P1: KAE 9780521612739c03
CUNY1096/Gill
978 0 521 61273 9
COLONIAL BRITISH AMERICA
September 19, 2007
19:8
103
in Chapter 2, ideas do influence policy. But often those ideas develop in response to specific interests. Therefore, it must still be observed that political and social considerations played an important role in pushing Williams toward his viewpoint. Of great concern to Williams was social order. In an era where spiritual schism was becoming more socially prevalent, coerced uniformity of opinion would only result in devastating conflict. Bozeman reminds us of a little-noticed argument used by Williams in his defense of toleration. For he was one of many persons in the seventeenth century who were [sic] sickened at the spectacle of bloody intramural conflicts within “Christendom.” The brutal Thirty Years’ War had only recently ended, and in England itself, the conflict between Catholic and Protestant policy had produced a host of martyrs. Many had begun to recognize that the age-old premise of religious uniformity had become a danger to the peace and welfare of Western society. It is important to recognize that Williams often urged religious toleration as a remedy for the conflicts by which Christendom was slowly being torn to pieces from within. ‘Inforced [sic] uniformity,’ he insisted, ‘is the greatest occasion of civill Warre [sic].’ (Bozeman 1972, 61–2; emphasis added)
The notion that religious pluralism would give rise to war and social unrest was not uncommon in colonial days. This notion has deep historical roots and is often cited as a reason why governments must regulate the religious economy and/or maintain a single state church (cf. Hawkins 1928, 111–22). But given that the irreversibility of the Protestant Reformation meant that religious diversity was going to be a fact of Western life, two political solutions presented themselves. First, the state could try to stave off potential conflict by eliminating nonconformists. The French Wars of Religion, the English Civil War, and persecution of religious minorities throughout the British colonies offer cases in point of how this was a frequently preferred option. Ironically, the more the state, fearing social unrest, tried to stamp out the growth of pluralism, the more society became restive. Understanding this, Roger Williams understood the greater benefits to be gotten from the second policy option – live and let live. If violence and coercion were ineffective in defeating religious dissension and only led to further conflict, then removing the state from regulating spiritual life seemed the better path to social harmony. Although not widely celebrated at the time as a bold new initiative, Rhode Island’s great experiment with religious liberty nonetheless was watched with interested eyes, both in the United Colonies (of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut) and England (Harkness 1936, 219). The