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"Thomas Jefferson I know, and Roger Williams I have heard of, but who is Isaac Backus?" Thus might the secular spirit of our age answer to the invocation of this name in the conflict over religious liberty. Yet the man's importance to the historical development of freedom of conscience in America should be beyond question. As William McLoughlin points out, the Baptists and the Methodists were the largest denominations in the nineteenth century, so their theory of church and state is significant. But the Methodists had no spokesman on the issue, and the Quakers and Anglicans, who pursued freedom of conscience initially, dropped the fight after being officially recognized. Roger Williams is hailed in our time, but was not an influence then. And he is hardly representative of this period. Jefferson and Madison were then and still remain influential. Yet throughout most of the country's history, theirs has been the view of a small minority. The "sweet harmony" which Isaac Backus envisioned between church and state therefore best represents Separationism in the era. This paper will first sketch the life and historical context of Isaac Backus relative to his fight for religious liberty and then summarize both his main arguments and the current thought about his place on the spectrum concerning the separation of church and state. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Isaac Backus (1724-1806) was born in the village of Yantic, the town of Norwich, Connecticut. The Backus family were prominent members of the community. The family land holdings and especially the family business, Backus Iron Works, would provide the financial basis for Isaac's traveling ministry. The Great Awakening came to Norwich first in June, 1741 in the person of Eleazer Wheelock, followed by James Davenport. On August 24, 1741 Backus had a spiritual experience which he later recognized as a conversion while mowing a field. In 1745 he traveled to five different towns to hear George Whitefield on a preaching tour of the area. The family withdrew to form a separatist New Light church on July 16, 1746 when the Norwich Congregational church adopted the Saybrook Platform. Two aspects of this accord were especially unacceptable to them. First, the Standing churches no longer required a public statement of conversion for membership. Second, they delegated the power of ordination to an association of ministers, a power rightly belonging to the local congregation. This effectively denied the Separatists the liberty of practicing their spiritual gifts. Isaac Backus perceived and obeyed God's call on him to preach in September, 1746. His recorded travels in ministry exceeded 68,800 miles, mostly on horseback. Backus was baptized as an adult and a minister of a Separatist church after a long personal struggle with the issue. His account of the experience shows the integrity of his mind in the conviction that "truth is to be received and held for its own sake, and not upon any exterior motives; and that it is never to be violated or forsaken for any consideration whatsoever." His aspirations for religious liberty began early. Soon after Isaac had left home his brother and mother were imprisoned for thirteen days for their beliefs. At the age of 25, he was commissioned to deliver a petition to the cape requesting exemption from tax for support of the established churches. Backus himself was arrested during this period for refusing to pay a tax of five pounds. He had a natural aversion to political life and condemned the Methodists for getting leaders elected to the State legislature of Virginia. His account of his change of heart concerning politics is enlightening: From my childhood to the commencement of our late contests with Great Britain, I was far from intermedling with state affairs, and had never spoken or voted in a town-meeting in my life; but about the time of the stamp-act I perceived that things were likely soon to come to such a pass, that there could be no nuters among us, and that my advice might frequently be asked by serious people, about which side was right. Upon these considerations I took some pains to inform myself as to the real merits of the cause for I was very sensible that bad men, and bad actions were to be expected on both sides to the question, in this sinful world. The result of my inquiry was a full conviction, that the claims of the British court were so unjust, that all lawful means ought to be used to guard against them. Backus represented the Baptists as part of a delegation to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September, 1774. Having sought and received an audience with the official colonial delegation, the Baptists presented their case that religious taxation impinged on liberty of conscience and the right of property. They were not well received. For John Adams and Samuel Adams, the Standing Order was "hardly to be called an establishment" and they gave no weight to the complaint. In his account of the incident, John Adams commented that the Massachusetts ecclesiastical establishment would last as long as the solar system. