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Liberty of conscience: Roger Williams in America

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This beautifully written book brings to light, in an understated but poetic way, the genius and greatness of the man who, as Gaustad says, "was out to do nothing less than alter the institutional structure of the Western world." It is a measure of our time that many people, especially young people educated pursuant to the fashionable bromides of contemporary social science education, have never heard of this first founder of liberty of conscience and disestablishment of religion in America. In our epoch of attempted "faith-based" governmental initiatives, Gaustad's book reminds us, by constant reference to the writings of Roger Williams, of those principles that, after a bitter struggle of more than a century, came to distinguish this nation from the government-controlled religion and thought of the rest of the world. The life of Roger Williams shows that deeply held religious belief necessarily implies an unwavering commitment to the principle of absolute separation of church and state. Williams' life also demonstrates that at least one colonial leader tried, unsuccessfully, to overcome the tendency of the Puritans to treat Native Americans as less than human or as mere subjects for conversion to Christianity. The tragedy of Williams' life consisted solely in the failure of his decades-long effort to resolve the conflict between rapacious, religiously hypocritical English settlers and the Native Americans. The triumph of his life was his original pronouncement, in this country, of the enduring but often threatened principle that government should be restricted to civil, not religious, tasks. More than a century later, Jefferson and Madison built on the foundation that Roger Williams so nobly established in his writings and in the constitutional documents of Rhode Island.

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Availability

171111569

286.109 GAU l

Z. HANDIMAN

Available

Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

286.109 GAU l

Publisher

Grand Rapids : Wm.B Eerdmans., 1992

Collation

xiv, 226p.; 22 cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-8028-0153-6

Classification

286.109

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

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Subject(s)

BAPTIST, CLERGY - PERSONS

Specific Detail Info

N/v

Statement of Responsibility

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