Roger Williams: His Quest for Religious Purity and Founding of Rhode Island
Portrait of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island.
Puritan dissident Roger Williams was a pioneer of religious freedom in America. Williams, a Puritan pastor in Salem, Massachusetts, believed in God’s supreme rule and the limitation of human power. Yet he differed from traditional Puritan thinking and Governor John Winthrop in several ways, though the two men liked one another. Much like the Pilgrims, Williams thought it was necessary to separate from the existing church (in his case from the Puritans’ official Congregational Church in Massachusetts) in order to form a more pure one. Thus he separated himself from both the Anglican and Congregational state churches.
Williams was an advocate of freedom of conscience (or belief) and of greater distinction between church and civil government. The official church in Massachusetts, to him, was impure due to its combined church and government and its oppressive practices to regulate religious beliefs and doctrine. Such characteristics, to Williams, did not accurately reflect New Testament church law and practice. To address this impurity, the church needed to separate from the civil government with regard to administration and jurisdiction. True religion, Williams believed, required worship without state interference. These radical concepts—more radical than those of most Christians of his day—were motivated by Williams’s search for greater religious purity in the church and Christian life.
The separation Williams sought between church and government, say some scholars, turned over the understandings of the time not only of state church establishments but of the church itself. Williams was banished from the colony of Massachusetts for his dissident beliefs and in 1643 founded the religiously tolerant colony of Rhode Island.
Rhode Island was “a shelter for persons distressed of conscience.” This experimental colony supported freedom of belief and greater separation of church and government. The colony did not have a state church, allowed peaceable differences of religious opinion, and viewed God alone as ruler of conscience. Though Catholics, Jews, and atheists did not have full rights, their beliefs were tolerated. Rhode Island’s government was “democratical,” held by the consent of all and by majority rule in secular matters. The colony became a refuge for religious minorities–Quakers, Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Antinomians, etc.–who fled from religious intolerance or persecution.
In 1644, Williams wrote The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (The Bloody Tenet) in support of freedom of belief and against religious coercion and persecution. The Bible was the foundational source of his arguments, and some of his arguments were similar to reformer Martin Luther’s. Williams advocated for free thought and belief because it was, he believed, the only means to true faith and religion. His ideas raised questions and challenges but endured and solidified over time. In response to Williams, Puritan pastor John Cotton wrote in 1647 The Bloudy Tenent, Washed and Made White in the Bloude of the Lambe to argue against some of Williams’s views. Cotton supported, for example, the implementation of Old Testament law and religious conformity. In response to Cotton, Williams wrote his 1652 The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody: by Mr. Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash it White in the Blood of the Lambe in which he reasserted his views.
Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.
—–
Source for more information: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.
Additional Reading/Handout: Why Religious Freedom Became an Unalienable Right & First Freedom in America by Angela E. Kamrath, American Heritage Education Foundation. Paper available to download from member resources, americanheritage.org.
Related articles/videos:
1. An Introduction to Popular Sovereignty
2. Challenges in the Early Puritan Colonies: The Dilemma of Religious Laws and Dissent
3. The Two Kingdoms Doctrine : Religious Reformers Recognize the Civil and Spiritual Kingdom
4. The First Experiments in Freedom of Belief & Religious Tolerance in America
5. Roger Williams: First Call for Separation of Church and State in America
6. William Penn and His “Holy Experiment” in Religious Tolerance
7. Early Americans supported Religious Tolerance based on God as Judge of Conscience
8. Early Americans opposed Religious Persecution as contrary to the Biblical Teachings of Christ.
9. Early Americans argued Religious Coercion opposes Order of Nature
10. Early Americans Believed Religious Coercion Opposes Reason
11. Early Americans Supported Religious Tolerance within Civil Peace and Order
12. Philosopher John Locke & His Letters Concerning Toleration
13. The Religious Landscape of the Thirteen Colonies in Early 1700s America
—–
Activity: Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 4, Part 1 of 2, Activity 6: Thinking About Freedom of Conscience and Religion, p. 147. MS-HS.
Thinking About Freedom of Conscience and Religion
Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the arguments, motives, and actions of Roger Williams and William Penn who founded or influenced the religiously tolerant colonies of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.
Suggested Readings: 1) Chapter 4 of Miracle of America sourcebook/text. Students read sections from Introduction to 4.15.
2) Paper/handout titled Why Religious Freedom Became an Unalienable Right & First Freedom in America by Angela E. Kamrath (AHEF). Paper available to download from member resources, americanheritage.org.
3) Related Post: The First Experiments in Freedom of Belief and Religious Tolerance in America
Activity: A) Short-Paragraph Test. Students think about, write on, discuss in small groups/whole class (with chairs in a circle, if possible) the questions below. In writing on these questions, students may use more informal journaling/reflective writing. Students may use this activity or parts of it as test preparation for a short-answer test on the same questions:
1. How did the beliefs of Williams and Penn differ from those of the Puritans? How were they similar?
2. How do the experiences of Roger William and William Penn influence your own views about religious tolerance and freedom of belief?
3. What main points from the Bible and other sources were used by Williams and Penn to argue against religious coercion and in support of religious tolerance and freedom of belief?
4. Why do you think Williams and Penn based their arguments against religious intolerance and coercion largely on the Bible and Christian principles?
5. Why is it important for people to have freedom of conscience and to be tolerant toward other people’s peaceful religions?
(These and other questions are also found in Chapter 4 of Miracle of America sourcebook/text, p. 125.)
B) Text Analysis. Have students discuss and rephrase in their own words two or more quotes from Williams and Penn.
—–
Activity: Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 4, Part 2 of 2, Activity 5: Williams and Cotton Debate Separation of Church and State, p. 161, 320, 321. HS.
Williams and Cotton Debate Separation of Church and State
Purpose/Objective: Students identify and evaluate the arguments for and against government regulation of religion by early Americans including Puritans Roger Williams and John Cotton.
Suggested Readings: 1) Chapter 4 of Miracle of America sourcebook/text. Students read sections 4.4, 4.6-4.8, 4.13-4.15.
2) Paper/handout titled Why Religious Freedom Became an Unalienable Right & First Freedom in America by Angela E. Kamrath (AHEF). Paper available to download from member resources, americanheritage.org.
3) Related Post: The First Experiments in Freedom of Belief and Religious Tolerance in America
4) Teacher-selected excerpts from The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (1644) by Roger Williams.
5) Teacher-selected excerpts from The Bloudy Tenent, Washed, and Made White in the Bloude of the Lambe (1647) by John Cotton.
6) Online essay, The Root of American Religious Liberty, on Williams and Cotton by Liberty Point Institute, www.churchandstate.us/church-state/wm-cot1a.htm
Activity: 1) Compare/Contrast Chart or Essay. Have students read selections/excerpts from Williams and Cotton that address the role of church and state. Have students, working in small groups, discuss the ideas of Williams and Cotton on separation of church and state. Students might be assigned to each read a different section, take notes, and report to the group. Have student groups organize/list/bullet the main ideas of the readings on the views and supporting Bible references of Williams and Cotton in a compare/contrast chart or Venn Diagram. See the Venn Diagram in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, p. 320. The reading activity could also be used for a compare/contrast essay writing assignment or in-class discussion.
2) Mock Debate on Church and State. The above reading activity could be the basis for a class mock debate. Students on two panels could role-play and argue the positions of Williams and Cotton. See the “Class Debate Rubric” in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, p. 321.
To download this whole unit, sign up as an AHEF member (no cost) to access the “resources” page on americanheritage.org. To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the AHEF bookstore.
Copyright © American Heritage Education Foundation. All rights reserved.