Early evangelicals and the big cheese

By Tony W. Cartledge

BR Editor

When modern evangelicals seek to increase Christian influence in American government or to portray America as a "Christian nation," they are taking a far different approach than that of their evangelical forefathers, who fought for a clear separation between church and state.

So argues Steven Waldman, quite convincingly, in the April 2006 issue of the Washington Monthly. The article, easily found online at washingtonmonthly, is most appropriate for a summer reflection.

In "The Framers and the Faithful," Waldman points to early evangelicals like John Leland - an outspoken Baptist - who wanted to keep religion out of government.

Waldman, who is editor of the influential Beliefnet.com website, begins the article with a story of how Leland and other evangelical leaders once presented Thomas Jefferson with a 1,235 pound cheese that was reportedly the product of 900 cows. Painted on the red crust of the gigantic cheese was the inscription "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

Jefferson was no proponent of religion and some considered him an infidel, but he was a great supporter of religious freedom. He and James Madison were two of the strongest proponents of keeping religion and government far apart.

The primary established churches, Congregationalists in the North and Anglicans in the South, wanted the Christian church to play an influential role in the budding U.S. government. It was the evangelicals, many Baptists like Leland among them, who saw the danger of mixing the two.

Waldman relates how the prominent evangelist George Whitefield was shunned by the established church, but encouraged by people like Benjamin Franklin, who covered Whitefield's work in his newspaper and who helped to build a non-sectarian hall in Philadelphia where Whitefield could preach. The hall, Franklin said, was designed to allow persons of any religious persuasion to get a hearing - even if "the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us."

The growing separation between "Old Lights" who supported the established churches and "New Lights" of the growing evangelical movement contributed to the revolutionary idea that rejection of the British royals was not necessarily tantamount to rejecting God's ordained order. Thus, Waldman argues, the "Great Awakening" of evangelical religious fervor played a role in seeding the early Americans' desire for independence.

Baptists were among the fastest growing evangelical groups, Waldman writes, and thus often subject to religious persecution. Stories abound of such, and in the years leading up to the revolution, my own ancestors contributed to it. As former Quakers-turned-Anglicans, the Cartledge family of Georgia supported the British government, which outlawed the preaching of any doctrine other than that of the established church. One of the Cartledges, a constable, arrested the Baptist evangelist Daniel Marshall when he crossed the Savannah River and began to preach in Georgia. Marshall was the son-in-law of Shubal Stearns, who founded the first Baptist church in North Carolina.

Through the witness of Marshall and his wife Martha, the Cartledges were won over to the Baptist faith and became founding members of the first Baptist church in Georgia. Not coincidentally, perhaps, they also embraced the cause of independence, and several fought in the Revolutionary War.

Evangelicals were strong supporters of revolution, Waldman writes, because they believed "their fight for religious freedom would rise or fall with the war against political tyranny." Following the revolution, then, they opposed any official church establishments and supported a clear separation of church and state.

Waldman describes how Patrick Henry sought, in 1784, the establishment of a tax by which Virginians would promote the Christian religion by contributing to the salaries of the clergy. Henry's bill, reportedly endorsed by George Washington, would have allowed individuals to designate a particular Christian group or a generic educational fund to receive the tax money. Nevertheless, James Madison - backed by evangelicals - fought the measure as an unwarranted wedding between church and state.

In a powerfully written "Memorial and Remonstrance," Madison asserted that the proposed tax would support an establishment of religion. "Who does not see," he asked, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"

Evangelicals responded with an avalanche of petitions and remonstrances that helped to turn the tide against Henry's call for a tax to support the church. Legislators went even further, Waldman reports, and approved a statute on religious freedom brought by Thomas Jefferson, who argued: "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical."

Early evangelicals, Waldman concludes, were among the staunchest proponents of keeping church and state at more than arm's length. Thus, it is ironic that many modern evangelicals have departed company with their forefathers in faith, choosing instead to support an increased intermingling of governmental and religious interests.

Waldman's article is more than a five-minute read, but is well written and well worth the investment of time and thought required to digest it, cheese and all.

TWC