John Garrett's Roger Williams: Witness Beyond Christendom is a radical new assessment of an American folk hero and significant figure in the history of Western civilization. Garrett goes deep into the life and thought of the seventeenth-century nonconformist, exploring the recurrent themes in his voluminous writings and showing how they are woven together as a personal apologia by this fascinating individual. Williams is presented as he interacts with the radical Separatists of his day -- the scholars, lawyers, nobility, and gentry of the Puritan era -- and as he becomes a missionary to the Indians, a stubborn sectarian, a politician, an anti-Quaker theologian, and an isolated has-been on a rude frontier. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, studies of Roger Williams were collections of information that varied from praise to blame. To some he was a father of American liberty; to others, impetuous and irresponsible. In the 1930s and 1940s, American liberal historians explored his political importance and his role as a pioneer of the free pluralistic society. The late Perry Miller of Harvard opened a new era in studies of Roger Williams when he directed students to the fact that Williams thought nearly all of the time in theological terms, so that his warped image had to be rescued from the defacements of the "liberal historians." John Garrett is familiar with the wide range of writing about Williams, but he does not engage in controversy with other writers. He goes directly to primary sources in an attempt to reconstruct the factors that shaped Williams and his thought. He has worked afresh with the available materials on both sides of the Atlantic, and relates Williams more fully than has been done before to the currents of contemporary history in both old and New England. He believes, like Perry Miller, that theology is a necessary clue to Williams's mind, but he does not think it is enough to look at the history of religious ideas in new England and Europe to decipher the enigma of this subtle and puzzling thinker. He shows how Williams lived with the Bible and used it as a direct guide for his life and thought. Only in this way, argues Garrett, can Williams be seen as a whole man: as thinker, politician, missionary, Englishman, American. The rebel is revealed by reference to his Christology; the pluralist by reference to his Eschatology; and the man by the interweaving of many complex strands of experience and thought.

Gale Researcher Guide for: Roger Williams and the Legacy of Rhode Island Pluralism is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

Looks at implications of colonialism for both English and Americans.

Profiles the lives and achievements of more than 270 spiritual leaders, arranged alphabetically, who made major contributions to the history of American religious life.

Early American advocates of freedom did not believe in religious liberty in spite of their Christianity, but explicitly because of their individual faith in Christ, which had been molded and instructed by the Bible. The greatest evidence of their commitment to liberty can be found in their willingness to support the cause of freedom for those different from themselves. The assertion that the Enlightenment is responsible for the American Bill of Rights may be common, but it is devoid of any meaningful connection to the actual historical account. History reveals a different story, intricately gathered from the following: Influence of William Tyndale's translation work and the court intrigues of Henry VIII Spread of the Reformation through the eyes of Martin Luther, John Knox, and John Calvin The fight to establish a bill of rights that would guarantee every American citizen the free exercise of their religion. James Madison played a key role in the founding of America and in the establishment of religious liberty. But the true heroes of our story are the common people whom Tyndale inspired and Madison marshaled for political victory. These individuals read the Word of God for themselves and truly understood both the liberty of the soul and the liberty of the mind. The History of Religious Liberty is a sweeping literary work that passionately traces the epic history of religious liberty across three centuries, from the turbulent days of medieval Europe to colonial America and the birth pangs of a new nation.

Exploring the proliferation of polyphonic texts following the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, this book is an important advance in the study of early American literature and writings of colonial encounter.

Roger Williams'Dream for America deals with Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. Thoroughly researched, the book examines his obsession to build the Zion that the ancient prophets predicted would flourish in the latterdays. But preventing God from establishing the Holy City, Williams contended, was religious intolerance. The hope of the world was America where the seeds of freedom would be sown, nourished, and disseminated worldwide. Then God would send messengers from heaven who would call living apostles to send missionaries worldwide with their message of salvation. This book explores America's amazing response to Williams' dream that America would be the beacon of freedom and God's center of operations for the redemption of Zion.

Radicals in Their Own Time explores the lives of five Americans, with lifetimes spanning four hundred years, who agitated for greater freedom in America. Every generation has them: individuals who speak truth to power and crave freedom from arbitrary authority. This book makes two important observations in discussing Roger Williams, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W. E. B. Du Bois and Vine Deloria, Jr. First, each believed that government must broadly tolerate individual autonomy. Second, each argued that religious orthodoxy has been a major source of society's ills – and all endured serious negative repercussions for doing so. The book challenges Christian orthodoxy and argues that part of what makes these five figures compelling is their willingness to pay the price for their convictions – much to the lasting benefit of liberty and equal justice in America.

Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, is famous as an apostle of religious tolerance and a foe of religious establishments. In Separating Church and State, Timothy Hall combines impressive historical and legal scholarship to explore Williams's theory of religious liberty and relate it to current debate. Williams's fierce religious dogmaticism, Hall argues, is precisely what led to his religious tolerance, making him one of the most articulate champions of the argument for the necessary separation of church and state. "Both timely and provocative. . . . Offers Williams's largely overlooked but deeply important perspective on the peaceful coexistence of committed believers of diverse faiths. The book also brings into question crucial tenets of the United States Supreme Court's First Amendment religion clause jurisprudence at a time when many are raising questions about it." -- Marci A. Hamilton, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York City "Hall has the entire Williams corpus under his command, and he plays the relevant texts like a master organist. He also has the legal corpus equally at his fingertips. One of the great strengths of his book is that it bridges the too often separate fields of history and jurisprudence." -- Edwin Gaustad, author of Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America

America in the late nineteenth century was undergoing enormous societal shifts. Immigration and urbanization were changing the face of the country. New discoveries and new perspectives on old verities stretched its mind and stirred its soul. The recently concluded Civil War left America bloodied, its self-confidence bruised, and its capacity for controversy weakened. American churches responded to these upheavals in different ways with long-lasting consequences. The reaction of one small branch of American Protestantism rooted in the broader stream of Methodism opens a window into these troubled times. This book explores how the American holiness movement navigated the societal maelstrom and the role the Bible played in charting its course. The holiness movement’s response illustrates the interaction between the Bible and culture. It sheds light on the development of the movement’s younger cousin, Pentecostalism. It also adds texture to the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, an important struggle that marked the early decades of the twentieth century and continues to shape America today.