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A Second Look at Roger Williams

Roger Williams is often regarded as a hero and pioneer for religious freedom. Just recently I read yetanother article by a homeschool graduate praising this man. But in my opinion, far from being the fatherof religious liberty, Roger Williams was the spiritual father of pluralism in America the idea that God doesnot speak authoritatively in the civil arena. He denied that Gods law should be the basis of our civil order.

In so doing, he undermined objective truth (despite claiming to support it) because one cant argue for anobjective truth without an objective standard of right and wrong. The only absolute standard of truth (andhence right and wrong) is Gods law. Once Gods Word is discarded as the objective basis of civil law, weare left with only mans ideas natural law (in the French enlightenment sense), diversity, equality,majority opinion, or some other manmade standard.

Roger Williams wasnt arguing simply for the right of Christians to differ; they already had that. Neitherwas he arguing that the church and state should be separate institutions; they already were. He wasarguing against the authority and responsibility of the civil magistrate to enforce the law of God in society.

Today we are reaping the mature fruit of Roger Williams ideas when the Supreme Court strikes downsodomy laws, restricts states ability to outlaw abortion, or refuses to allow prayer at official functions. Anation either upholds Gods law or it upholds mans law. There is no middle ground. It is not possible toseparate the State from religion. It will always be religious. It will always enforce some standard of law.The question is: whose law will it uphold, Gods law or mans law? Let me illustrate this from RogerWilliams himself.

Roger Williams wrote a private letter to John Cotton asking for his opinion on a matter respectingfreedom of conscience. When Mr. Cotton answered his questions in a private reply, Mr. Williams thenpublished Cottons response along with a counter-response attacking him as a man of blood. In thepreface to his book, The Bloody Tenant Washed White In The Blood Of The Lamb, Mr. Cotton wondershow this is consistent with his position. If his private letter was full of errors, why punish him by publishingit along with a scathing attack? Doesnt he [Cotton] have liberty of conscience to believe as he sees fit?Also, why publish something so unedifying? On the other hand if his letter was true, why attack him as aman of blood? Roger Williams had less toleration for those who disagreed with him than the Puritans hadfor his erroneous ideas. Isnt this the same sort of intolerance masquerading as tolerance that we seetoday?

Mr. Williams was not a consistent theologian or even an exemplary person.

He fled England in 1630 because be could not tolerate the Anglican practice of opencommunion.

He was offered a pastorate in Boston by the Puritans, which he turned down because hecould not tolerate their non-separatist congregationalism.

He was critical of the Plymouth church for not being separatist enough.

He returned to England and was critical of the Anglican Church for being too lenient.

He returned to Salem where he accepted a pastorate. From his pulpit be began attacking thevalidity of the Kings land patents. He accused the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bayauthorities of essentially stealing the land from the Indians.

He attacked the Anglican church for not being a true church

He refused to take an oath, along with all the other residents of Massachusetts, to defend theland against enemies because that was an act of worship and would involve him in worshipwith unregenerate people. He essentially was denying that the civil magistrate was Gods

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servant, ordained to execute Gods vengeance on those that do evil (defined as breaking thelaw of God) and possessing the power to administer judicially binding oaths.

He taught that regenerate and unregenerate people should not pray together includingspouses and children.

He believed there should, therefore, be no prayer of thanks before meals.

He nearly split the church with these ideas, committing the sin of schism. The church wassaved when he went on to claim that Massachusettss churches (of which he was a part) werenot true churches, causing people to leave him.

He fled the state, with a few disciples, to avoid deportation to England by Massachusettssauthorities. There he was joined by the renegade antinomian, Mrs. Hutchinson.

From Rhode Island he reversed his position on infant baptism rejecting pdo-baptism.

He had all his followers re-baptized and then concluded that this baptism was not valid andthey would have to wait for another apostolic power.

He withdrew from the church and decided that he could only take communion with his wife.Then he reversed himself again, deciding that it was not possible for the church to achievepurity in this life and renouncing his extreme separatism.

He couldnt agree with anyone, moving from England to Boston, to Salem, to Plymouth, toEngland, back to Salem, and then to Rhode Island within a space of 6 years.

A better analogy for this man might be Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. They both rejectedlawful authority, led gullible disciples into exile, changed their beliefs with the weather, and rejected thehistoric faith practiced by the church universal. I would note that this is very different from the reformerswho corrected serious errors in the church by going backto the historic faith, not inventing new ideas.From the judicial safety of Rhode Island he wrote of Massachusetts, My end is to discover and proclaim

the dying and horrible guilt of the bloody doctrine, one of the most seditious, destructive, blasphemous,and bloodiest in any or all the nations of the world You would think he was writing about someone whodeserved to be drawn and quartered in the Spanish Inquisition instead of Governor Winthrop and hisfellow pilgrims who had merely excommunicated him for heresy and sought to deport him to England.

His book, the Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, spells out in detail his rejection of Gods law as the civillaw of the land. It was directly answered at the time by John Cotton and by several church councils.Thankfully, for nearly 150 years, most Christians in America rejected his ideas. States required allofficers, from Notary Publics to legislators, to take religious test oaths affirming the deity of Jesus Christas the second person of the Godhead, and the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word ofGod. It wasnt until the constitution was written that religious test oaths were removed from America.

One of the Anti-Federalists from Connecticut using the pseudo-name David, wrote, as his state was

about to imitate Rhode Island by adopting the US Constitution:

We have now seen what have been the principles generally adopted by mankind and to whatdegree they have been adopted in our own state. Before we decide in favor of our practice, let ussee what has been the success of those who have made no public provision for religion. Unluckily,we only have to consult our next neighbors. Taught from their infancy to ridicule our formality as theeffect of hypocrisy, they have no principle of restraint but laws of their own making; and from suchlaws may heaven defend us. If this is the success that attends leaving religion to shift wholly foritself, we shall be at no loss to determine, that it is not more difficult to build an elegant housewithout tools to work with than it is to establish a durable government without the public protection

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of religion. What the system is which is most proper for our circumstances will not take long todetermine. It must be that which has adopted the purest moral principles, and which is interwovenin the laws and constitution of our country, and upon which are founded the habits of our people.Upon this foundation we have established a government of influence and opinion, and thereforesecured by the affections of the people; and when this foundation is removed, a government ofmere force must arise. Letter by David in the Complete Anti-Federalist.

In American jurisprudence, the 10 commandments were seen as the basis for all civil law. In manycases the statutes directly quoted or cited scripture as part of the law. Although the laws varied a littlefrom state to state, egregious violations of all the commandments (except the 4

thand 10

th) were capital

crimes. Gradually the capital sentence was dropped from some of the commandments and then some ofthe commandments themselves were dropped from our civil laws. The usual pattern has been to ceaseprosecuting the violation of the law and then after years of disuse, to remove it. This pattern continues tothis day. Most recently states have repealed all laws regarding the 4

thcommandment. Violations of laws

regarding the 7th

commandment are rarely prosecuted and in many cases have been repealed. About allwe really have left today are laws respecting the 6

thand 8

thcommandments- except that its OK to murder

people if they are not yet born!

Such is the legacy of rejecting Gods law as the civil law of the land.

Peter AllisonHouston

November 2005