that Athanasius had maimed and killed the man with sorcery. This attempt to remove Athanasius from power only failed when authorities were able to produce the alleged victim and reveal that he was still alive with two hands!

This wasn’t the end of the story. Arius and his tribe were successful in their attempts multiple times. He was forced into exile on five different occasions by four different emperors.

But when we take a close look at how Athanasius withstood these trials, we see the role of virtue in his life. One critical virtue he demonstrated was fortitude. His commitment to truth was resolute. He endured in faith in spite of banishment and fleeing for his life. Despite these continuous trials, he stayed the course, maintaining his conviction in the deity of Christ and his commitment to the true God made flesh. 

There is some scholarly debate, but most likely Athanasius’ magnum opus, On the Incarnation, was written during his first exile. Those who argue against it being written at this time point out that Arius isn’t mentioned in this work. I think it’s more likely Athanasius had his eyes set on a different prize—the purity of the Church. 

Athanasius wanted God’s people to know the beauty and majesty of the God who saw fit to dwell among us. He wanted the world to know that the exalted God who created the universe came to dwell on earth as a human. To paraphrase a lengthier passage from On the Incarnation: Just as the prestige of a city is raised when a great king dwells in it, how much more is the human race, when the God of the universe takes on flesh.2Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation, translated by John Behr, Popular Patristics Series (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 69. In his writings, Athanasius was clear, and he shows us where true virtue is found—only when we are rooted in Christ. 

Athanasius wasn’t alone in his biblical convictions about the person of Christ. There were many other leaders and fellow believers who gave him aid and shelter in his exiles, but the well known phrase Athanasius contra mundum, “Athanasius against the world,” is fitting because it captures the gravity of the pressure he faced and the virtue with which he stood.

Meanwhile, Arius—our man caught in the cattails of vice—who enviously desired the throne of Alexandria, found himself at the end of his life upon another more ignoble throne. While Arius’ case was under consideration for his readmittance and welcome into the fellowship of the church, he experienced a pain in his bowels, entered a public latrine, and immediately died upon the toilet. 

When Constantine heard this news, he immediately concluded that Arius was a scheming liar, because—in his view—no man of God would die such an ignoble death.

Arius, in his jealousy, sought fame and influence at the expense of virtue, and it led to his destruction. By contrast, Athanasius, a man of Christ-centered virtue, suffered intrigue and exile but found a prize more valuable than rubies. Nothing could take him away from the pearl of great price he found in Christ. 

Just as Arius serves as a somber warning against the dangers of unchecked vanity, envy, and pride, so also Athanasis serves us and our kids as an example of Christlike humility and a tenacious and humble refusal to compromise on the truth. 

Passing along church history from generation to generation

In Psalm 78, Asaph tells us of the importance of passing down the story of the faith from generation to generation. The psalm focuses on telling children about acts in history “so that our children should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God (v. 7).” 

Often when we cite this passage, we think about passing down the stories of our faith that we find in the Bible. But it’s also wise to tell our children about the works of God throughout the history of the church, of the men and women who endured many trials with faithfulness and of those who failed by giving into vice.

We need resources to help us do this well. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Christian History Made Easy by Timothy Paul Jones. Covering the span of church history this book has full color pictures and illustrations. It also includes the fun stories and legends that kids love (like the tall tales of “Saint Nick” punching Arius in the nose).
  • Light Keepers is a fantastic series that tells the stories of historical figures through the lens of childhood in a way that captures kids’ imaginations. 
  • Super Heroes Can’t Save You. Todd Miles cleverly breaks down Trinitarian and Christological heresies into gripping stories from history, and clear explanations of doctrine—using superheroes! If you think church history and theology are boring, check out Miles, he’ll change your mind. 

Let’s tell our children stories from our shared Christian history. When we tell them the story of Arius’ jealousy and Athanasius’ fortitude, we aren’t just telling kids morality tales of vice and virtue. We are giving them a framework for how to view the entirety of history through the lens of God’s grace. In the stories of men and women who lived lives of virtue, we’re teaching our kids about how God has shown himself faithful across hundreds of years. When we tell them about the works God has done through men and women with Christian virtue, we are strengthening their hope in the God who gives grace to the humble and fortitude to those who depend on him. 

  • 1
    Quoted without source attribution in Barabara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), xiv.
  • 2
    Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation, translated by John Behr, Popular Patristics Series (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 69.

