The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience

Alan E Johnson

Publisher: Philosophia Publications, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015. Paperback: 662 pages Kindle version also available ISBN-10: 1511823712 ISBN-13: 978-1511823715

http://www.amazon.com/The-First-American-Founder-Conscience /dp/1511823712

Review by Serena Newman To be published in The Independent Scholar Vol.2 (forthcoming 2016)

“When they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, and made His Garden a wilderness...” Roger Williams, 1644.

In The First American Founder: Roger Williams and brought a strict religious belief that was grounded in Freedom of Conscience, Alan Johnson takes a Calvinist predestination theology which called for completely new look at the early beginnings of what we religious conformity in all things, and with severe all accept today as a given in American history, the consequences for any who dissented. The idea of concept of “separation of church and state” in our “religious freedom” actually translated only to the governmental system. In this exploration of Williams’ freedom to practice their religion (238), free of output Johnson brings the reader along on a journey persecution from England’s “Established [Anglican] that reveals that, long before Thomas Jefferson and Church” (16-17, see also Appendix B). James Madison argued for a “wall of separation between Johnson’s Preface provides a helpful road-map for the church and state” for a young America, the rest of the book, and the first eight chapters correspond seventeenth-century New England minister Roger to “successive periods” in Roger Williams’ life, beginning Williams’ belief in “freedom of conscience” (89) for all with his early life in England and moving on to his arrival men – believers in Christianity or not – had pre-dated in the New World (xxvi, 22). Johnson also divides these their convictions by more than a century. chapters into sections corresponding with the topics The First American Founder is both an informative and discussed. One of the more consequential, Chapter 2, insightful exposé of an “idea” perhaps “before its time,” along with covering various developments in his life, but one that would nevertheless help shape the future brings the beginning of Williams’ conflict with “New of the American government. In delineating the many England theocracy” (51-60) – a conflict that ultimately steps that Roger Williams went through in examining his led to his permanent banishment from the faith, as well as his moral beliefs, and how those tied in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his founding of with his concept of what was “just” and “right,” Johnson Providence Plantations (later to become Rhode Island) brings the reader along on the journey, beginning with established on the basis of “full liberty of conscience” some necessary historical background into the religious (61-73). Chapter 9 (250-295) deals with Roger Williams’ ideology of those who first settled in Massachusetts Bay influence on the “generation that obtained American and in the Plymouth Colony. Both Puritans and Pilgrims independence and established the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Chapter 10 then introduces a contemporary Johnson has given a well-rounded view of Roger perspective, relating the issues to the present day in Williams and his valuable contribution to American which the question of separation of church and state is heritage. The First American Founder is accessible to in some ways still a debatable issue (308-311). both the general and the more specialized reader. He has carefully outlined Williams’ meticulous thinking, and In The First American Founder , Alan Johnson not only has examined the means by which he could be, and was, brings out the religious aspects of Roger Williams but an influential force in American history (251). Johnson’s also sheds light on Williams’ acumen as a statesman and careful research has found evidence that those his “unusually enlightened approach” to Native establishing the new government for the United States – Americans (112, 155). Johnson cites a letter authored by such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Williams to the Town of Providence – often called his Adams – had been influenced by Williams’ progressive “Ship of State” letter (221-224) – in answer to the ideas as they were expressed in his various books, reported unrest during his absence. In it Williams made treatises, and letters; these were read by others with clear the importance of civil government and the whom these prime movers had contact both before and “common good” in matters not spiritual, putting an end during the formative years of the American republic: to any idea of “anarchic views.” Aside from his political Rhode Island governor Stephen Hopkins, Baptist and religious treatises, Williams also authored A Key Into preacher Isaac Backus, and Congregational minister the Language of America , a work based on the Native Jeremy Belknap to name just a few (252-253, 285-286). American tribes that he had encountered, and who had helped Williams to survive the winter of his banishment There could therefore be no better title than that which from Massachusetts Bay (110-117). His understanding Johnson has chosen for The First American Founder ’s and appreciation for the Native American people was penultimate chapter (250): “Roger Williams and the demonstrated through both his writing and his firmly Founding of the United States of America.” held belief that the only honest way to acquire new land in America was through “voluntary transactions” of trade or purchase from the tribes involved (37, 64, 114) – a novel idea to the English Crown. Unfortunately, Williams’ Serena Newman holds an M.A. in History from the idea (expressed in the Preface) that “this Key, respects University of Mass., focusing primarily in Early American the Native language of it, and happily may unlocke and Constitutional History; she has taught as Adjunct some Rarities concerning the Natives themselves, not Faculty in History and Government and is currently a yet discovered...” (111) was never realized. Reader with the College Board AP History Exams.