tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post2227358039234806097..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: The first separation of church and state--ever!Brad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-48970958941164094972008-10-10T10:00:00.000-06:002008-10-10T10:00:00.000-06:00Lori:How I have missed your posts! I am so glad t...Lori:<BR/><BR/>How I have missed your posts! I am so glad to see your "resurrection." Your pre-American Revolution stuff is always refreshing. <BR/><BR/>As for the post, well done. I couldn't agree more. Roger Williams is one interesting cat, and I hope that this blog will devote more future posts to him and his contemporaries.Brad Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-65991063853586773142008-10-09T13:25:00.000-06:002008-10-09T13:25:00.000-06:00Ha. The Crown owed Billy Penn money. As a Pennsy...Ha. The Crown owed Billy Penn money. As a Pennsy boy who grew up 5 miles from his house, I should have known that.<BR/><BR/><I>The founder’s father, Admiral Sir William Penn (1621-1670), had won crucial naval victories for the Crown during England’s wars with the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century. <BR/><BR/>Having just recovered from its own civil war that had resulted in the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and the subsequent rule of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, England had few funds with which to fight. The admiral used his own personal wealth "for victualling of the Navy," at the cost of about sixteen thousand pounds. At the admiral’s death, the matter of the debt remained unsettled.<BR/><BR/>The younger Penn, who had joined the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, three years before his father’s death, petitioned King Charles II in May 1680 with a plan: He would forgive the Crown its debt to the Penn family in return for land in the New World. On this land he would establish a colony for Quakers and persecuted religious groups.<BR/><BR/>The impecunious Charles agreed-- he had much land to offer in America along the Mid-Atlantic coast, in the territory recently acquired from the Dutch as spoils of war.</I>Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-42114652024127232502008-10-09T13:02:00.000-06:002008-10-09T13:02:00.000-06:00That process was already happening, as tens of tho...That process was already happening, as tens of thousands of dissenters had left England voluntarily in the 1630s and 40s. So the government wouldn't seem to have to institute new laws to drive dissenters out. I think it just came down to Parliament minimizing the trouble and treasure the colonies could cause England. By instituting toleration in the colonies, England was guaranteed not to have to deal with religious war overseas, while keeping that religious freedom far from home. It was a win-win.Lori Stokeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15564577844724131369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-55786095449647129672008-10-09T11:12:00.000-06:002008-10-09T11:12:00.000-06:00"true pietye rightly grounded upon gospell princip...<I>"true pietye rightly grounded upon gospell principles will give the best and greatest securiety to sovereignetye"</I><BR/><BR/>Can't skip that part. Sounds like GWashington.<BR/><BR/>Lori, I recall William Penn spending some time in English jail for religious reasons, then be granted his own charter for Pennsylvania. Do your studies indicate that England was exporting its sectarian religious troublemakers while simultaneously solidifying its state church's control at home?Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-20107465357533516622008-10-09T08:59:00.000-06:002008-10-09T08:59:00.000-06:00.Excellent subject for discussion, Ms. Stokes..We ....<BR/>Excellent subject for discussion, Ms. Stokes.<BR/>.<BR/>We live in peculiar times. The dominant media has an overpowering effect on our thinking. We tend to think in terms that things are explained by this or that--a black and white world.<BR/>.<BR/>Your article points up the definitive role that the Rhode Island experience plays in the development of our values as Americans. <BR/>.<BR/>Many people like to think that the source of our higher values and morality exists outside human history--that certain eternal values pre-exist human experience. For example, they might think that the separation of church and state value is not generated by our historical experience; but, that it comes to us by revelation through the super natural.<BR/>.<BR/>But, your article points to the fact that our values are forged in our historical experience. <BR/>.Phil Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06756814849309388483noreply@blogger.com