Virginia Baptists adopted a resolution critical of recent efforts to diminish or deny the constitutional separation of church and state. ABP reports:
Virginia Baptists should “regard it as a threat to the flourishing of religious liberty when any version of our nation’s history minimizes or denies the historical basis” of church-state separation, the resolution says. It also says Virginia Baptists should “be diligent in resisting and correcting any such mistaken version of our history.”
Rob James of Richmond, who chairs the BGAV’s religious-liberty committee, said the resolution was prompted in part by recent attempts by a conservative Christian majority on the Texas State Board of Education to amend standards for the state’s social-studies textbooks. The majority accused the old standards of undermining Christianity and conservative values.
“One of the things that frightened us [the committee] was that the next 10 years of social-studies textbooks would raise questions about the founding of this country and to what extent, if at all, the idea of separation of church and state is part of our national commitment,” said James, a retired professor of religion at the University of Richmond.
