And historic justice compels me to say that it was preeminently aa Baptist contribution. Ringing testimonies like these might be multiplied indefinitely. They did not stumble upon this principle. Their uniform, unyielding and sacrificial advocacy of such principle was not and is not an accident. It is, in a word, because of our essential and fundamental principles.
Ideas rule the world.
A denomination is molded and just an individual life is thus molded. Our fundamental essential principles have made our Baptist people, of all ages and countries, to be the unyielding protagonists of religious liberty, not only for themselves, but for everybody else as well. This point needs to be underscored. In breathing into man and woman the breath of his own life, God empowered each one not only to accept redemption but to reject it. Today the concept and practice of religious freedom are under attack.