EDITORIAL: Toleration: Liberty’s weak protector

Marv Knox

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America’s longstanding tradition of tolerance served us poorly in this season of religious rancor. Toleration often takes a timid turn when it encounters strong opposition. This summer, we witnessed the weakness of toleration. It was a dispiriting debacle.

As you know, Muslims want to open a community center, including a mosque, in lower Manhattan. The location is several blocks from Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center twin towers fell and 2,752 people lost their lives on 9/11—Sept. 11, 2001. Debate over the “Ground Zero mosque” has disclosed the still-tender scar on our national psyche. We continue to grieve the horrific loss of life. We remain afraid of terrorism in the name of Allah.

Editor Marv Knox

Politicians and pundits dashed to the debate. With general elections just a few weeks away, they angled to exploit the 9/11 tragedy nine years later. Turns out, baiting voters with globs of grief is as American—and, they hope, as effective—as fishing with dynamite.

Unfortunately, few voices rose on behalf of the Muslims’ religious liberty. That’s because America has become a tolerant society.

At its founding, the United States viewed religious liberty as a right. The earliest U.S. citizens valued freedom of religion so much they enshrined it in the First Amendment of the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” A right is inherent. It cannot be rescinded or abridged. The Constitution prevents Congress—and, according to the 14th Amendment, the states—from infringing upon the free exercise of religion.

Unfortunately, you’d never know it by listening to most politicians and commentators, who are clamoring against the mosque in lower Manhattan. Blame it on tolerance.

You see, rights are absolute, but tolerance is conditional. For decades, Americans proclaimed “tolerance” for many and varied religious groups. Give most folks the benefit of the doubt; they talked about “tolerance” when they meant to discuss “freedom” and “liberty.” But words have meaning, and by proudly waving the flag of toleration, we slowly surrendered commitment to religious rights.

Here’s how the late George W. Truett, venerable longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and Baptist Standard readers’ Texas Baptist of the 20th Century, put it: “Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. Toleration is a gift from man, while liberty is a gift from God.”

Unfortunately, many Baptists today do not concur with Truett’s contention. They oppose the right of Muslims to open a mosque. In so doing, they repudiate the convictions of Thomas Helwys, one of the first Baptists, who died in prison for telling King James I all people should be free to worship as conscience directs. They revile the memory of Roger Williams, the first Baptist in America, who was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for refusing to allow his infant child to be baptized and who founded Rhode Island as a safe haven for people of all faiths and no faith. They refute the testimony of John Leland, a Virginia Baptist pastor who convinced James Madison to include religion guarantees in the First Amendment.


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Yes, we still grieve the deaths of 9/11. Yes, we wish the Manhattan Muslims would exercise restraint and exhibit compassion by moving their mosque farther away from Ground Zero. But we dare not participate in denying their right to build their mosque. If we tolerantly undermine religious liberty, who will stand up for churches when Christians no longer comprise a majority in America?

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his FaithWorks Blog.

 


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