On this day in history–October 9, 1635, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because he questioned the colony’s politicized religion. In 1644, Williams went on to write The Bloody Tenent of Persecution, which laid out his critique of civil states enforcing religious doctrine or practice and his constructive case for religious freedom. In the preface to that book, Williams summarized his basic arguments: First. That the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of protestants and papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ … Continue reading Roger Williams Banished