On Religious Liberty

by Roger Williams, James Calvin Davis (Introduction)

Overview

Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his refusal to conform to Puritan religious and social standards, Roger Williams established a haven in Rhode Island for those persecuted in the name of the religious establishment. Davis gathers together important selections from Williams's public and private writings on religious liberty, illustrating how this renegade Puritan radically reinterpreted Christian moral theology and the events of his day in a powerful argument for freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674030244
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	06/30/2009
Series:	John Harvard Library Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	442 KB

About the Author

James Calvin Davis is Associate Professor of Religion, Middlebury College.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Editorial Method xi Introduction: Roger Williams and the Birth of an American Ideal 1 1. Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered 00 2. Queries of Highest Consideration 000 3. The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience 000 4. Christenings Make Not Christians 000 5. The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody 000 6. The Fourth Paper Presented by Major Butler 000 7. The Examiner Defended in a Fair and Sober Answer 000 8. The Hireling Ministry None of Christ's 000 9. George Fox Digg'd out of His Burrowes 10. Selected Letters 000 Index 000

What People are Saying About This

Charles T. Mathewes

A major contribution to our understanding of the history of religion in America, this book speaks to issues of church and state and freedom of conscience that still resonate today.
— Charles T. Mathewes, University of Virginia

Editorial Reviews

Williams's writings have long been virtually unavailable to the general public. Now Harvard University Press has published On Religious Liberty: Selections From the Works of Roger Williams, edited by scholar James Calvin Davis. Davis provides around three hundred pages of Williams's writings...Davis has a keen eye for the telling passage, and he arranges the extracts helpfully, adding a lucid introduction. His fine volume will be especially useful for purposes of teaching, and it will sustain us while we await a more complete re-issue of the major works and letters.

New Republic - Martha Nussbaum

A major contribution to our understanding of the history of religion in America, this book speaks to issues of church and state and freedom of conscience that still resonate today.

Charles T. Mathewes

Williams's writings have long been virtually unavailable to the general public. Now Harvard University Press has published On Religious Liberty: Selections From the Works of Roger Williams, edited by scholar James Calvin Davis. Davis provides around three hundred pages of Williams's writings...Davis has a keen eye for the telling passage, and he arranges the extracts helpfully, adding a lucid introduction. His fine volume will be especially useful for purposes of teaching, and it will sustain us while we await a more complete re-issue of the major works and letters.
— Martha Nussbaum

New Republic