The Gospel and Religious Freedom

David W. Bebbington (ed.)
The Gospel and Religious Freedom:
Historical Studies in Evangelicalism and Political Engagement
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2023.

This book edited by historian of evangelicalism David Bebbington is a terrific collection of essays about historic evangelicalism and religious freedom and is based on the proceedings of a conference held at Baylor University in 2021.

The TOC is below. Below are my several highlights in the book!

Todd Still provides a terrific essay on George Truett and religious liberty, showing that religious liberty is a very Baptist belief, and Still provides a concise version of Truett’s famous 1920 Washington address on the topic.

Barry Hankins looks at religious freedom issues during the Trump Administration where he reports on famous cases like Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cake Shop and notes that many evangelical groups like the National Association of Evangelicals and Alliance Defending Freedom supported a court case of an Islamic community who were unfairly prevented from building a mosque. Some evangelical groups have a principled view of religious liberty, while others simply see it as a theatre of the culture wars.

John Coffey has a great essay on evangelical toleration from Wilberforce to the modern era. In the 18th century, English dissenters, especially Baptists and Methodists, were adamant that religion could only flourish if it was free from state interference and state sponsorship. Historically speaking, Protestants have supported religious liberty because mission requires the freedom to choose and change religion. This is why Christians, such as Lebanese Christian intellectual Charles Malik and others, supported religious freedom as set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights article 18, to enhance human freedom of religion and the freedom to promote religion. Yes, sometimes evangelical enthusiasm in British colonies got out of hand, hence the Vellore uprising in India, but wherever evangelicals went, so did religious freedom, political enfranchisement, education, rights for women and children, and economic growth. Coffey has a great section on Protestant mission among African slaves in the Caribbean and Continental US which was met with violent resistance by slave-owners. Some plantation owners even blamed missionaries for stirring up slave revolts. Interesting too is where Coffey points out that many post-colonial critics argue that the Feminist and LGBTIQ+ causes being exported to the developing world and the Middle East are another expression of the Western missionary project. This by far was my favourite essay of the book!

Todd Thompson has a great piece on Anglican legal scholar and expert on Islamic law, Norman Anderson (1904-94), who worked as an intelligence officer in North Africa during WWII. There is the memorable line, “As it turned out, the clandestine intelligence world of 1940s Cairo was an usually helpful place for a British Christian to nurture and cultivate a vision for religious freedom in Islamic contexts attuned to the realities and complexities of international politics.”

Mary Heimann writes on Evangelicals and Communist Regimes in eastern Europe, where she observes, “If Marxist looked to Westerns like a political religion, evangelicalism looked to Marxists like colonial imperialism by another name.”

Finally, Wai Luen Kwok tells the stories of two Chinese Christians, Allen Yuan and Zhu Chengxin which show that the Chinese Communist party have no interest in religious freedom and despite their best efforts, the churches continue to thrive.

In some, some excellent essays on religious freedom in dialogue with the evangelical tradition.

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Table of Contents

Foreword
David W. Bebbington

Introduction
Robert J. Joustra

Part One: America

1. Protestant Dissenters, a Second Magna Carta, and Religious Freedom
Nicholas P. Miller

2. William Jennings Bryan, the Round Table Club, and Religious Freedom
Jeffrey McDonald

3. George W. Truett and Religious Liberty
Todd D. Still

4. "Their Blood Cries Out": Religious Freedom and Persecution Politics
Melani McAlister

5. Principled Position or Interest Group Politics?: Evangelicals and Religious Liberty in the Trump Era
Barry Hankins

Part Two: The World

6. Evangelical Toleration in the Age of Wilberforce: Dissenters, Missionaries, and Colonial Others
John Coffey

7. "Totalitarianism in Religion": Roman Catholicism, Religious Liberty, and the British Evangelical Imagination before Vatican II
John Maiden

8. Norman Anderson, Islam, and Religious Freedom in Nigeria
Todd M. Thompson

9. Evangelicals and the Communist Regimes in Postwar East-Central Europe
Mary Heimann

10. An Open Door That No One Can Shut: Evangelicals under Repression in China, 1949–1982
Wai Luen Kwok

Afterword
Judd Birdsall