The dynamic role the Black church has played in American history
By / Feb 26

The church is central to the story of black history in the United States. In Reading While Black, Dr. Esau McCaulley unpacks the many ways Scripture has been a resource for hope, perseverance, and justice in the African American experience. In spite of the dynamic role the black church has played in American history, its theological and historical significance is often understated. That is why this month we are taking a look at Dr. McCaulley’s book to further explore how the method of interpretation and reading Scripture has been an act of hope grounded in scriptural authority and the hope of the gospel

Here are select quotes from Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. 

I am referring to the struggle between Black nihilism and Black hope. I am speaking of the ways in which the Christian tradition fights for and makes room for hope in a world that tempts us toward despair. I contend that a key element in this fight for hope in our community has been the practice of Bible reading and interpretation coming out of the Black church. p. 3

I want to contend that the best instincts of the Black church tradition—its public advocacy for justice, its affirmation of the worth of Black bodies and souls, its vision of a multiethnic community of faith—can be embodied by those who stand at the center of this tradition. This is a work against the cynicism of some who doubt that the Bible has something to say; it is a work contending for hope. p. 6 

My professors had a point. One does not have to dig very far into history to see that fundamentalist Christians in the South (and the North) have indeed inflicted untold harm on Black people. They have used the Bible as justification for their sins, personal and corporate. But there is a second testimony possibly more important than the first. That is the testimony of Black Christians who saw in that same Bible the basis for their dignity and hope in a culture that often denied them both. In my professor’s attempt to take the Bible away from the fundamentalists, he also robbed the Black Christian of the rock on which they stood. p. 8. 

I learned that too often alongside the four pillars of evangelicalism outlined above there were unspoken fifth and sixth pillars. These are a general agreement on a certain reading of American history that downplayed injustice and a gentlemen’s agreement to remain largely silent on current issues of racism and systemic injustice. p. 11

While I was at home with much of the theology in evangelicalism, there were real disconnects. First, there was the portrayal of the Black church in these circles. I was told that the social gospel had corrupted Black Christianity. Rather than placing my hope there, I should look to the golden age of theology, either at the early years of this country or during the postwar boom of American Protestantism. But the historian in me couldn’t help but realize that these apexes of theological faithfulness coincided with the nadirs of Black freedom. p. 11

The first ray of hope came from Frederick Douglass, whose words came to be something of a Balm in Gilead. He said, 

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference. . . . I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

Frederick then posits a distinction, not so much between Black Christianity and white, but between slaveholder religion and the Christianity of Jesus and the Bible.

Black Christianity historically, I would come to understand, has claimed that white slave master readings of the Bible used to undergird white degradation of Black bodies were not merely one manifestation of Christianity to be contrasted with another. Instead they said that such a reading was wrong. p. 16-17

Therefore, I contend that the enslaved person’s biblical interpretation, which gave birth to early Black biblical interpretation, was canonical from its inception. It placed Scripture’s dominant themes in conversation with the hopes and dreams of Black folks. It was also unabashedly theological, in that particular texts were read in light of their doctrine of God, their beliefs about humanity (anthropology) and their understanding of salvation (soteriology). p. 19

My claim then is that Black biblical interpretation has been and can be 

  • unapologetically canonical and theological. 
  • socially located, in that it clearly arises out of the particular context of Black Americans. 
  • willing to listen to the ways in which the Scriptures themselves respond to and redirect Black issues and concerns. 
  • willing to exercise patience with the text trusting that a careful and sympathetic reading of the text brings a blessing. 
  • willing to listen to and enter into dialogue with Black and white critiques of the Bible in the hopes of achieving a better reading of the text. p. 21

Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its name. If the church is going to be on the side of peace in the United States, then there has to be an honest accounting of what this country has done and continues to do to Black and Brown people. Moderation or the middle ground is not always the loci of righteousness. p. 68

The question isn’t always which account of Christianity uses the Bible. The question is which does justice to as much of the biblical witness as possible. There are uses of Scripture that utter a false testimony about God. This is what we see in Satan’s use of Scripture in the wilderness. The problem isn’t that the Scriptures that Satan quoted were untrue, but when made to do the work that he wanted them to do, they distorted the biblical witness. This is my claim about the slave master exegesis of the antebellum South. The slave master arrangement of biblical material bore false witness about God. This remains true of quotations of the Bible in our own day that challenge our commitment to the refugee, the poor, and the disinherited. p. 91

The Black Christian is often beset from the left and the right. Those on the right too often contend that the Bible speaks to their souls and not the liberation of their bodies. Those on the left maintain that those on the right are correct. The Bible doesn’t clearly address the needs of Black and Brown folks. Therefore, it must either be supplemented or replaced. I am not claiming that the Bible outlines the policies necessary for the proper functioning of a Democratic Republic. I am saying that it outlines the basic principles and critiques of power that equip Black Christians for their life and work in these United States. p. 94-95

