Rick Santorum said many embarassing and frightening things over the weekend, including his outrageous comments on higher education.  But what led the news this morning was his comments on John Kennedy's famous 1960 address to Baptists in Houston, that reading that speech made him want to throw up.  Wow!  

So, this morning I went downstairs and got my collection of Kennedy speeches and re-read that famous speech.  I am shocked that anyone would find it objectionable.  That Santorum does is incredibly revealing.  And people should pay attention.

Evangelicals were worried about a Catholic president, that he would be overly influenced by the Catholic hierarchy, and Kennedy met with them to assure them of his commitment to religious liberty and the separation of church and state.  Here is Kennedy's core statement:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

In addition to that, "I believe in an America . . . where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials."

It is very disappointing that in 2012 a Catholic candidate would deny that claim.  It is also troubling that evangelicals would now accept someone denying that claim, where fifty years ago they expected a candidate to make that claim.  

Kennedy also made a bold statement about the conflict between private consciences and the national interest, "But if the time should ever come . . .when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same."

Re-reading Kennedy's speech, I became interested to re-read George Washington Truett's famous 1920 sermon on the steps of the nation's Capitol "Baptists and Religious Liberty."  In some ways it sets the context for the concerns that Kennedy was addressing when he spoke to the Baptists in Houston.

Re-reading the Truett for the first time probably since the 1990's, I was surprised by how dated it is and how sectarian it is.  I had not remembered that.  But it was as clear about individual liberty and the separation of church and state as I remembered it.  

It would be good for this sermon to re-enter the national dialogue, especially as it addresses the concerns a century ago about Catholic hierarchy and its conflict with religious liberty.  As Truett portrays the 1920's Baptist vision, religious liberty is for the individual not the church or institution.  In fact the individual's conscience is free even from the church.  

As I've been saying the last month or so in relation to the contraception issue, the religious liberty to be safeguarded is that of the person, the employees of Catholic hospitals who should not have Catholic doctrine imposed upon them.  

Here is what Truett preached (I've highlighted the key part of the paragraph):

Baptists have one consistent record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history.  They have never been a party to oppression of conscience.  They have forever been the unwavering champions of liberty, both religious and civil.  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. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. . . It is the consistent and insistent contention of our Baptist people, always and everywhere, that religion must be forever voluntary and uncoerced, and that it is not the perogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship, or to pay taxes for the support of a religious organization to which they do not believe.  God wants free worshipers and no other kind.

Truett held views which we would now label as anti-Catholic.  Post-Vatican II mainline Protestants and even evangelicals made siginificant strides in over-coming their anti-Catholicism, but largely because the Roman church had made significant strides in overcoming their opposition to Protestants.  We spent fifty years drawing closer together, only to now be drawing farther apart as the Roman Catholic Church goes backward on the changes of Vatican II and mainline Protestants continue to move forward on social justice issues in contemporary life that the Catholic church hasn't even begun to address adequately.

Here was Truett's concern.  It was not about the individual Catholic believer; he argued vigorously for their freedom of religion.  His concern was the hierarchy and its way of structuring ecclesiastical power in opposition to individual liberty.

Likewise, the Catholic conception of the church , thrusting all its complex and cumbrous machinery between the soul and God, prescribing beliefs, claiming to exercise the power of the keys, and to control the channels of grace; all such lording it over the consciences of men is to the Baptist mind a ghastly tyranny in the realm of the soul and tends to frustrate the grace of God, to destroy freedom of conscience, and to hinder terribly the coming of the Kingdom of God.

***

The right to private judgment is the crown jewel of humanity, and for any person or institution to dare to come between the soul and God is a blasphemous impertinence and a defamation of the crown rights of the Son of God.

Out of these two fundamental principles, the supreme authority of the Scriptures and the right of private judgment, have come all the historic protests in Europe or England and America against unscriptural creeds, polity and rites, and against the unwarranted and impertinent assumption of religious authority over men's consciences, whether by church or by state. Baptists regard as an enormity any attempt to force the conscience, or to constrain men, by outward penalties, to this or that form of religious belief. Persecution may make men hypocrites, but it will not make them Christians.

We would do well to remember that this famous, influential sermon of Truett's details the context and the concerns that Kennedy was addressing in his famous 1960 speech.  

We would also do well to remember the important distinction that Truett makes -- that religious liberty resides with the individual, sometimes in opposition to their church when that church tries to override individual conscience.

We are in a frightening place in the United States when a leading candidate for President casts scorn upon our magnificient tradition of religious liberty.