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was officially disestablished in 1833. Never during his life did he feel completely uncoerced with regard to established religion. Backus was openly patriotic in his sensibilities from the Sunday after the skirmish at Lexington, though his enemies often painted him otherwise during the war. HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CONTROVERSY The established church in Massachusetts was indeed "slender," as John Adams qualified it, relative to the abuses of the Old World. "Anabaptists," "Quakers," and "Churchmen" (all pejorative terms at the time) were exempt from taxation if they proved the sincerity of their belief and the financial support to the support of the dissenting churches, that they were not simply dodging the tax. It was a generous law compared to the Anglican establishment, especially since the Baptists numbered about 300 in 1739. During this period the Baptists humbly accepted these terms. But the Great Awakening produced a new Baptist, radical New Lights and Separatists, whose numbers may have threatened to undermine the financial support of the established system itself. From the Baptist perspective, the law came to be seen as an attack on the heart of their movement, individual conscience. The leadership of each church was required to sign a certificate declaring the spiritual sincerity of each taxpayer. To the Baptists this was something no believer had the right or the competency to do. Furthermore, the certificate laws simply did not bring relief, even when the dissenting churches tried to comply. The laws were not equitably applied and not always even respected. Baptists had been taxed even after supplying the certificates. Abuse and sanctions beyond all proportion were well documented. ARGUMENTS FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY Isaac Backus never developed a complete system of political thought. His convictions were primarily based in experience and conflict. Yet he did set out several broad principles of public theology. In a time when many were arguing for liberty as an absolute, for example, he tied it to the Creator and the social creation: "The true liberty of man is to know, obey, and enjoy his Creator and to do all the good unto, and enjoy all the happiness with and in, his fellow creatures that he is capable of. In a rare disagreement with John Locke, Backus saw no incompatibility between government and liberty: "It is so far from being necessary for any man to give up any part of his real liberty in order to submit to government that all nations have found it necessary to submit to some government in order to enjoy any liberty and security at all." Indeed, man first lost his freedom by breaking the rules of God's governance. The conceit that humans could advance either honor or happiness by disobedience was a lie from the father of lies himself. But Backus drew a sharp distinction between the civil and ecclesiastical realms. Church and state occupy separate domains, though the parallels between the two were often cited. The civil domain concerns only what harms our neighbor. The ecclesiastical concerns God and man. Each has its ruling head. Man, said Backus, is soul, body and estate. The jurisdiction of the state applies to body and estate, not to the soul. The power of the state should never be used to support any form of church worship. The weapons of each realm differ. God has given the sword to the state. The weapons of propagation afforded the church are light and truth. The sword is uniquely for punishing crimes against the community, not crimes against God. Even Christ did not use force when it might have seemed most justifiable. We submit to civil government according to the biblical mandate (Romans 13:1-10). In religion we neither rule nor submit. The two spheres must be kept separate. "Those who blend church and state together usually violate Christ's commands to both." Those commands, as Backus understood them, are mutually exclusive. To the church Christ said, Put away from yourselves that wicked person. But to the state, Let both grow together until the harvest (1 Cor. 5:13; Matt. 13:30, 38-41). Assent to the truth is always inward, whereas force touches the outward person and is therefore outside the bounds of legislation. Thus we have the necessary underpinnings for the central thesis of Isaac Backus' works: "Religion must at all times be a matter between God and individuals...." It is not the concern of the state. To fight against the religious conscience of another is to fight Jesus Christ himself. Though his main arguments were often repeated and reworked throughout his publications, his most comprehensive apologetic for freedom of conscience was his Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty. Here Backus gave five reasons for his opposition to the certificate laws. First, these laws presuppose the right of the civil authority to set up one sect over another. Second, the right to tax its citizens stems only from their civil obligations. How can the civil estate pretend to authority in ecclesiastical questions? Third, the law required the ecclesiastical authorities to judge the conscience of its members, something no mortal can or should do. Fourth, the law destroyed the purity and life of religion. A woman can respect civil authority and remain faithful to her husband, but if a wife or the church gives to any civil authority the place of the husband, the act is rightly called adultery or whoredom. Fifth, the law was harmful to civil society. By favoring one religious group and giving disadvantage to others, the state provoked ill will and strife. Backus constantly drew attention also to the similarity between the quest for liberty by the Baptists and by the colonies. The most striking parallel concerned taxation. The colonies had complained about the paper tax, but