God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united by faith in his Son as a manifestation of the expansive nature of his grace. This expansiveness is unfulfilled unless the differences are seen and celebrated, not as ends unto themselves, but as particular manifestations of the power of the Spirit to bring forth the same holiness among different peoples and cultures for the glory of God. p. 106

There are two groups that want to separate us from the Christian story. One group claims that Christianity is fundamentally a white religion. This is simply historically false. The center of early Christianity was in the Middle East and North Africa. But deeper than the historical question is the biblical one. Who owns the Christian story as it is recorded in the texts that make up the canon? I have contended that Christianity is ultimately a story about God and his purposes. That is good news. God has always intended to gather a diverse group of people to worship him. p. 117

It is difficult for the African American believer to look deeply into the history of Christianity and not be profoundly shaken. Insomuch as it arises in response to the church’s historic mistreatment of African Americans, the Black secular protest against religion is one of the most understandable developments in the history of the West. If they are wrong (and they are), it is a wrongness born out of considerable pain. I too am frustrated with the way that Scripture has been used to justify the continual assault on Black bodies and souls. If we come to different conclusions about the solutions to those problems, it is not because Black Christians deny the past. It is simply that we found different solutions within the biblical witness to Black suffering and anger. We do not find fault with the broad center of the great Christian tradition. We lament its distortion by others and the ways in which we have failed to live up to the truths we hold dear. Nonetheless, we are not ashamed of finding hope and forgiveness in and through the cross of Christ. In the end, we plead and have confidence in the blood. p. 136

I argued that the Old and New Testaments, even the letters of Paul, provide us with the theological resources to dismantle slavery. It is simply false to claim that the Old and New Testaments simply baptize the institutions as they find them. Instead, the Scriptures raise tensions between the central themes of the Bible and slavery. p. 162

Alongside the vibrancy of evangelicalism, there was, in spirit if not always in practice, an emphasis on the equality of all people due to the belief that all were sinners in need of God’s grace. The equal need for grace spoke to the equal worth of Black bodies and souls, making conversion to this form of Christianity a realistic possibility. Furthermore, the flexible polities of Baptist and later Methodist churches made it easier for African Americans to form their own independent churches and denominations when racism forced them out of white churches. Here in these newly formed Black churches and denominations we have our first extensive record of the Black encounter with the Bible. p. 169

The emphasis on the Bible in evangelical circles spurred on the Black desire for literacy. Learning to read the Bible helped expand the world and imagination of slaves, making them more difficult to control. This led to attempts to limit Bible reading among slaves out of fear it might cause rebellion. Slave masters’ fear of the Bible must bear some indirect testimony to what the slave masters thought it said. Part of them knew that their exegetical conclusions could only be maintained if the enslaved were denied firsthand experience of the text. This is evidence to my mind that Bible reading was itself an act against despair and for hope. p. 170

Most Black writers from this period saw in the texts of the Old and New Testament a message calling for liberation from actual slavery. This call for the end of slavery did not mean that they neglected personal salvation from sin. This call for individual and societal transformation within the context of the historic confessions of Christianity is what I came to think of as the mainstream or at least a significant strand of the Black ecclesial tradition. p. 171

The witness of the traditional black church in the United States testifies to the power of the Gospel and the sufficiency of Scripture. Reading While Black is an excellent resource to better understand how the black church has utilized Scripture to make sense of the many joys and challenges of the African American experience. 

The courage of Ruby Bridges and her family
By / Feb 8

In 1964, painter Norman Rockwell was given his first assignment for Look magazine. The assignment, itself a result of the 10-year anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision which desegregated schools, culminated in his producing the painting entitled “The Problem We All Live With.” In the painting, a young Ruby Bridges is escorted to school by federal marshals, with racial slurs painted on the wall behind her and crushed tomatoes smashed against the wall, thrown by a crowd of onlookers outside the frame. She looks ahead, stoic, as she follows the marshals to school. What is absent from the image are all the others who had to courageously fight and defend her right to be educated and treated as a full member of society: her mother, her father, a watching country, and members of her church. The story of Ruby Bridges is not just the story of her courage, though it is that, but also the courage of her family and community as they fought for equal protection and justice.

