‘A Second Magna Charta of Highest Liberties’: American Protestants, Religious Freedom, and the Heritage of the Magna Carta

Authors

Nicholas P. Miller, Andrews UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-12-2017

Keywords

Freedom of religion, Magna Carta, Roger Williams, Religious dissent

Abstract

"[Roger] Williams may have been using the name Magna Carta for his own rhetorical purposes. But the idea of a second Magna Carta that would protect basic freedoms beyond the original came in a very short time to be taken seriously by various religious dissenters, first in England, and then in the American colonies. It seems that Williams’s fortuitous rhetorical phrase may have helped prod existing reform movements towards the idea of a new, or second, Magna Carta, one that would protect religious freedom and individual conscience."

Comments

Excerpted from Introduction

Journal Title

Journal of Church and State

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csx027

First Department

Church History

Recommended Citation

Miller, Nicholas P., "‘A Second Magna Charta of Highest Liberties’: American Protestants, Religious Freedom, and the Heritage of the Magna Carta" (2017). Faculty Publications. 626.
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/pubs/626