Seventh Day Baptists vote to remain part of Baptist Joint Committee

NEWBERG, Ore. — The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference voted to remain part of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty despite disagreements over church-state relations.

In a rare vote-by-church, delegates to the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, meeting July 29–August 4 at George Fox University, decided, 279-234, to remain part of BJC.

According to a news release on the group’s Web site, “topping the business agenda was the vote on the question, ‘Shall the SDB General Conference withdraw its membership from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty?’” Churches were sent informational packets about the issue in January. Many churches, however, waited until this summer to cast their votes at the local level.

“We are delighted at the outcome of the vote,” said Brent Walker, the BJC’s executive director, noting that the denomination has belonged, for nearly 60 years, to the coalition of national and regional Baptist bodies that support the BJC. “I am very pleased that the BJC family remains distinctively Baptist — and definitely joint.”

In a later vote, the group approved a recommendation instructing Seventh Day Baptist leaders to send BJC representatives a letter conveying the “significant concerns among some Seventh Day Baptists about our continued involvement in the Baptist Joint Committee.”

Seventh Day Baptists believe the Sabbath should be observed on Saturdays. A small but established group, its history in Europe and North America dates back to the earliest days of the Baptist movement on both continents.

Kevin Butler, editor of the denomination’s Sabbath Recorder newsmagazine and Seventh Day Baptists’ representative on the BJC board of directors, said the dispute over supporting the organization centered on differing understandings of church-state separation.

“I would say it’s the whole issue of representation and guilt by association — that they don’t feel that the Joint Committee or any real body could represent Seventh Day Baptists on political or social issues,” said Butler, who opposed attempts to withdraw from the BJC. “They just don’t feel that anyone could really speak for a group of independent thinkers.”

Some Seventh Day Baptists critical of BJC involvement have cited its support for rigorous church-state separation, saying many Seventh Day Baptists would not agree with such a view.

“The BJC has pursued a doctrinaire ‘wall of separation’ position with respect to the [First Amendment’s] establishment clause,” wrote James Skaggs, a retired Wisconsin teacher, in a June 5 entry on his blog. Skaggs has been an outspoken opponent of continued Seventh Day Baptist affiliation with BJC.

“In alliance with a wide array of liberal religious and non-religious groups, it has filed briefs encouraging the courts to adopt that view,” Skaggs noted.

“The cumulative effect of such court decisions is to reduce the ability of religion to influence government policy and to prevent government from using religious institutions for social good. It has also been a vehicle used by anti-religious groups in America to increasingly remove religion from the public square.”

Skaggs’ arguments echoed those used by BJC detractors in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the 1980s, they began an effort — ultimately successful — to withdraw from the BJC.

But BJC leaders have actively attempted to keep the denomination from withdrawing, passing a resolution affirming the group’s heritage, which stretches back to the late 1600s in the New World.

Seventh Day Baptist supporters of the BJC have noted that the organization is principally focused on extending religious freedom and believes supporting a strong interpretation of the Establishment Clause is essential to protecting religious liberty.

“I think an appropriate level of church-state separation is necessary,” said Butler. “And for us especially as sabbatarians, we have a lot at stake if the government wants to intrude or cause us employment situations because of our Sabbath beliefs.”

— ABP and staff