The courage of a child

To see the image painted by Norman Rockwell is to be confronted with the courage of such a small child. Bridges is dwarfed in size by the men in the photo (their upper bodies existing outside the frame), and yet she looms just as large in the way it is presented. The focus is on her, with her back straight and her eyes set toward her goal. As one federal marshal there reported: “She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we’re all very very proud of her. As the painting, and multiple accounts have shown, this little girl faced a constant stream of threats and physical violence. Once she was enrolled, some white parents pulled their children from the school rather than let them be in the same classroom. Even the teachers, with the exception of one, refused to teach her. Thus, Ruby Bridges was left in a classroom by herself with only her teacher each day at school. 

Bridges’ courage, even as a young child, is a testimony of the way that individuals must stand on the strength of their convictions and fight for justice and equality. That anyone should face such treatment is abhorrent, but for it to happen to a child even more so. However, the courage of this little girl, and the others like her, was essential in ending segregation and furthering the cause of Civil Rights. It was an immense burden to lay on one so young, but it was one that Bridges was carried with the strength and dignity of one who is on the side of justice. 

The courage of a family

The courage of the Civil Rights Movement is not just the story of individuals, but often of families. This is especially true in the case of Ruby Bridges. Absent from Rockwell’s painting is the person who walked with her every day that first year: her mother. Ruby’s mother, Lucille Bridges, was described as one of the “Mothers of the Civil Rights Movement” at the time of her death. Ruby, reflecting on her mother at that time, said that it was her mother who set her on the path that led to her enrollment in the white school. And that was a courageous event because little Ruby would be enrolling by herself. Though there were six African-American students who were eligible to enroll (because the school district required that the African American students pass a test proving their academic ability), two chose to remain at their current school, and three were sent to another all-white school. When Ruby’s parents made the decision to send her to William-Frantz Elementary School, they were making the decision to trust the federal marshals, as well as their community, to protect their little girl from what they knew would be a barrage of hate, racism, and threats to her safety. 

Though Ruby would face constant threats and harassment, she was not the only one to suffer. Lucille faced it when she escorted her daughter to school. Lucille’s parents, sharecroppers in Mississippi, would be evicted from their farm because of Ruby. Stores refused to sell to Lucille. And Ruby’s father lost his job. All this as a result of their desire to see their daughter, and others like her, receive the same education as their white counterparts. It is right and proper to recognize the role that individuals played, but it is also true that so often that was the result of a family and community who were facing adversity with them. Lucille Bridges, and the rest of Ruby Bridges family, are representative of the power that a community has in calling for justice, and that the courageous actions of one individual, one parent, one spouse, can have for generations to come. 

A day when no one will make them afraid

Rockwell’s painting is a reminder of just how far we have come, but also so much that is left to do. Though school segregation seems like a relic of the distant past, in reality American schools are more segregated today than they were in the 1960s. Acknowledging that this is not the result of de facto segregation, but rather a number of factors, some that are problematic (such as redlining and housing contracts) and others that are beneficial (developing African-American communities and communities), the separation is not an ideal. As Rockwell’s painting reminds us, this is a problem that we continue to live with. However, as we are reminded in the scriptures, the walls of hostility have been brought down (Eph. 2:14), and we will one day all stand before a throne with the redeemed of history from every nation, tribe, and tongue in praise of our savior (Rev. 7:9). As we work to make the world more just, we should be encouraged by the bravery of Ruby Bridges and her family, and the countless others whose names are lost to history, who were working for a future, to use the language of the prophets, where each person could sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one will make them afraid (Micah 4:4).

5 facts about George Liele, America’s first Baptist missionary
By / Feb 5

Last year the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention voted to approve the first Sunday in February as the annual George Liele Church Planting, Evangelism and Missions Day. “My hope is that all Southern Baptist churches will share about the life and mission work of George Liele to inspire current and future generations to spread the Gospel around the world,” said Marshal Ausberry, leader of the SBC’s National African American Fellowship George. “Liele’s life shows that despite adverse circumstances God can still use us in a mighty way.”

Here are five facts you should know about the pioneering Baptist missionary:

