John Leland was born in the colonies — a native of Massachusetts. While raised a Congregationalist, he had conversion experience and was baptized by a Baptist minister at eighteen. In 1776 and at the age of 22, Leland and his wife Sallie Devine moved to Virginia where he began pastoring various Baptist congregations and working as an itinerant preacher.
Like all Baptists in Virginia, he struggled under persecution by both church and civil authorities. Anglicanism was the established religion, after all. As a result, this self-educated man was in and out of jail and trouble almost constantly.
An inauspicious beginning for a man who would come to have a personal friendship with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In fact, it is not an overstatement to claim that Leland so pressured his friends about the importance of religious liberty that he altogether convinced them Virginia would not ratify the United States Constitution unless it contained a Bill of Rights that protected religious freedom. Without the Baptist pastor John Leland, we might not have a First Amendment.
On April 9, 1801 — after the ratification of the Bill of Rights (1789) but prior to the years Leland would serve in the state House of Representatives (1811–1813), he preached a sermon called “A Blow at the Root.” In it, he offers a very simple and profound vision of government: “Government is, when rightly understood, the most economical means that men make use of, to secure themselves and be happy.”
On the surface, Leland is claiming that government exists to provide for the security and “happiness” of its citizens. More significantly, he suggests that government is “the most economical means” of doing so.
As we head into Independence Day weekend, I will be thinking of John Leland beginning his work as a Baptist pastor in 1776, of his advocacy for “liberty of conscience” and religious freedom, and of what it might mean to recapture a vision of government like that of those like Leland who helped put it together to begin with.
Remember, we’re all in this together.
Pastor Michael