Massachusetts levied a paper tax on the Baptists annually. The tea tax aroused "the greatest noise" (and the most illustrious protest in colonial history) about three pence per pound on tea. But the colony laid a tax for the same amount on the Baptists, in each parish, every year. The colonists angrily resented their lack of representation in British Parliament. But the colonial civil leaders could not represent them in religious affairs either. In both cases it was less the tax than the question of authority, principle, and precedent that mattered, not how much tax, but the right to tax at all. The British argued that the tax was so little. Charles Chauncy, an advocate of the Standing Order, had replied that if a small amount was admitted, a larger one would be irresistible. Backus turned his own argument against him: "True, Doctor; there lies the difficulty. It is not the PENCE but the POWER that alarms us." To Backus, religious persecution provided the strongest argument the British had for taking away the colonial charter: the colonists did not respect the spirit of their own claims. He recalled Chauncy's own words with respect to the Church of England: "The religion of Jesus has suffered more from the exercise of this pretended right than from all other causes put together, and it is with me past all doubt that it will never be restored to its primitive purity, simplicity, and glory until religious establishments are so brought down as TO BE NO MORE." Surely this was as true for America as it was for Britain, said Backus. Finally, why would the God who holds the King's heart turn it to favor the oppressed when they in turn oppressed others? With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Backus usually avoided arguing points of doctrine in his public polemics. He did not hesitate however to denounce the legal position of his opponents as unbiblical and un-Christian. Even Israel under the "legal dispensation" had not seen the abuse brought by the standing church: "God himself prescribed the exact proportion of what the people were to give, yet none but persons of the worst character ever attempted to take it by force. I Samuel 2:12-16. Micah 3: 5-9." The choice of a spiritual teacher, he said, is a central Christian liberty, since believers were not to support false teaching. The scripture also taught that each person also had to be fully convinced in his or her own mind. Yet the tax laws forced the Baptists to support what they believed was false teaching concerning baptism. With similar syllogistic reasoning, he argued that any power establishing laws over a body of people is, de facto, the head of that people. The state made laws concerning religious conscience and therefore assumed the position of head in these matters. Yet all believers recognize Christ alone as the legitimate head of the church. The ministers receiving the tax revenue were not following biblical mandate either. Rather than living by the gospel (1 Cor. 9:13, 14; Gal. 6:6, 7), they lived by the law: their earnings came from tax revenues rather than voluntary support. For this reason they were known as "the king's ministers" rather than men "called of God." All these arguments recur as permutations over a lifetime of contention for the right to an unmediated relationship with God. HOW LIBERAL WAS HE? Just how far did the libertarian convictions of Isaac Backus extend? William McLoughlin saw Isaac Backus as an important and neglected figure in the historical study of the church-state question, yet portrayed him as narrowly sectarian in his commitments to religious liberty. Far from having a high and consistent position on the separation of church and state, said McLoughlin, Backus was uninterested in full religious liberty for non-Christians or Roman Catholics; did not believe in voluntary financial support of churches; supported blue laws and laws against gambling, card-playing, dancing, theater-going; and probably supported mandatory church attendance. Stanley Grenz takes McLoughlin to task on three points. First, he finds it questionable that Backus, as McLoughlin said, "produced a far less logical and consistent exposition of separation" than the Jeffersonians. Second, McLoughlin painted Backus too conservative on several of the instances cited above. Third, the Brown University professor underestimated the relationship of Backus to previous movements of separatism in New England and England. Looking only at the second criticism, we see how much more work is needed on this figure whom both sides recognize as important. Grenz lightly and graciously supplies a number of particularities: 1. Jacob Backus, a Justice of the Peace and the grandfather of Isaac, had a seventh-day Rogerene whipped for travelling through Norwich on a Sunday. McLoughlin points to Backus' record of the incident as proof of his inconsistency. Grenz quotes a later reference to this type of treatment: "Experience has since given much greater light about these things than was then enjoyed in the country." 2. McLoughlin quoted Backus as saying he had no controversy with the authorities concerning Sunday observance laws. Grenz gives the context, clearly showing that Backus and the Baptists saw it as a matter of God's laws, not men's. 3. "No man can take a seat in our legislature till he solemnly declares, 'I believe the Christian religion and have a firm persuasion of its truth,'" reported Backus. McLoughlin interpreted this as supporting religious oaths for office. Grenz again develops the context, showing Backus in celebration over the recent legislative move away from establishment. Though as yet unable to imagine a non-Christian as a serious contender for political office, Backus was using settled practice to advance his own argument. He later declared his opposition to these oaths: "All religious tests, imposed by men, are against piety, religion and morality." 