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I spent some time perusing through the humanities department of my Alma Mater a couple weeks ago. The Humanities hall houses the Religion and Philosophy departments at Carson Newman. Now let me say from the outset, I am a proud Carson Newman Eagle as am I a proud graduate of those those departments at Carson Newman, but as I walked up and down those hallways, I was struck by the level of close mindedness that was masked with a piety of "openness." The walls were filled with the same quotes and books that were there when I attended CNC. One display reflects Baptist's involvement in the "separation of church and state." Indeed, Baptists did champion separation during those days, but for the purposes of restricting "state" from manipulating the religious freedom and establishing a "state" church. Baptists were pivotal in the movement but we must not think they had any other motives beyond that. Some would have us believe that the long held conviction of "priesthood of the believer" was a Baptist doctrine of tolerance toward many views and interpretations of the scripture. Nothing could be further from the truth. Priesthood of the believer is a reformed conviction set forth by Martin Luther where by they fought for the write of every believer to have his or her own bible in a readable language. The fact is that Luther saw this a point of discipleship not a point of personal freedom. He was repulsed by the manipulation of the Bible by the Catholic church. Luther would have dismissed some of these silly ideas being set forth today by some so called "theologians" as pure jibberish!

Does this not have a contemporary ring to it? There at those who find Christians who are vocal about their political involvement repugnant. Certainly, some have sold their allegiances to one party as if that party is a savior for biblical values. This of course is lunacy! But lets make a clear distinction, every believer must be fully engaged in life and be so affected by the scriptures that it causes a deep passion to well up in them for the glory of God! This means being passionately involved in every area of life...including politics. The distortion of Church/State issues and the human bend toward unbalanced tolerance is causing some to privatize their Christian values and convictions. This is truly sad! Yes, Baptists fought hard for religious freedom and yes they believed that a truly believed that every faith should have freedom to carry out their religious convictions as they wished. But a resounding no must be said to a conviction that a society must be completely pluralistic in order to be free. Ideas are only as good as our ability to set forth some as good and others as bad. To echo the mantra of our day that no one has an exclusive right to truth is simple irrational and right down silly. If that statement is true, our society would not be where it is today. Pluralism does not equate to a dismissal of conviction. We must not be duped into thinking that the modern definition of tolerance is accurate. Tolerance is not what our world wants. They want affirmation. They want us to say "I'm OK, your OK...now lets get some pie!