  1. George Liele was born into slavery in colonial Virginia around 1750, but was moved to Georgia during his childhood. Although separated from his parents at an early age, Liele says he was told his father was the “only black person to know the Lord in a spiritual way in that country.” He says he also had a “natural fear of God from my youth” and that was often “checked in conscience with thoughts of death which barred me from many sins and bad company.” At the time, he says he knew of “no hope for salvation but only in performance of my good works.” Later, around 1773, he would express relief in finding that his only hope for salvation came “through the merits of my dying Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 
  2. Out of a desire to “instruct the people of my own color in the word of God,” Liele began to minister to other African Americans around Savannah, Georgia. His ministerial gifts were recognized by “the white brethren” who invited him to preach at a quarterly meeting and licenced him as a probationer (i.e., a preacher’s trial period before receiving ordination). Liele was soon after given his freedom by his master, George Sharp, who served as a deacon in Liele’s church. Liele remained with Sharp’s family until Sharp’s death as a Tory officer during the revolutionary war when the British occupied Savannah.  
  3. Liele continued to hold worship services in Georgia until 1782, when the British evacuated Savannah. He then borrowed $700 from a British colonel called Kirkland to pay for his and his family’s passage to Jamaica. Liele worked for Kirkland for two years as an indentured servant to pay off the debt. Afterwards, he resumed his work as a minister by preaching to a small house church. Within a few years, though, his congregation grew to 350, and included both Black and White believers. Liele also assisted in the organization of other congregations and promoted free schools for slaves and free black Jamacians. 
  4. Liele’s success, says historian Doreen Morrison, resulted in him being “negatively ‘targeted’ by the Jamaican Assembly, supported by the plantation owners, who saw any gathering of groups of Africans as the recipe for a revolution.” Opposition to evangelizing slaves led to Liele being charged with “seditious preaching” in 1797. As The Baptist Quarterly (October 1964) noted,

    “Charged with preaching sedition, for which he was thrown in prison, loaded with irons, and his feet fastened in the stocks. Not even his wife or children were permitted to see him. At length he was tried for his life; but no evil could be proved against him, and he was honourably acquitted. (However, he was thereupon) thrown into gaol (jail) for the balance due to the builder of his chapel. He refused to take benefit of the insolvent Debtor’s Act, and remained in prison until he had fully paid all that was due.”

    Liele remained in prison for three years, five months, and ten days. In 1805 the Jamaican Assembly enacted a law forbidding all preaching to the slave population.
  5. After leaving prison, Liele became an itinerant preacher and shared the gospel throughout the island nation. In 1797 he settled in Spanish Town, the then capital of Jamaica, and planted the second Baptist church on the island, which was supported by funds from the US and UK. As the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions says, “By 1814 his efforts had produced, either directly or indirectly, some 8,000 Baptists in Jamaica.” Although William Carey, who went to India in 1793, is often named as the first Baptist missionary, by that time “Liele had worked as a missionary for a decade, supporting himself and his family by farming and by transporting goods with a wagon and team.”

The history and purpose of just war doctrine
By / Dec 7

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our primer series on Christians ethics where a respected leader and thinker recommends and gives a summary overview of a book that helps orient readers to a certain aspect of ethics and philosophy. This series is designed to equip the local church to engage foundational texts of Christian ethics. Find the entire series here. 

Augustine is often called the founder of the just war tradition. This is only partly true, and requires at least two caveats. First, Augustine did not write a treatise or essay on war or even on civil government: his comments on the state and its lethal violence are scattered throughout his sermons, letters, and other works, written over the course of decades. It can be difficult to say with certainty that the Augustine who wrote the City of God still agreed with the Augustine from 20 years previously. Augustine seems to have followed a similar course in his life that Western Christendom would travel over the course of a millennium: from an optimistic belief in the righteous possibilities of Christian imperial power to a chastened vision of “conflicting purposes, of uncertainties of direction, of divergent loyalties and irresolvable tensions,” in which “political power has become a means of securing some minimal barriers against the forces of disintegration,” in the words of one scholar.1Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Views on the ‘Just War,’” 10. See also Henrik Syse, “Augustine and Just War.”

Second, the just war tradition that followed Augustine’s line of thinking—a paradigm that treats war as an act of loving punishment—essentially ended in the 17th century, replaced by the Westphalian paradigm. Augustine can rightly be called the founder of one tradition that recognized him retroactively as its founding influence. In fact, what is sometimes called “just war theory” (and should be called just war doctrine) unfolded in three traditions: the Augustinian, the Westphalian, and the Liberal. The Augustinian just war tradition is an application of the political theory of Medieval Christendom; the Westphalian, of the early modern Enlightenment; and the Liberal, of the broader commitments of classical liberalism. 

What is the Augustinian tradition of just war doctrine, and how does it differ from its successors? 

Different traditions of just war doctrine

The Augustinian tradition

The Augustinian tradition of just war thinking was an application of Medieval political theory with roots in antiquity that matured into its classic expression during the Wars of Religion. This pre-Enlightenment political theory rested on the idea that natural law exists and should guide human social and political order to fulfill natural human moral aspirations; that sovereignty means responsibility for the common good; and that justice should guide states to use force to defend and uphold the common good. In that context, just cause for war was understood to include not merely self-defense, but the defense of justice and peace, defense of the innocent, and punishment of the wicked—as defined by the commonly accepted, teleological standards of natural law. 

