tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post4931672481849222529..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: A Churchless Man Seeking the Pure Fellowship: Or, Will the Real Roger Williams Please Stand Up?Paul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-30834390231710759052012-05-01T19:54:07.578-06:002012-05-01T19:54:07.578-06:00Pardon me for digressing from this interesting dis...Pardon me for digressing from this interesting discussion, but while Roger Williams may not have had any direct political descendants, he is said to have had actual descendants, including at least one prominent American Civil War officer in the Union Army, Elisha Hunt Rhodes, who rose in four years from Private to Colonel of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. His diary and letters, published in "All for the Union" (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1992), were extensively quoted in Ken Burns' PBS documentary, "The Civil War". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Hunt_RhodesMichael Taylornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-37874388340826841732012-04-30T12:07:04.274-06:002012-04-30T12:07:04.274-06:00Gaustad has two biographies, one published by Eerd...Gaustad has two biographies, one published by Eerdmans and the other by Oxford. They're very similar. Imo Gaustad has the best current biography. Barry's book, by his own admission, isn't a biography. My quibble is with folks who want to credit Williams with the origins of American political freedom. That's a historical claim, but it doesn't hold. Jefferson got his notions of liberty from Locke, not Williams. Indeed, I think his radical separatism made him suspicious of all civil institutions. But as I argue at length in the essay on Williams, I see him as a fruitful model for how to live at peace in an increasingly violent world. That still may have political implications, though for him it was religious and theological.Curtis Freemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10969990860857021066noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-55405891362633965692012-04-30T09:15:02.587-06:002012-04-30T09:15:02.587-06:00So you are supporting Edwin Gaustad's biograph...So you are supporting Edwin Gaustad's biography of Williams in that you see him as a figure that moved forward religious freedoms but not political liberty? Is this a fair assessment and if it is why not mention Gaustad?Robert Millsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-77922958113027985012012-04-30T07:50:14.942-06:002012-04-30T07:50:14.942-06:00Thanks for posting, Matthew. Good questions. It is...Thanks for posting, Matthew. Good questions. It is counter-intuitive, isn't it? The Bloudy Tenent was written hastily and is a repetitively redundant mess. It attracted little interest in England unlike his little book, A Key into the Language of America, which was widely read and well received in England. Williams and Rhode Island were so villified by contemporaries as to be virtually ignored. It's only in retrospect that he looks so much more modern. And for people like Parrington, who wanted to write the Puritans out of US history, Williams became a convenient trope. But as McGloughlin and Miller make clear, there's little to no historical evidence to demonstrate that Williams actually influenced the shaping of US church-state policy.Curtis Freemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10969990860857021066noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-59055232244064955112012-04-29T11:23:38.811-06:002012-04-29T11:23:38.811-06:00This is a helpful corrective to those would like t...This is a helpful corrective to those would like to dress Williams up in a costume more appropriate to the Enlightenment era. <br /><br />But if we deny all influence of Williams on subsequent debates on religious liberty, aren't we ignoring (a) the publication of his Bloudy Tenet in England and his protracted stay there and (b) the probable influence of the early experiment with toleration in Rhode Island? <br /><br />Never mind that Williams was only a Baptist for a short time. Isn't it clear that at least SOME early Americans and some sympathetic Britons must have read his works and that advocates for religious liberty would have looked to Rhode Island as a precedent?Matthew C. Baldwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01274437724752872619noreply@blogger.com