5 Brave Religious Leaders Who Fought Christian Theocracy in America

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/154125/5_brave_religious_leaders_who_fought_christian_theocracy_in_america/

***snip

1) Roger Williams: The founder of Rhode Island was an iconoclastic preacher who absolutely hated the idea of combining church and state. Williams, a Puritan minister in Massachusetts, was either exceedingly brave or exceedingly foolish (or possibly both). In one case, he went on the warpath after he got wind of the General Court’s plan to require every member of the colony to take a loyalty oath to the governor ending in the phrase, “So help me, God.” According to Williams, it was dangerous to force a man to swear a religious oath.

“A magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man,” wrote Williams, because it would cause the oath-taker “to take the name of God in vain.”

2) John Leland: This fiery Baptist cleric and friend of Thomas Jefferson's holds a unique distinction in American history: He helped smash state-established churches in three states. A native of Massachusetts, Leland relocated to Virginia where he worked alongside Jefferson and James Madison to end the state church there, mustering powerful arguments and lining up clerical allies. Years later, he returned to Massachusetts and worked for disestablishment in that state, seeing it become a reality in 1833. While living in Massachusetts, he undertook cross-border forays into Connecticut to assist forces there working to end the state church. They were successful in 1818.

3) Isaac Backus: Would you be willing to go to prison for your right of conscience? Isaac Backus was. A resident of Connecticut, Backus was a colonial-era Congregationalist minister who grew weary of that denomination’s official standing with the state. When church leaders ignored his call for disestablishment, Backus jumped ship to the Baptists.

4) Martin Luther King Jr: King will always be best known for his leadership of the civil rights movement. His support for church-state separation is less well known but important.

***snip
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,” King observed. “It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”

***more at link

[Adsos Letter]

1. Amen!

[dmallind]

2. Given that we are the nation at by far the most risk of a Xian theocracy

I'd atart looking for better role models elsewhere for this specific battle. Somehow their counterparts in every other industrialized western democracy did a much better job.

[xchrom]

3. Feel free to make your own list. Nt