Statesmen, in turn, were expected to wage war to defend the common good and, broadly, uphold peace and justice. And statesmen were to fight war with the right intention: out of love for one’s neighbor and one’s enemies, not for glory, honor, revenge, or profit. Fighting to uphold justice and to prevent the wicked from perpetrating justice was understood as the duty Christian love required of statesmen.

The Westphalian tradition

The Westphalian tradition arose after the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). It moved away from the Augustinian tradition in three respects. It was a tradition of legal reasoning, not political theology; its conception of natural law was descriptive, not teleological; and it tended to focus on procedural justice, not substantive justice. Together these innovations amounted to a change in the fundamental orientation of just war thinking. The Westphalian tradition left behind much of the theological background that had given the Medieval tradition its content and meaning.

Just war was never an isolated exercise in military ethics; it was originally an argument about the rights and purposes of the state, about natural law, and about justice

The vestigial language of “just cause” and “right authority” remained, for example, but with transformed meanings. Because natural law jettisoned its teleological aspect, Westphalian thinkers also had a different notion of justice, and therefore of just cause and sovereignty: sovereignty evolved from defense of the common good to defense of international borders; and just cause consequently shrank to encompass only territorial self-defense. The right authority for the use of force was understood unproblematically to rest with the state, regardless of how the state chose to use it or for what purpose. 

The Liberal tradition

The embryonic Liberal tradition has arisen since World War II in an effort to rectify the weaknesses of the Westphalian tradition and, since the end of the Cold War, address new and emerging security concerns, often by borrowing and reinterpreting Augustinian concepts shorn of their theological commitments. Concepts like human rights and accountable governance do the work that natural law and justice did in the Augustinian tradition: external standards outside and above the state used to judge the state’s legitimacy. War is just when it vindicates rights, including the rights of states whose security has been violated, of course, but also the rights of individuals. The Liberal just war tradition allows war to vindicate the rights of individuals suffering under a humanitarian emergency, insists on respecting individual rights in how war is fought, and understands the vindication of individual rights a crucial part of ending wars justly. 

The emerging Liberal tradition is right to highlight weaknesses of the Westphalian tradition, and that there is a fundamental compatibility between the Augustinian and Liberal traditions. The central organizing concepts of the Augustinian tradition (love and the common good as external standards outside and above the state) can and should be recovered and worked into the Liberal tradition, for which human rights serves the same function. The Augustinian tradition of just war thinking argued that the right intention of warfare was love for our neighbors and for our enemies. It further argued that the defense, not of self, but of the common good, was the lived embodiment of such love. Much the same can be said with the idiom of human rights: the right intention in war is to vindicate rights, and just cause in war is to defend and uphold a system of ordered liberty for allies and enemies alike. 

The purpose of just war doctrine

Just war was never an isolated exercise in military ethics; it was originally an argument about the rights and purposes of the state, about natural law, and about justice. Even in its Westphalian guise, just war was an argument against theocracy and universal empire. The early modern Augustinians argued that wars for religion were utopian, inconsistent with humanity’s sinful nature, doomed to achieve the opposite of the justice it professed, and violated the state’s God-given jurisdiction. The same body of political theory—the theory of secularized Christendom—gave birth to classical liberalism and, eventually, to what we today call the liberal international order. Like the just war traditions, classical liberalism also argues that there are limits on the state’s jurisdiction; that sovereignty is not unlimited; that there should be no coercion in matters of belief; and that universal empire is a dangerous ambition. 

If we are to be faithful to the political theology of the just war traditions, we should by the same logic be faithful to the political theology of classical liberalism. Similar principles animate both. Indeed, the kinship goes so far that, if it is a just cause to oppose universal empire, we might just as well say that the defense of classical liberalism is a just cause. It is a just cause to defend a system designed to prevent universal empire, to guard against theocracy or ideological totalism, and to enforce limits on government’s jurisdiction: that system is what we today call the liberal order. 

This view draws on the Augustinian tradition’s surprisingly expansive view of the self whose defense justifies war. War is just when fought in the defense of our individual selves, our states, our allies, our neighbors, but also of innocent victims of oppression, and even the commonwealth of all mankind when it is threatened by grievous crimes against nature. Ordered liberty is the common good, the defense of which is just and the preservation of which reflects love for our neighbors and for our enemies. 

Is a war ever just?