4. Backus is quoted as having opposed religious freedom for Roman Catholics. Grenz shows the context to be making a different point, namely as illustrating the hypocrisy surrounding Article III of the Massachusetts Constitution, the clause establishing the state church. McLoughlin set Backus against the legendary toleration of Roger Williams, but neglected to consider this from Backus: The first founder of the town and colony of Providence Plantations, Williams had a plain sight of the deceitfulness of such claims and contended earnestly for impartial liberty for the consciences of Papists with others, as to matters of worship, so far as might be consistent with the safety of government and the rights of individuals and that none but spiritual weapons should be employed against mere errors in judgment of any kind. Backus seems to side with the liberal view in this. He also approvingly quotes Williams here: I affirm that all the liberty of conscience, that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's prayers of worship; nor secondly compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any. Backus supports Williams' view that none should be compelled in matters of conscience. Consider other evidence. On voluntarism, Backus in the year before his death rejoiced to see that "the liberty that he Williams was for, civil and religious, is now enjoyed in thirteen of the seventeen of the United States of America. No tax for any religious minister is imposed by authority...." (emphasis added). Backus more than once sided with Williams in denouncing the seizure of indigenous lands. The fact that the Indians were "infidels" did not justify the "conceit that religion gives its subjects dominion over the person and property of others." Isaac Backus was certainly no modern libertarian. He believed, for example, that prayer and thanksgiving were self-evident conclusions of natural religion, rather than of revelation. People were inexcusable for neglecting them. He did not, in other words, share Jefferson's antipathy for national "fast days" and in this he also disagreed with Roger Williams, who saw these too as matters of revelation. Williams was notoriously anti-institutional, seeing any recognized church as a "corporation" of the state. Backus, of course, was a leader in his denomination and knew all too well that churches are also political interest groups, too well to find Williams' position tenable. McLoughlin's view of Backus therefore appears to be too conservative. CONCLUSION Stanley Grenz portrays Isaac Backus as a champion of religious liberty who began with a limited view of the issue and matured to broader conclusions as he pressed the battle. This picture fits the evidence I have found. Yet questions remain. We may not be able to answer them with hard evidence, but they need to be asked nonetheless: How did the respective political and ecclesiastical interests of Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Backus shape their views of religious liberty? Did Backus limit his views to what he considered politically feasible? Do his private and unpublished papers show a more conservative or a more liberal picture than his published tracts? Does he ever denounce any law concerning religious freedom as too liberal? The answers to these questions will tell more about the place of Isaac Backus in the development of the first and foundational civil liberty. REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison, William Henry. "Isaac Backus." Dictionary of American Biography. Vol I., p. 471. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928, 1943. Backus, Isaac. A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists. 2nd ed, with notes by David Weston. 2 vols. Newton, MA: Backus Historical Society, 1871. __________. The Diary of Isaac Backus. William G. McLoughlin, ed. 3 vol. Providence: Brown University Press, 1979. Grenz, Stanley J. "Church and State: The Legacy of Isaac Backus." Center Journal 2 (Spring 1983): 73-94. __________. "Isaac Backus: Eighteenth Century Light on the Contemporary School Prayer Issue." Perspectives in Religious Studies 13 (Winter, 1986): 35-45. __________. "Isaac Backus and Religious Liberty." Foundations 22 (October/December 1979): 352-360. __________. Isaac Backus, Puritan and Baptist: His Place in History, His Thought, and Their Implications for Modern Baptist Theology. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983. Hovey, Alvah. A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, A.M. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1859. Little, David. "American Civil Religion and the Rise of Pluralism." Union Seminary Quarterly Review 38 (3-4, 1984): 401-413. Maston, T.B. Isaac Backus: Pioneer of Religious Liberty. London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1962. McLoughlin, William G. "Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State in America." American Historical Review 73 (June, 1968): 1392-1413. __________. Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968. __________. Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967. |
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