Understanding Roger Williams
Leroy Moore Jr. in his article in 1963, “Roger Williams and the Historians,” already understood that there were two major ways Roger Williams is misinterpreted. He called the first the negative approach, and the second a romantic approach.
The men who banished Roger Williams bought into the negative approach. The grandson of his antagonists, John Cotton and Richard Mather, carried on the tradition. On top of claiming he was a devil, Cotton Mather (a famous figure in the Salem witch trials) in 1702 claimed: “There was a whole country in America like to be set on fire by the rapid motion of a windmill in the head of one particular man, Roger Williams.” The windmill reputation stuck. People know he let Quakers live in Rhode Island, fewer know he argued vociferously and diligently against their theology. Atheists in L.A. in 2018 came to our table and said, but “wasn’t he a skeptic?” He was a Calvinist, but he was tolerant of atheists. To this day it is easy to confuse tolerance with approval.
Cotton Mather also said Roger Williams ideas threatened “the whole political, as well as ecclesiastical” institutions. That caricature –meant as a barbed accusation — turned out to be profoundly true in the best of ways. His principle of no persecution for cause of conscience evolved to be included in a new form of government: the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Much of his ecclesiastical approach would become a new (at that time) form of locally controlled church: the Baptist Church in America.
Confounding tolerance and approval leads to the second way to misinterpret Roger Williams. Because Roger Williams tolerated many types of thinkers, Quakers and skeptics among them, he is often accused of approving their thought. Leroy Moore Jr. called this way of misinterpreting Roger Williams romantic, but a modern name might be secular. John Barry fell into this pit in his book: “Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul,” where he made Roger Williams sound more like John Locke (Roger Williams was married in the church where John Locke was later buried, but that is the extent of the connection). He corrected this view after a letter was decrypted showing that Roger Williams retained his Christian beliefs late in life.
Leroy Moore Jr. also noted the irony that it took until Massachusetts was predominantly Catholic for the Roger Williams banishment by Puritans of the reformation to be formally revoked in 1936. James Calvin Davis noted that while Roger Williams is a Reformed Christian theologian, a Calvinist, he does not receive an entry in the “otherwise comprehensive Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith” (p. 17 of “The Moral Theology of Roger Williams”).
This article at the Smithsonian Magazine might seem ok to a secular person but is a vast understatement at best when it says “Roger Williams did not disagree with them on any point of theology.” In fact, it was his theology that led to his actions and his success in changing what America would become. While Roger Williams was a Calvinist and a Puritan and had many points of theological commonality with the Puritan leaders, the differences are critical to the implications of how to live and operate a society. Fortunately, the critical differences have been summarized already in this nonfiction book: “The Moral Theology of Roger Williams,” by James Calvin Davis, written in 2004. The crux of the difference is in the meaning of the incarnation of Christ. Roger Williams saw a new covenant, a break-point in history at Christ’s birth, when God began to enable the building of his kingdom on earth. In Bloudy Tenent (The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, Volume Three, “Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience,” page 30 (as republished in the Baptist Standard Bearer Inc, 2005), he says “when the law of Moses (concerning worship) should cease, and Christ’s kingdom be established.”
After reading Roger Williams’s original writing, Mary Lee Settle’s account of his life in his first person voice did not seem to capture his authentic voice. After much scripture review, I finally put a finger on why that might be. Mary Lee Settle sets out the elder Roger Williams as a complainer, as a man bitter in his expectation of better treatment in the hands of this world. But that would make him something he was not. He did lament. It is however unlikely that he complained. He knew the lot of a Christ follower was suffering, and he considered himself a servant. It is scriptural to call out to God with lament. We are however warned against complaining, and told be thankful in all circumstances. Roger Williams was nothing if not a follower of scripture and understood the difference in a way Mary Lee Settle may not have. He often signed his letters with hope for better things in the future, and wished the best in the future even for those he disagreed with. He looked forward.
Some commonly asked questions by the public at the LA Times book fair, along with references for original writings answers, are here. Examples include:
- Wasn’t Roger Williams a skeptic?
- Wasn’t Roger Williams promoting spirituality, not religion?
- Wasn’t Roger Williams suspicious of all organized churches?
Three suppositions underlying a modern book review addressed in this blog.
1. Is “17th Century Christendom” something Roger Williams would have called his times?
2. Who is heathen?
3. Is there any moral code that allows man to be good, to be saved from evil?
John M. Barry comes from a science-literate background and suspects Roger Williams to be influenced by Bacon and Coke. Others have differed here. Coke influence, I buy, in many areas of Roger’s story. Bacon’s influence is much less clear. In fact, a Bible literate person is more likely to see that Roger Williams derives his positions from scripture, possibly in the same way as Francis Bacon.
John M. Barry takes out of context the one statement Roger Williams that contains any kind of wall reference, and he seems to have been widely copied. This is easy to do reading the 17th Century writings without Calvinist background and with modern American thought processes. However, when put back in context, it is the wrong wall…not the one people draw today. See this article.
People still rail against toleration from both directions. Perhaps that is proof it is the right standard for a government to enforce.
One view is that toleration is “not enough.” Toleration as Roger Williams conceived it was the minimum standard of behavior in society, not the optimal standard which would include loving God and loving all people — but which is voluntary in scripture. Demanding more than toleration by force tramples the conscience of the person whose beliefs will not enable “affirmation” of the contested view. Corporations have always been able to demand a more particular standard of behavior, as they are not governments nor are they a democracy, and association with them is voluntary. When the intent is to fully integrate people onto a team where there has been past persecution in the form of discrimination, certainly active support, not mere toleration, accelerates success.
On the other side, some still say toleration not acceptable, that toleration encourages evil. People who demand blasphemy laws be enforced would be in this camp, a position much like Puritans espoused. Roger Williams derived his principles from Judeo-Christian thought, and while some leaders in Islam champion toleration, others most emphatically do not. Even with a successful separation of church and state some issues remain difficult, see this post.
