One-line summary: The origins of the rule of law and of freedom of religion
Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry is about two amazing men. It begins with the heroic efforts of Edward Coke to establish the rule of law in England. After about 100 pages, it shifts to the story of Roger Williams’ fight to establish freedom of religion in America.
The book convinced me that Williams is the father of freedom of religion. Williams died in 1683, 6 years before John Locke wrote his Letter Concerning Toleration. Williams used the expression “hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the World,” at a time when the unification of church and state was the norm, more than 60 years before Jefferson was born.
(The book also presents, in graphic terms, examples of the brutality of religion, particularly Christianity. (For Judaism, see the Old Testament.))
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