When is war just? The violent disruption of ordered liberty is the “injury” in response to which force may be used and war may be justly waged. This obviously covers cases of defense against invasion, but it also covers humanitarian intervention. The Augustinian tradition at its zenith (from the early 16th to the mid-17th centuries) explicitly addressed the problems of what today we call state failure, armed non-state actors, and humanitarian intervention. These thinkers argued that the sovereign had just cause to wield force against non-state actors and, even, to redress conditions of state failure, although typically with strong qualifications. These writers rested their arguments on an underlying philosophical framework: war, they believed, was an extension of the sovereign responsibility to defend the common good (itself an extension of a prior and more fundamental duty to love all humanity), and under extreme conditions love demands intervention to punish the wicked and defend the innocent, even when that involves crossing international boundaries. 

Second, what does justice require? Justice requires the vindication and restoration of ordered liberty in, through, and after warfare. War requires victors to make right the wrongs that prompted the war; make right the wrongs of war (the destruction of combat), and prevent the recurrence of such wrongs in the future. The upshot is that while just cause is more expansive than is conventionally understood, the responsibilities of post-conflict restoration are commensurably far higher. Taken together, this Augustinian Liberal approach to just war thinking permits intervention but increases international responsibility for what intervention entails, and thus should dampen any enthusiasm for intervention that might otherwise exist.  

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    Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Views on the ‘Just War,’” 10. See also Henrik Syse, “Augustine and Just War.”

Reexamining the Pilgrims and liberty
By / Nov 19

November 2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the “Pilgrims” in Plymouth Colony in New England. In other times and other years, the anniversary might have attracted more notice, but in the year of COVID, and amidst a controversial American election, the Pilgrims’ anniversary will undoubtedly be muted. 

The quiet tones about Plymouth also derive from Americans’ general uncertainty today about how to observe and honor such occasions, when much of the American (and Christian) past is viewed as ethically complex at best, and an unrelenting tale of racist and imperial oppression at worst. Such criticisms of American history, and Plymouth specifically, are not brand new. As Malcolm X once said, “we didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us.” 

1619 got far more notice last year than 1620 will get this year, with 1619 being the year of the first documented shipment of slaves to Virginia, and subject of the much-debated New York Times “1619 Project.” The veritable standoff between 1619 and 1620 has rendered sober observers uncertain about what to celebrate in the American past, and how.

Into this uncertainty comes John Turner’s outstanding and carefully-researched book, They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty. Turner tellingly asks at the outset “do the Pilgrims and their colony matter?” The answer actually remains clearer on a popular level than on an academic one. With all the recent furor over the American past, there is still no hope of displacing Thanksgiving on the American calendar. (COVID may push it to the back porches of America’s homes, however.) Americans are probably as unified about observing Thanksgiving as any other holiday. American Thanksgiving hazily conjures images of Pilgrims and Indians being nice to each other, or something to that effect. As usual, many of the impressions we have of the first Thanksgiving are a bit off: it is more likely that they ate eel instead of turkey, for instance. 

The importance of Plymouth for the story of liberty

Plymouth wasn’t the first permanent European settlement in North America (that was St. Augustine, Florida), or the first English settlement (Roanoke Island), or even the first permanent English colony (Jamestown in Virginia). But no matter: Plymouth is inextricably bound up with Thanksgiving, and so we remember it. Scholars, however, have spent little time on Plymouth since historian John Demos’s landmark study A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony a half-century ago. Part of the reason for Plymouth’s neglect is that the more numerical and better documented Puritans of Massachusetts have occupied the main stage of colonial American studies. Plymouth, which Massachusetts ultimately absorbed, gets treated by historians as a sideshow.

Turner uses the anniversary to reexamine Plymouth as a “fresh lens for examining the contested meaning of liberty in early New England.” If previous historians might have seized upon the Mayflower Compact and its covenanted “civil Body Politick” to show Plymouth’s contribution to the American democratic tradition, Turner uses Plymouth as a vantage point to demonstrate the vibrant but bitterly clashing traditions of liberty that have marked America from the beginning. 

They Knew They Were Pilgrims seeks to understand closely the cultural and religious influences that shaped the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags of southeastern Massachusetts. The Wampanoags’ world was already in turmoil before 1620, but the Pilgrims’ arrival challenged the Native Americans’ aspirations to mastery over the region like nothing before. We learn too about the Plymouth Separatists’ background in England and in the Netherlands, where many of them sojourned for a time before sailing to America.

