First, he says in his very first sentence, “... Baptists played a prominent role in promoting religious toleration.” The facts are different. In his famous address delivered on the steps of the national Capitol on May 16, 1920, George W. Truett, perhaps the most respected and loved Baptist preacher of his day, said, “Baptists have one constant record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history. ... Their contention now is, and has been, and please God, must ever be , that it is the natural and fundamental and indefeasible right of every human being to worship God or not, according to the dictates of his conscience, and as long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others, he is to be held accountable alone to God for all religious beliefs and practices. Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. ...”

Further, in the case of Everson v. Board of Education, Professor Strehle severely criticizes certain members of the Supreme Court (Black, Frankfurter) for their judicial views. He says they made “religion irrelevant to public life and to declare the wall of separation ‘high and impregnable.' ” He goes on to state that, “This decision makes religion irrelevant to our corporate lives ... and worse than that, it maintains that religion exerts an evil influence when represented and empowered in the state.” He goes on to say, “The wall contains an implicit commission to remember and emphasize all the wicked moments in church history—the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the religious wars ....”

What a very strange interpretation of history. It has been clear for centuries now that it was not a “wall of separation between church and state” that caused these mentioned evil events. Quite the contrary, in these evenst there was no wall, and the church and state acted as one. This could have been written by any one of that group of modern historians who strive daily to revise and rewrite the true history of both the Baptists and America.

One must ask why? Why is this revisionist history included in a Baptist paper? Are we being “re-educated” as Baptists? For what purpose? Has politics and dollars from “faith-based tax money” become so all powerful?

As a member of a Baptist church for almost 70 years, I am not ready for “re-education” or a rewrite of either Baptist or American history. I prefer to read from John Leland's writings, “Never promote men who seek after a state established religion; it is spiritual tyranny—the worst of despotism.”

Edwin C. King, Ormond Beach, Fla.

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