“In America, Baptists were once the ultimate religious outsiders.” With that sentence, Barry Hankins and Thomas Kidd open their book that tells the story of Baptists in America. Published by Oxford University Press, this book provides an excellent, concise overview of Baptists in America.
Colonial Outlaws
Hankins and Kidd begin their story with Baptists as “colonial outlaws” — in trouble with the established churches because they would not baptize infants and because they took no money from the state. They were a straggling bunch of conscientious objectors who found their identity from living on the margins of society.
Over time, Baptists grew in number and respect. The Great Awakening provided the opportunity for Baptists to capture the hearts of Americans who were weary of the formalism and dryness of established churches. Meanwhile, men like Isaac Backus and John Leland worked tirelessly to end persecution and humiliating treatment from authorities.
Separating Church and State
By the time of the Revolution, Baptists found themselves on both sides of the conflict, with pacifists and patriots, loyalists and revolutionaries assessing the legitimacy of the rebellion in different ways. After the close of the war, during the early years of our Constitutional Republic, Baptists were key voices in advocating for full religious freedom and a separation of church and state:
“Most states… modified their establishments during the Revolution, moving toward greater religious liberty. In many case, pressure from evangelical dissenters, especially Baptists, was the key factor that drove these changes.” (61)
The Baptist influence on the national level led to the First Amendment safeguarding the “free exercise of religion” as well as the forbidding of “an establishment of religion.” Hankins and Kidd sum up: “The Baptist view of religious liberty was becoming America’s, too.”
Slavery and Schism
Around the time of the Revolution, many Baptists opposed slavery. Church records show how Baptists set blacks and whites on equal footing in membership and discipline. But the legacy of the churches was marred by a paternalistic mindset that gradually grew throughout the early 1800’s.
By the mid 1800’s, the reality of slavery was dividing Baptists just like the rest of the country. Baptists in the South “faced growing pressure to sanctify slave ownership,” leading to innovative biblical interpretations in service of the status quo. Many Baptists tried to extricate themselves from slavery’s injustice by relegating the issue to “a matter of individual conscience and politics” and adopting a “we can be free to disagree on this issue” posture toward anti-slavery Baptists. Schisms were inevitable, however, and soon Baptists were parting ways on the issue, a frightening omen of the carnage and bloodshed soon to come.
After the war, black Baptist denominations flourished, and ironically, black Baptists more closely resembled the “outsider” status of early Baptists than their white counterparts. The 20th century was marked by controversy over modernism and fundamentalism, political perspectives and biblical interpretation.
What This Book Does Well
The strengths of Kidd and Hankins’ work are many.
First, Baptists in America is informative without being exhaustive. The reader receives a brief overview of the key moments and players in Baptist life but never gets bogged down in primary source documents or too much information.
Second, Baptists in America is accessible to anyone, not just history buffs or scholars. The work is of high quality, but it remains easy to read, with just the right pace in telling the story.
Third, Baptists in America‘s look at the past provides spiritual and historical resources for Baptists looking toward the future. The move from the margins of society to the center of power and back to the margins again is something that Baptists of different stripes have experienced before. As we survey the landscape of religious conviction in a secular society, we can benefit from the past for inspiration and instruction. We can learn how to remain faithful in trying times while avoiding needless mistakes.
