By Brian Kaylor / Baptist News Global
This is an abbreviated version of the story. For the full story, click here.
Brent Walker can see the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court building when he arrives at work. And that’s appropriate since he often finds himself heading over to those two buildings, as well as the White House and other government buildings in Washington.
Walker serves as executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, making him a key voice for Baptists in the nation’s capital. Working for the BJC for 27 years, Walker remains passionate about religious liberty and the heritage Baptists have in that area.
“Religious liberty has always been precious for Baptists,” said Walker, who will retire at the end of the year. “We were born in a fight for religious liberty 400-plus years ago. And we’ve been at it ever since. So it really is in our DNA. It should inform our thinking — even now when in many parts of our country we’re in the majority.”
Religious liberty is for everyone, he said. …
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One of the ways the BJC works to educate about religious liberty is through its annual Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.
Molly Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kan., gave the 2016 lectures on the campus of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn.
In the United States, she said, “we’re going through a seismic shift in religious ethos” which sparks “fear of religious pluralism.” Even in a pluralistic society, Marshall said, Baptists must work to protect everyone’s religion. …
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