James M. Dunn and Soul Freedom

A self-described “Texas-bred, Spirit-led, Bible-teaching, revival-preaching, recovering Southern Baptist,” James Milton Dunn, over the last fifty years, has been the most aggressive Baptist proponent for religious liberty in the United States. Soul freedom—voluntary uncoerced faith and an unfettered individual conscience before God—is the basis of his understanding of church-state separation and the historic Baptist basis of religious liberty. Through his ministry as a pastor, ethicist, and activist, James Dunn developed a distinctly Baptist approach to politics, showing fellow Baptists how to apply their Christianity in the public square on social and church-state issues in a manner consistent with the historic Baptist commitment to freedom. This ethic of political engagement promoted by Dunn was motivated by a loving concern for others and a commitment to the common good.