Clashing visions of liberty

The Pilgrims did not call themselves “the Pilgrims,” but they were radical English Protestants who rejected the established Church of England for having retained too many “popish” practices in the decades following the English Reformation in the 1530s. For Separatists (and for most other leaders of the Reformation), true liberty was freedom to live according to the precepts of God’s Word. That freedom was routinely denied to Separatists in England, and in the Netherlands they found themselves surrounded by Dutch Christians who agreed with Christian liberty in principle, but whose readings of God’s Word differed from the Separatists’ in important ways. Thus, as for many devout Christian groups in the 1600s, a New World colony became a refuge where the Separatists could exercise Christian liberty. 

Yet the Plymouth colonists denied physical liberty to many Native Americans, who lost land to the English colonists, and many Indians also became enslaved to the English. Plymouth trafficked in smaller but significant numbers of African slaves, too. Whatever friendly feelings there had once been between the English and Indians was finally wrecked by the horrors of King Philip’s War in the mid-1670s, which by percentage of population killed was probably the deadliest war in American history. Massachusetts and Plymouth forces killed untold numbers of Indians, and they enslaved and deported hundreds more to the Caribbean and to destinations as far off as Spain.

Even in the Separatists’ churches, there was disagreement about what liberty and the Word of God required. They were among the small minority of English people who abandoned the Church of England, but still they could not agree amongst themselves on correct biblical practices for churches. Founders of the English Baptist movement had deep connections to the Separatists, but most Separatists continued to affirm infant baptism. Their break from the Anglican Church spawned incessant debates among the Separatists about ecclesiology and doctrine, however, such as the one that broke out when Plymouth called future Harvard College president Charles Chauncy as pastor in the 1630s. (Chauncy is not to be confused with his great-grandson of the same name, the Boston pastor who was the most vocal opponent of the revivals of the Great Awakening.) 

Chauncy affirmed paedobaptism, but he thought that infants should be immersed, rather than sprinkled. Some in the Plymouth congregation suggested that Chauncy could offer paedobaptism by immersion in addition to sprinkling, but Chauncy insisted that immersion was the only biblical mode. (Baptists would say he had gone halfway toward the correct view, which is believer’s baptism by immersion.) Some feared that baptizing infants in the frigid waters of a New England pond would threaten children’s well-being. Indeed, one of Chauncy’s own children reportedly died due to exposure to extreme cold in baptism. 

Chauncy’s recalcitrance led Plymouth to rescind their offer of employment. He moved on to Scituate, up the coast from Plymouth. More feuding there led to one of the first church splits in colonial American history, giving tiny Scituate a second separate congregation. Liberty was and is a preeminent Protestant concern. But, Turner seems to wonder, who adjudicates when Protestants do not agree about God’s will? How will we know in this life when we have manifested the true “liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Gal. 5:1)? Seen in this context, the Plymouth colonists look even more like time-bound pilgrims trudging toward John Bunyan’s Celestial City. 

We, the Whole People: Celebrating 100 years of Women’s Suffrage
By / Nov 3

The right to vote is at the heart of our nation’s grand pursuit of a more perfect Union. Though restricted at the founding, this right was secured more fully through the dedicated advocacy of suffragettes and civil rights activists. In 2020, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment which secured the right to vote for women.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. . . . Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” – Amendment XIX, Constitution of the United States of America

On this episode of Capitol Conversations on Election Day 2020, Chelsea Paterson Sobolik commemorates this centennial with interviews covering the history, the role of faith, and the meaning of the Women’s Suffrage movement. The conversations with a historian, a seminarian, and a lawyer also highlight inspirational role models and why it’s important for women to be engaged in the public square.

This episode is sponsored by The Good Book Company, publisher of The Christmas We Didn’t Expect by David Matthis. Find out more about this book at thegoodbook.com. 

Guest Biography

Andrea Turpin is an Associate Professor of History at Baylor University. She is the author of A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917. Dr. Turpin received an A.B. at Princeton University, an M.A. at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame. 

Missie Branch is the Assistant Dean of Students to Women and Director of Graduate Life at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS). Years ago, Missie and her husband, Duce, co-planted a church in Philadelphia, PA where she served as a pastor’s wife, a children’s ministry director, and a women’s ministry leader. Missie and Duce have four children.

Palmer Williams is a Founding Partner of The Peacefield Group where she specializes in legal and policy analysis related to international human rights, sanctity of life, non-profit operations and government affairs. She earned her Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt Law School and her B.A. in Political Science and Community Development from Vanderbilt University. Palmer and her husband, Joseph, have two sons, Jack and Henry, and live in Nashville, TN.

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