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| Great Friends Meeting House, Newport, R.I. |
Yesterday I did a post on the upcoming (2014) 350th anniversary of the colony/state of New Jersey in 2014, but this year there is an important 350th anniversary celebration going on in Rhode Island. 350 years ago this year King Charles II negotiated a charter with John Clarke that created a settlement in which religious toleration was permitted and encouraged.
The Newport Historical Society, along with the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Salve Regina University, the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Rhode Island Historical Society are sponsoring a series of events this year in Newport on the religious history of the state and the nation. They are calling it Spectacle of Toleration and you can learn more about it here.
I will be participating in a panel next Friday (June 21) entitled “How Christian an Understanding.” I will be joined by John Barry, author of Roger Williams the Creation of the American Soul, Michael Feldberg of the George Washington Institute, and Daniel Cowdin of Salve Regina. I think my job is to explain what the nation’s founding fathers thought about the separation of church and state.
If you will be in the Newport area next weekend, I hope to see you at the Great Friends Meeting House. The event is open to the public and will run from 5-7pm.
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