Isaac Backus (1724-1806)

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Baptist minister

Religious Freedom . Isaac Backus’s service as minister of the Baptist church in the small country town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, would not ordinarily ensure a place for him in the history books. Yet despite this modest position, Backus became one of the most widely known evangelical preachers in early America. He was also a key figure in the debate over the separation of church and state in the period after the American Revolution. Backus had a vision of religious freedom that complemented an intense piety, a view shared by many in these formative years of American society.

Awakening to Faith . Backus was born on a Connecticut farm on 9 January 1724. Like many other New Englanders, he experienced a dramatic conversion during the Great Awakening, a series of religious revivals that swept through American churches in the early 1740s. These revivals emphasized the importance of conversion, that is, of an intense awareness of God’s grace as the centerpiece of each person’s religious life. Backus held to this position for the rest of his long life despite the conflicts it created for him. The practical consequences of his religious beliefs led Backus to his ideas about religious freedom. The evangelical emphasis on conversion led some to conclude that the church should accept only those who had freely recognized this event. Backus left the Congregational Church because it refused to restrict admission in this way. He soon moved to an even more radical position and in 1756 formed a new congregation in Middleborough on Baptist principles. Baptists such as Backus abandoned the popular practice of baptizing children, arguing that it was impossible for a baby to experience conversion.

Separating Church and State . While Baptists were free to hold these beliefs, they were not free to abandon their old churches completely. The Congregational churches of Massachusetts were “established” churches, endorsed by the state government and supported with tax money. Backus became a leading spokesman for all those seeking relief from the obligation to pay taxes in support of ministers and churches they had rejected. In works such as An Appealto the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day (1773) Backus argued forcefully that state support corrupted pure Christianity, and he urged the separation of church and state. The adoption of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 accomplished Backus’s goal at the national level. But the states were not affected by this, and his struggle continued for the rest of his life. He continued to preach and write about this issue. Backus was not a true religious pluralist despite his views on the separation of church and state. He always believed that America should be a religious, and specifically a Baptist, nation. Religious freedom for Backus was not an abstract human right, but rather a goal to pursue in order to promote religion in a practical way. Backus died on 20 November 1806, twenty-seven years before the Congregational Church was finally disestablished in Massachusetts.

Source

William G. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).