How Religious Liberty Won

There are probably no Anglo-American histories told with more triumphant and whiggish tones than how the Atlantic World embraced religious liberty. One curious aspect of these stories is how the heroes can also be the villains, depending on who is telling the story. For example, in one telling, the Puritan heroes emigrated to America to establish religious liberty. These same Puritans can be villains to others for driving out heroic Roger Williams. Williams then supposedly established religious liberty—never mind that Williams and the Rhode Island colony he co-founded were largely ignored by Americans until the nineteenth century. In England, was it the Roman Catholic James II who began religious toleration with his 1687 Declaration of Indulgence, or was it the Protestant Glorious Revolution’s Toleration Act of 1689? Either may be credited, perhaps, so long as one overlooks the Test Acts of 1673 or 1678 that remained in place for a half-century or the Settlement Act of 1701 that confined the throne to Protestants. One can even find fantastical histories wherein either the Enlightenment or America’s First Amendment (or both) becomes the restoration of a pre-Constantinian golden age disrupted by a millennium of Christendom’s intolerance.  Read Full Article »