Authors: Bryant Wright, President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Senior Pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church; Richard Land, President, The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; O. S. Hawkins, President/CEO, GuideStone Financial Resources, Southern Baptist Convention

We acknowledge that Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists have differing views on how we understand and practice our faith, stemming from our differing concepts of what we view as our supreme authority. For Southern Baptists, authority is in Scripture alone. For Catholics, authority is in Scripture and the church.

For example, most Baptists have a different perspective than do Catholics on the use of contraceptives by a married couple, because we believe Scripture does not condemn it, yet we hold an almost identical perspective on abortion because of the Bible’s clear teaching on the sanctity of every human life.

Despite our theological differences, we cannot remain silent while others find their First Amendment freedom of religion rights trampled.

As Baptists we defend Catholics’ right to not have their consciences coerced by government edict on the issue of contraception.

In the Manhattan Declaration (2009), Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians proclaimed, “Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience.”

Pope John Paul II wrote that religious freedom is the “first freedom.” It is, he continued, “the premise and guarantee of all freedoms that ensure the common good.”

There are areas of our lives in which we are to submit to the state and there are areas, clearly delineated by our faith, in which the state must not intrude. As Christ Himself said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Mark 12:17).

As Americans–Catholics and Baptists alike–we are in absolute agreement on the inviolable freedom of conscience, a right recognized and guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution to every American citizen.

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