Roger+Williams

=Roger Williams=
 * [[image:christianheritage/Roger_Williams.jpg align="center" caption="Roger Williams"]] || ====Roger Williams (January 27, 1603, London, England – March 1683, Providence, Rhode Island) – He was the founder of the colony of Providence, Rhode Island, 1636, and of the first Baptist Church in America, 1639. Williams came to New England in 1630 as a Puritan, in search of religious liberty. Initially, Williams pastured the First Congregational Church in America in Salem, MA from 1631-35, but sustained hostility from civil authorities who refused to acknowledge a separation from the Church of England. Williams was banished from Massachusetts in 1635 for his views on separation of church and state, later expressed in his book Queries of Highest Consideration (1644). In 1639, Williams was baptized and organized a Baptist church, after which he withdrew from all formal church connections and formed his own group who accepted no formal creed but maintained a fundamental belief in Christianity and the Bible. He agreed with Baptist insistence on religious liberty, but could not accept “the true church” which could only be entered through their “true baptism.” He obtained a charter for the Providence Plantations, which was reaffirmed in 1663 as a “pastor granting absolute liberty of conscience.” ==== ||