In October 1635, five years after arriving in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Puritan Separatist minister Roger Williams was brought before the colony’s General Court, charged with insisting that magistrates stay out of church affairs; that Native Americans were the real…
Baptists were for separation of church and state before they were against it
For a Baptist to oppose separation of church and state feels like disowning one’s own mother without cause. What more could Thomas Jefferson have done for Baptists than pen the First Amendment with John Leland, a Baptist preacher, looking over…
Roger Williams and the courage to speak clearly
Roger Williams agreed with the Puritan overlords of Massachusetts Bay on most points of doctrine, but when his thinking diverged from accepted orthodoxy, he said so. Plainly and without apology. In The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, Peace and Truth are…
Roger Williams, the father of American deconstruction
If Roger Williams is remembered at all, it’s as a champion of church-state separation. In addition, a steadily declining circle of progressive Baptists honor the founder of Rhode Island as the original American Baptist. Both perceptions are a bit off-target….
To reclaim its role as community thought leader, the church must reflect on its action and its record
I was reading church minutes, bored out of my mind. Not the first time, nor probably the last. Then, I wondered: Why? Why was I so disconnected from what these markers of congregational history have to say? Perhaps some of…
Roger Williams, John Cotton and the future of the American experiment
In the fourth chapter of Luke, the devil led Jesus to a high place and “showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.” Next came the pitch: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory,…
What is a Baptist?
You must have a sense of humor to talk about being Baptist these days, with all the craziness associated with the word and with many Baptists today who are a contradiction to what “Baptist” has meant through the centuries. If…
Letter to the Editor: Advice from Roger Williams
Letter to the Editor March 15, 2022 Dear Editor: WOW! I had never heard of Voddie Baucham until I read about him this past week on BNG. This guy is nothing more than a sociopath. He needs to stay where…
On Roger Williams, freedom of conscience and its (sometimes well-intentioned) enemies
I don’t like being told what to do, think or say. You got a problem with that? I know that sounds excessively pugnacious and not very Christian, considering the ugly divisions and hatreds roiling Americans in recent years. But I…