America turns 250 this July 4th, and somewhere in that celebration is a story that belongs to us.
Long before First Baptist was founded in 1890, Baptists were among the strongest voices insisting that religious freedom be written into the bones of this nation. It was a conviction born of hard experience—Baptist preachers jailed in Virginia for preaching without licenses, congregations worshiping at risk, and believers who understood why government had no business coercing matters of conscience.
That witness helped shape the American experiment. Baptist minister John Leland, together with many Virginia Baptists, urged James Madison to secure protections for religious liberty in the Bill of Rights. Here in North Carolina, the 1776 Declaration of Rights affirmed that…
That heritage has never been merely historical for us. In the 1975 revision of our church constitution, our community declared among its purposes “insuring individual liberty for each member of this body of believing Christians”—language that echoes in our constitution today and reflects the Baptist commitment to soul freedom across the centuries.
As America marks 250 years, the freedom to gather, worship, and pray remains both a gift to cherish and a calling to protect. We are grateful First Baptist continues to honor that legacy.