Roger Williams Witness Beyond Christendom 1603 1683

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.

Looks at implications of colonialism for both English and Americans.

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.

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

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.

A revisionist study of Williams' discourse artistry that analyzes Williams (1603-1683) as skillful, rational, and effective in the public forum, a conclusion based on: examination of Williams' spoken and written rhetoric; an analysis of the repressive circumstances of the era; and an evaluation of the rhetorical context of Williams' discourses. The text includes research evidence including data from manuscript collections, from the Bodleian Library at Oxford and the Pembroke Library at Cambridge, and from the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. The study also contains illustrations, including several woodcuts.

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.

The first synagogue in colonial America was built in New York City in 1730 on land that was purchased for £100 plus a loaf of sugar and one pound of Bohea tea. The purchase of this land was especially noteworthy because until this time, the Jews had only been permitted to buy land for use as a cemetery. However, by the time the Revolutionary War began, the Jewish religious center had become fairly large. Early in their stay in New Amsterdam and New York, many Jews considered themselves to be transients. Therefore, they were not interested in voting, holding office or equal rights. However, as the 18th century came to a close, Jews were able to accumulate large estates, and they recognized that they needed citizenship. After a brief overview of the Jews' migrations around Europe, the West Indies and the North and South American continents, this book describes the hardships faced by the Jewish people, beginning with New Amsterdam and New York and continuing with discussions of their experiences in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, New England, and in the South. Subsequent chapters discuss anti-Semitism, slavery and the Jews' transformation from immigrant status to American citizen.

Susan Castillo’s pioneering study examines the extraordinary proliferation of polyphonic or ‘multi-voiced’ texts in the three centuries following the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Taking a selection of plays, printed dialogues, travel narratives and lexicographic studies in English, Spanish and French, the book explores both European and indigenous writers of the early Americas. Paying particular attention to performance and performativity in the texts of the early colonial world, Susan Castillo asks: why vast numbers of polyphonic and performative texts emerged in the Early Americas how these texts enabled explorers, settlers and indigenous groups to come to terms with radical differences in language, behaviour and cultural practices how dialogues, plays and paratheatrical texts were used to impose or resist ideologies and cultural norms how performance and polyphony allowed Europeans and Americans to debate exactly what it meant to be European or American, or in some cases, both. Tracing the dynamic enactment of (often conflictive) encounters between differing local narratives, Castillo presents polyphonic texts as not only singularly useful tools for exploring what initially seemed inexpressible or for conveying controversial ideas, but also as the site where cultural difference is negotiated. Offering unparalleled linguistic and historical range, through the analysis of texts from Spain, France, New Spain, Peru, Brazil, New England and New France, this volume is an important advance in the study of early American literature and the writings of colonial encounter.