Religious liberty is enshrined in the text of our Constitution and in numerous federal statutes. It encompasses the right of all Americans to exercise their religion freely, without being coerced to join an established church or to satisfy a religious test as a qualification for public office.
Religious liberty is enshrined in the text of our Constitution and in numerous federal statutes. It encompasses the right of all Americans to exercise their religion freely, without being coerced to join an established church or to satisfy a religious test as a qualification for public office.
He returned to England in 1643 to settle a political dispute by obtaining a charter for Providence. By this time, troubles within Providence had shown Williams that it was difficult to govern explosive spirits, and he began to focus more on religious liberty than on pushing Massachusetts into separation from England.
Along with other colonists, Williams built a community where religious beliefs and civil laws were clearly separated. In colonial Rhode Island, Anglicans, Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Jews, atheists, and members of other faiths lived as neighbors with equal rights.
Roger Williams questioned the Puritans' theft of Native American land. Williams also argued for a complete separation from the Church of England, a position other Puritans in Massachusetts rejected, as well as the idea that the state could not punish individuals for their beliefs.
Relations with the Baptists Ezekiel Holliman baptized Williams in late 1638. A few years later, Dr. John Clarke established the First Baptist Church in Newport, Rhode Island, and both Roger Williams and John Clarke became the founders of the Baptist faith in America.
The political and religious leader Roger Williams (c. 1603?-1683) is best known for founding the state of Rhode Island and advocating separation of church and state in Colonial America. He is also the founder of the first Baptist church in America.
In 1630 a group of people called Puritans left England for North America. The settlement they started in America was called the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans were a group of Protestant Christians with strict religious beliefs.