The Rev. David Key
Recently elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is a man of faith — something many Americans, including myself, can relate to. What is less agreeable, however, is Johnson’s lifelong mission to use the power of the government to impose his own faith upon others.
As a Southern Baptist minister of the same faith tradition as Johnson, I take a fundamentally different view: The separation of church and state is essential to allowing all faiths to thrive, including ours.
Recently, Johnson attacked the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, calling it a “misnomer.” The rest of his career follows the same trend: He cited Christian nationalist leader David Barton as a “profound influence,” served as dean of a failed Christian law school named after the extreme Baptist leader Paul Pressler, and worked for conservative Christian legal groups.
With church-state separation increasingly under attack across the country, Johnson’s election as speaker marks a troubling trend.
The state of Oklahoma, for example, is currently working to establish our country’s first religious public charter school, which would use taxpayer dollars to evangelize Catholicism in its curriculum. Texas lawmakers have proposed replacing public-school guidance counselors with chaplains and carving out time for prayer in schools. Both Florida and Oklahoma recently allowed public schools to instruct classes with PragerU, an online video series that promotes a conservative Christian perspective.
These efforts don’t just undermine the promise of an inclusive public education for all: They strike at the religious freedom that all faiths need to thrive.
My belief in the separation of church and state comes from my own experience in Southern Baptist tradition, which heavily emphasized separation of church and state as necessary for our very existence and survival. Early in my ministry, I served at Kiokee Baptist Church, the oldest continuing Baptist congregation in Georgia, which was founded by the great Baptist leader Daniel Marshall outside Augusta in 1772.
Marshall established Kiokee after being arrested and ordered to leave Georgia for his Baptist preaching, which by law required a license issued by Georgia’s Anglican state church. Our forebears wrote separation of church and state into the U.S. Constitution to prevent such state-controlled religious discrimination from ever happening again.
Southern Baptists of my tradition remember well that we could not have existed and thrived in Georgia, or anywhere in the U.S., if other religions had been able to use the power of the state to enforce their beliefs. That’s why a group of Baptist ministers joined other faith leaders to form Americans United for Separation of Church and State — where I serve as an advisory council member — more than 75 years ago.
Johnson comes from a different tradition, one that is spreading fear and division over a supposed secular takeover of the United States, and wants to use the power of government to bring Americans back in line.
Wielding the government as a tool of any church will only divide and further alienate people from religion, when our role as servant leaders should be to unite. Sharing and growing any faith is about serving our communities regardless of how they worship, and showing up for the people around us humbly and without judgment.
Many faith leaders know we need separation of church and state to preserve everyone’s right to worship as they choose, and are pushing back against efforts to govern according to one religion. Just this year, 14 religious leaders joined Americans United’s lawsuit to block Missouri abortion restrictions that lawmakers justified using a religious mandate. Others have joined the case against religious public schooling in Oklahoma.
Getting involved in politics has long been fraught for many faith leaders who feel they may undermine their spiritual authority by taking a political stand. But when others seek to use their faith to rule, we should all raise our voice to say that keeping church and state separate is the only way to ensure faith, in all its forms, can thrive.
The Rev. David Key is the founding pastor of Lake Oconee Community Church in Greensboro, Ga. and sits on the Faith Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.
