Liberty of Conscience

Download

Share

Editor

David S. Dockery

President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Editor

Malcolm B. Yarnell III

Research Professor of Theology at Southwestern Seminary

Associate Editor

Andrew Streett

Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Southwestern Seminary

Associate Editor

Robert Caldwell

Professor of Church History at Southwestern Seminary

Liberty of conscience required the courageous witness and wholehearted support of Baptists and other free church believers to enter the modern conversation and become a reality in so many contemporary cultures, most influentially through the historic development of the British and American constitutions. Baptist scholars have come to recognize that freedom of religion is the first and most consequential of all human freedoms. The development of human rights in the world today depends historically upon the witness of Baptists to their most treasured human right, this “first freedom” of universal religious liberty.¹

May Baptists continue to advocate for the utility of human governments and of human religious organizations even as they argue that those same institutions must respect the right of every human being to respond to God as led in conscience. May God use our courageous advocacy for liberty of conscience to manifest his great glory in this dark world.

1. William R. Estep, Revolution within the Revolution: The First Amendment in Historical Context, 1612-1789 (1990); Jason G. Duesing, Thomas White, and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Liberty, 2nd ed. (B&H Academic, 2016). ↩︎