Preacher, Politician, & Cheese

There was a Baptist preacher, Thomas Jefferson, and a block of cheese so large it became a national sensation ... sounds like the beginning of a good joke. But it’s no joke.

In the summer of 1801, Elder John Leland, a Baptist preacher from Cheshire, Massachusetts, persuaded the ladies of his Baptist congregation to produce one of the most unusual gifts ever sent to an American president. What they made became known as the “Mammoth Cheese” and they sent it to President Thomas Jefferson to honor his support of religious liberty.

This was a token ... not small ... of appreciation. It weighed 1,235 pounds!

A Rhode Island newspaper reported the cheese was made from the milk of 900 cows and formed in a cider press six feet in diameter and it had engraved on it the motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

John Leland, one of the great Baptist defenders of religious freedom, was not simply trying to impress the president with the dairy skills of New England farmers. He was making a point about liberty. Like many Baptists of his day, he believed that the government had no right to control the conscience, compel religious belief, or force citizens to support a church through taxation.

That conviction has never been theoretical for Baptists which we want to always remember.

Throughout our history we Baptists have known what it means to be religious outsiders. Our forefathers saw what happened when the state favored one denomination over another. They understood that true faith cannot be produced by law, tax, or political pressure.

So, when Thomas Jefferson became president, John Leland and the Baptists of Cheshire saw an opportunity to honor a man they believed stood for religious liberty.

In late November Leland transported the cheese by sleigh or wagon from Massachusetts to the Hudson River, by sloop to New York and Baltimore and then from there by wagon. It arrived in Washington on December 29, 1801.

Leland presented the cheese to President Jeffereson in a small ceremony at the President’s House on New Year’s Day in 1802. He praised Jefferson and remarked that the cheese “was produced by the personal labor of Freeborn Farmers, with the voluntary and cheerful aid of their wives and daughters, without the assistance of a single slave.” This was more than a giant wheel of dairy. It was a Baptist sermon in edible form.

It said that liberty of conscience matters.

It said that government is not lord over the soul.

It said that faith must be free.

The story sounds almost humorous today. A Baptist preacher carrying a 1,235-pound cheese to Thomas Jefferson seems more like folklore than history. But it happened. And behind the humor was serious conviction.

Although today the SBC is the largest protestant denomination in the world, Baptists were not always popular in early America.

They were often dismissed as radicals, dissenters, and troublemakers. But on the issue of religious liberty, they helped shape the conscience of this great nation.

John Leland understood something every generation must remember: the church does not need the power of the state to be faithful. The gospel does not advance by coercion. Christ’s kingdom is not built by political force, but by truth, conviction, persuasion, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So yes, American history really does include a Baptist preacher, Thomas Jefferson, and a 1,235-pound cheese ... but the deeper story is not about cheese.

It is about conscience and liberty.

It is about the Baptist conviction that every person must be free to stand before God, answer to God, and worship God according to the Word of God and the dictates of their conscience.