About the Program
John Barry recounts the life of Puritan minister Roger Williams, whose thoughts on the separation of church and state were deemed revolutionary in 17th century America. Mr. Barry also reports that Williams, equally influenced by the British political and scientific thinkers, Edward Coke and Francis Bacon, was a supporter of the concept of individual rights that contends government should be powered by the people. The author recalls William's confrontation with John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, who refuted William's ideas and ordered him to leave the state or face death and the Puritan minister's subsequent founding of Providence, Rhode Island in 1636 as a shelter for all to worship without state interference. John Barry speaks at Octavia Books in New Orleans.