Download or read book The Challenges of Roger Williams written by James P. Byrd and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among those banished was Roger Williams, the advocate of religious liberty who also founded the colony of Rhode Island and established the first Baptist church in America. Williams opposed the Puritans' use of the Bible to persecute radicals who rejected the state's established religion. In retaliation against the use of scripture for violent purposes, Williams argued that religious liberty was a biblical concept that offered the only means of eliminating the religious wars and persecutions that plagued the seventeenth century.