His only crime was freedom.
You’re probably familiar with the story of how the Puritans came to the New World. Persecuted by the established church in England, these reformers fled to America. Once there, in firm control of their own colony, they established their own state church and persecuted dissenters just as they had been persecuted in England.
One of the dissenters they persecuted was a Separatist minister Roger Williams. Williams, a strong believer in separation of church and state, sought refuge from persecution in England by fleeing to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. His criticism of the Puritans’ use of civil authority to punish religious infractions like Sabbath-breaking didn’t get him very far with the Puritan leadership. Concerned about his influence among the people, the colony called him to trial for his “dangerous opinions.”
Williams stood no chance of a fair trial. No one was brave enough to be Williams’ attorney. Not that this would help: the court was presided over by the man who acted as the prosecuting attorney. At the trial, he was given the chance to recant, but he stood firm. Roger Williams was banished!
Turned out in the dead of winter, Williams wandered for 14 weeks, as he put it, “not knowing what bread and bed did mean,” before he found shelter among friendly Indians. The loving care shown Williams by those who knew little of the gospel contrasted sharply with the cruelty given him by professed Christians.
Williams didn’t let this experience weaken his faith or dampen his zeal for freedom. He established a new settlement to fulfill his dream of liberty. Chartered in 1644, Rhode Island’s principles of freedom made it grow so quickly that the Massachusetts Bay Colony feared Williams would retaliate for their treatment of him. But his faith didn’t work like that.
Williams pioneered religious freedom instead of religious toleration, which merely gives grudging tolerance to people with views differing from the established church. Believing that God’s truth did not need the civil sword to help it along, Williams made Rhode Island a place where all religious beliefs were equal in the sight of the state. In his quest for soul liberty, Roger Williams paved the way for the establishment of religious freedom in the United States.
He could have, like many others before him, turned bitter and become a persecutor as soon as he had the power. Instead, he continued to seek freedom, not just for himself, but for all men and women. We can thank him for that. Let us do likewise, never forcing others to follow the truth, but gently calling all sinners to choose to follow Him in whom true freedom is found. v
