Sunday 2 June 2013

Rhode Island and Religious Tolerance

«Williams did not differ with them on any point of theology. They shared the same faith, all worshiping the God of Calvin, seeing God in every facet of life and seeing man's purpose as advancing the kingdom of God. [He was a frum Puritan]
But the colony's leaders, both lay and clergy, firmly believed that the state must prevent error in religion. They believed that the success of the Massachusetts plantation depended upon it.
[The Puritan Fathers thought that they were G-d's Policemen.]

Williams believed that preventing error in religion was impossible, for it required people to interpret God's law, and people would inevitably err. He therefore concluded that government must remove itself from anything that touched upon human beings' relationship with God. [Let Gid watch out for Himself.]

A society built on the principles Massachusetts espoused would lead at best to hypocrisy, because forced worship, he wrote, "stinks in God's nostrils." At worst, such a society would lead to a foul corruption—not of the state, which was already corrupt, but of the church.»
God, Government and Roger Williams' Big Idea | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine


Best Regards,
RRW

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