Book Review: Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry

Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The founding of the smallest state and its secular character are directly attributed to him and inspired the Founding Fathers, but Roger Williams is a man from a complex time in both England and colonial America. John M. Barry’s Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty is not only a biography of Williams but a cultural, political, and religious history of his time.

While it takes a while for Barry to focus on Williams and his soon-to-be very revolutionary thinking, he sets the groundwork not only for Williams intellectual and religious development but also the political and cultural context of his life. First and foremost is the political view of the early Stuart monarchs of divine right of kings going up against Magna Carta and Parliament that will eventually set off the English Civil War, and alongside it was the struggle over the Church of England and those Puritans who would not conform to practices that looked decidedly “popish”. It is easy to forget sometimes that England and its American colonies interacted before 1763 and the lead up to the American Revolution, but Barry plainly illustrates that events in each did have an impact on one another whether religiously or politically. Roger Williams’ vision of separation of church and state has come up against John Winthrop’s “city on a hill”, ironically a Puritan version of conform or else mirroring what was happening in England, throughout American history and this was central to Barry’s book even as he followed the live and struggles of Williams. One of the biggest takeaways from the book is that history does not happen in a vacuum as the development of Roger Williams’ revolutionary idea came from a messy political and religious background.

Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul is not only a book about the life of Williams, but Barry shows how Williams was influenced by not only important personages he came in contact with but also how he influenced them.

View all my reviews