Inspired by Roger Williams

When I first encountered Roger Williams, it was because of his prolific writings and his proximity in time, place and belief to one of my ancestors. Soon his story fascinated me. The Puritans in general are an inspiration. Who else runs away into the woods and walks out having founded Harvard? However, the Puritans also had tunnel vision, antagonizing and destroying the indigenous peoples they meant to evangelize. Roger Williams got kicked out of even the Puritan world into a blizzard, and walked out founding Providence. Roger Williams cared about the people he met and initially befriended them. And yet, he abandoned them at crucial moments, prioritizing obtaining an English colony as refuge for those persecuted by conscience over his diplomatic endeavors. This fascinated me. He walked away from real human relationships — English and Algonquian — in pursuit of principle, over an over. What drove him? Was it good or bad that he did this?

Roger Williams is a prototype for a Christian liberal, a person grounded in scripture and believing that God’s kingdom is meant to come in part in this world through progress. That, even though he firmly believed it could not come completely through progress and that the Puritans would not be successful in building a New Jerusalem as a human city due to our fallen state. In today’s world, liberals are rarely grounded in scripture. I come from a family of mostly…