Independence Day Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Baptists in American Life
On July 4, 1805, John Leland gave a speech in Cheshire, MA. His main argument that day was for an elective judiciary, which he preferred over lifetime appointments. He believed that elected judges would be less prone to tyranny than those whose authority continued indefinitely. Leland’s conclusion about judges did not prevail, but his efforts against tyranny were welcomed and shared by all his countrymen.
However, Leland often meandered, and his message was shot through with all manner of American patriotism and Christian exhortations. In many ways, Leland was one of a kind, but not in this. It was common for Baptist preachers and American statesmen to mix patriotism with piety during the era of America’s founding, and Leland was both a preacher and a statesman. He began his speech by paying homage to the birth of our great nation:
“In this point of light, this fourth of July is the birth-day of the United States. Twenty-nine years have elapsed since the British colonies, in North America, cast off the tyrant’s yoke, and assumed a rank among the nations of the earth. The American revolution has opened a scene is the beginning of a drama, which will not close until time shall be no more. While we celebrate the day, the birth-day of long-lost freedom returning to visit the earth, and take up her abode among men, we will not be unmindful of the agents which the Almighty has used in his hand to effect that work, for which nations will arise and call them blessed.”
Leland was a lifelong Baptist pastor and traveling preacher, as well as an elected representative for the town of Cheshire in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Some remember the preacher-politician for leading in the preparation of a “mammoth cheese” and delivering it to the newly elected President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, on January 1, 1802. Leland organized the citizens of Cheshire to create a 1,235-pound wheel of cheese, and he led the procession himself, which carried the more than half-ton cheese to Washington, D.C. The gesture earned him an invitation to preach to Congress and the President on that occasion, and Leland took the opportunity to celebrate and advocate for religious liberty.
American religious freedom was a major theme of Leland’s preaching and writing. Similarly, Leland used his influence and position to advocate for this first and fundamental freedom in the political arena. Although the meeting is not historically certain, legend recounts a lengthy discussion between John Leland and James Madison. As the story goes, Madison sufficiently gained Leland’s support for the Bill of Rights by convincing him that the document would preserve religious liberty for Baptists in America.
Although Leland (and many other Baptists) were strong advocates of religious liberty, he was also convinced that America would only prosper as long as its citizens were moral and pious. He said, “Government is frequently blamed for those evils which arise from other sources. Where people are indolent, profligate and quarrelsome, given to tattling, drunkenness, dissipation and debauchery, no government on earth nor indeed in heaven itself can make them happy.”
Leland advocated for virtuous living in American society. He said, “The habits of industry, frugality, friendship, sobriety and morality must therefore be cherished among a people.” Leland believed that every human being is created in God’s image and is worthy of dignity and respect. However, he also recognized that each society and culture has its strengths and weaknesses, and some are objectively better and more moral, as well as more conducive to cultivating the necessary virtues for freedom, such as piety, courage, duty, and the practice of true religion, than others.
People are collected in societies with a shared set of beliefs and practices, which sometimes encourage freedom and happiness. Other times, however, a body politic may embrace such self-destructive ideas that a government will only amplify the pernicious will of the people. In such cases, popular elections only contribute to societal decay and demise.
In other words, while Baptists like Leland made significant contributions to the establishment of religious liberty in America, they still emphasized the enduring need for piety and patriotism, not unlimited and amoral pluralism. As I’ve argued before, despite many Baptists’ claims to the contrary, religious pluralism was never an essential feature of American religious freedom.
The Massachusetts State Constitution of 1780, Leland’s home state, even included a religious test for office, stating that “The Governor shall be chosen annually: And no person shall be eligible to this office…unless he shall declare himself to be of the christian religion,” and that “Any person chosen governor, lieutenant-governor, councillor, senator, or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration: ‘I…do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth.'”
This requirement remained unchanged until 1974. Only during the late 20th century did Americans start to think of “religious freedom” in terms of pluralism. However, from the beginning, this was not the case. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did not preclude states from requiring their public servants to be Christians. Non-Christian religions were given no similar protection under the law. And some states (like Massachusetts) required their public servants to declare Christianity to be the true religion.
Religious pluralism is an Enlightenment idea, not a Christian one, and it is not what our great nation was “founded” on or for. Now, almost 250 years since declaring our independence, it’s become increasingly evident that replacing rightly ordered religious liberty with unlimited and unchecked religious pluralism has essentially become a secular strategy to marginalize and then eradicate Christianity in America.
As we celebrate Independence Day, I believe that Baptists would do well to recover a more accurate and robust understanding of our forefathers’ view of Christianity and politics. This is part of the historical project I am working on, and I welcome patriotic Baptists across America to join me in this endeavor. Why can’t we, like Leland in his 1805 speech on that Independence Day 220 years ago now, unashamedly proclaim that “The rulers of the earth are under obligation to serve the Lord with fear, as much as other men,” without being accused of being “Christian nationalists” or “not Baptists?” Perhaps because, as I’ve argued before, “politically aggressive Baptists have been all but forgotten.”
Just as America needed politically engaged and even politically aggressive Baptists at our Founding, so too we need them today. Perhaps now even more than at our Founding. So, on this July 4, 2025, we can be deeply grateful for those Americans before us who established this great nation and who have contributed to its prosperity and vitality. We can celebrate the Christian principles upon which American law and civil society are based. We should also remember that the state and national systems we have inherited are not static, nor are they sufficient to prevent future tyranny, vice, or self-destruction.
Every generation must take up the responsibility of piety, patriotism, and political stewardship. We must first get our own house in order and then do what we can to shape the society around us according to Christian virtues. We must even recognize that, as much as we might not like it (as Baptists), there will always be a religious establishment of some sort, and there will always be blasphemy laws of some kind. Instead of pretending otherwise, Christians must stop aiming for pluralistic liberalism and teaming up with secularists to advance their cause in America.
Instead, Christians should unapologetically promote Christianity. By doing so, we honor the men who built this nation, pledging their “lives, fortune, and sacred honor” to the transformational proposition that “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Pious, Christian people who, like our progenitors, have the political will to act and the courage of conviction to bring their beliefs beyond the four walls of their church and into the public square can still have a profound positive effect on their country. We should do this not in some misguided attempt to establish a theocracy or out of fear or hatred of others, but in a humble act of political and civic stewardship—for the glory of God, the good of our neighbors, and the future of this great nation that we, still, proudly call “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
