Love Under Fire

Roger Williams

Like the early Pilgrims, Roger Williams came to the New World for its religious freedom. But, unlike them, he saw what so few had yet seen—that this freedom was the absolute right of everyone. He was a devoted seeker for truth. Williams “was the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil government based on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience.”⁵ “The public or the government officials may decide,” he said, “our responsibilities to each other. But when they try to decree anyone's duties to God, they are out of place, and no one is safe, for it is clear that if the official had the power, he could decree one set of opinions or beliefs today and another tomorrow. This has been done in England by different kings and queens, and by different popes and councils in the Roman Church.”⁶ LF 124.6

People were required to attend the established church under penalty of fine or imprisonment. Roger Williams believed that “to compel anyone to unite with those who believed differently was an open violation of that person's natural rights. To drag the irreligious and the unwilling to public worship seemed like simply requiring them to be hypocrites.... ‘No one should be forced to worship, or,’ he added, ‘to support any kind of worship against his own will.’”⁷ LF 125.1

People respected Roger Williams, yet they could not tolerate his demand for religious liberty. To avoid arrest he was forced to escape into the uninhabited forest during the cold and storms of winter. LF 125.2

“For fourteen weeks,” he says, “I was in serious trouble in the bitter weather, without food or a bed.” But “the ravens fed me in the wilderness,” and a hollow tree often provided a shelter.⁸ He continued his painful escape through snow and trackless forest until he found safety with an Indian tribe whose confidence and affection he had won. LF 125.3

Roger Williams laid the foundation of the first modern state to recognize the right “that all people should have liberty to worship God according to the light of their own consciences.”⁹ His little state, Rhode Island, increased and prospered until its foundation principles—civil and religious liberty—became the cornerstones of the American Republic. LF 125.4