History of the Thomas Helwys Centre
Opening
On the 8 th March 2002 there was a ceremony to mark the opening of a Study and Resource Centre on the subject of religious freedom. The guest of honour was Dr Theo Angelov from Bulgaria who was General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation. Other invited guests included representatives of local Baptist and other churches, and of other organisations working in this field.
The Centre was transferred from Bristol Baptist College to IBTS, Prague, in the summer of 2006.
Press Release – Opening of the Thomas Helwys Centre at Bristol Baptist College
“A concern for religious freedom is deeply rooted in my own experience”, said European Baptist Federation General Secretary Dr Theo Angelov.
He was speaking as guest of honour at the opening of the Thomas Helwys Centre for the Study of Religious Freedom at Bristol Baptist College. The fifty invited guests heard him movingly recall how his father, a well-known Bulgarian Baptist pastor, had been imprisoned for his beliefs during the Communist era. He was in prison for eight years, and during that time his family was only allowed one brief ten-minute visit to see him.
Dr Angelov went on to develop the theme of religious freedom with reference to the places in both Western and eastern Europe where Baptists and other minority groups are denied their religious freedom, suffering harassment and even imprisonment. He commended the work of the Thomas Helwys Centre as a means of helping to keep alive the struggle for religious freedom in contemporary Europe.
Earlier the Centre Director, Revd Tony Peck had set out some of the contemporary concerns for religious freedom which had led the College to set up such a centre.
“We hope that the Helwys Centre will provide some means and resources to make an informative response to some of the challenges of religious freedom in our own society”, he said. “Christian groups have sometimes had a tendency to scare-monger and give the impression that they are selfishly concerned about their own religious freedom only. On the other hand, in what has been described as a post-Christian society we must be vigilant about threats to all religious liberties – our own and others. And in the work of the new Centre we want to set religious freedom within the context of human rights as a whole; and to wrestle with the reality that sometimes religious freedom may indeed be in tension or even clash with other human rights.”
Mr Peck went on to remind his hearers that a concern for religious liberty is deeply embedded in our Baptist heritage and identity. Naming the new Centre after Thomas Helwys makes a direct connection with Helwys’ famous plea of 1612 for religious liberty for all, “Turks heretics, Jews or whatever”, “This has a strangely contemporary ring to it in the context of the issues we face today in the relationship of faiths to one another in the UK”, he said.
The idea for the Thomas Helwys centre had come out of a Conference organised by the Joppa Group, and concerned with religious freedom in a multifaith society. The suggestion was discussed by the Colleges and with the Baptist Union, and the Bristol College was invited to set it up on their behalf.
“We hope to build up a study centre and a bank of resources to network contacts with other bodies working in the area of religious freedom” said Mr Peck.
He concluded “But above all, we want to bring one of the riches of our Baptist tradition – a passion for religious freedom born of theological conviction that the freedom to believe is God’s gift and under the Lordship of Christ – combined with the conviction that that very freedom should be universally enjoyed; and so contribute to what is becoming a more and more important debate in our society and others”.
Greetings were brought to the new Centre by Revd Graham Sparkes on behalf of the Baptist Union, and from Dr Malcolm Evans, Professor of International Law at Bristol University. Written greetings were received from Revd David Coffey, and Dr Denton Lotz on behalf the Baptist World Alliance. A dedicatory prayer for the new Centre was offered by Dr David Russell, former General Secretary of the Baptist Union and a passionate advocate of religious freedom and human rights, especially during the communist era in eastern Europe.
On the following day the Helwys Centre held its first day-long seminar on the subject of “Coping with Diversity” led by Professor Evans on the relationship of Law, Religion and Human Rights to each other and by Dr Philip Lewis of the Diocese of Bradford on Christian-Muslim relationships in our society, especially since the terrorist attacks of last September 11.
A historic commitment
A commitment to religious freedom for all has been a key concern for Baptists from their early experiences of persecution onwards.
Thomas Helwys was a leader of the earliest Baptist church established in England, and later died in prison for being a Baptist. In 1612 he addressed to King James 1 A short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity, which contains a remarkable plea for religious freedom for all religious groups, and it is this which has given him an honoured place among Baptists, and which led the College to name its new Centre after him.
