The Problem of Toleration in Early Massachusetts
Early Massachusetts is generally seen by scholars as intolerant. But this is to employ a misleading dichotomy between tolerant and intolerant societies which obscures the colonists' understanding of themselves. They believed that their society instead successfully reconciled individual libert...
| Published in: | Journal of religious history |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2018]
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| In: |
Journal of religious history
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Massachusetts
/ Colonization
/ Religious community
/ Tolerance
/ History 1630-1640
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| RelBib Classification: | AX Inter-religious relations CG Christianity and Politics KBQ North America KDA Church denominations |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Early Massachusetts is generally seen by scholars as intolerant. But this is to employ a misleading dichotomy between tolerant and intolerant societies which obscures the colonists' understanding of themselves. They believed that their society instead successfully reconciled individual liberty and communal harmony through rational debate, social consensus, and the pursuit of truth. Their response to the Antinomian controversy is highly revealing in this context, demonstrating that they desired to persuade the aberrant back into the fold and that they reserved political intervention for when dissension had serious public implications. It was only those deemed irreconcilable who were ultimately excluded from the community. To approach the topic in this way is to resist the marginalisation of New England from the history of political and social thought by re-evaluating the ends and actions of the colonists and by providing an important alternative perspective on the nature of toleration and its limits. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9809 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/1467-9809.12472 |