The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present by Chris Beneke


The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present
Title : The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : -
Language : English
Format Type : Kindle Edition
Number of Pages : 358
Publication : First published March 1, 2015

The Lively Experiment chronicles how Americans have continually demolished traditional prejudices while at the same time erecting new walls between belief systems. Nearly four hundred years after Roger Williams' 1633 Rhode Island colony, the "lively experiment" of religious tolerance remains a core tenet of the American way of life.


The Lively Experiment: Religious Toleration in America from Roger Williams to the Present Reviews


  • Lisa

    Collections are often awkward, but this one was helped for me by the fact that I attended the conference these chapters were first given as papers at and can benefit from the discussion that we had with each of the authors. I especially appreciate the chapters that include the contributions of Catholics to questions and practices of toleration. Using Roger Williams, who was such a religiously austere, but personally charming person, as a balance to the usual Enlightenment story of toleration, helps bring out a range of possibilities for how this story plays out (in the past and today). Obviously toleration/tolerance hasn't ever been straight forward, and the tension between allowing for people to proselytize and be more public about their (sometimes) offensive beliefs, and possibly even engaging/debating those beliefs, is far different from a naked public square where we all pretend we don't have beliefs/practices for the purposes of getting along. There are 350 years of great stories in this collection.

  • Blair Hodges

    Does religious tolerance exist in America? This collection of essays gives the obvious answer ("yes and no") by looking at specific cases of tolerance and intolerance of religion in American culture and law from the First Great Awakening to 9/11 and beyond. Special mention goes to David Mislin's essay on efforts toward interfaith unity causing intrafaith discord.