Who knew the Puritan founder of Rhode Island was so interesting?

John M. Barry will talk tonight about how firebrand minister Roger Williams argued almost 400 years ago to keep church and state separate. He didn't want the state to sully the church and the best way was to keep both separate. And he said the state's power came from its people, not from God.

Massachusetts banished Williams in 1635 for his "dangerous opinions" and the minister left during a frigid winter. Apparently Wampanoags saved him, Barry writes in "Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul." Williams went on to found the first Baptist Church in the U.S.

He also founded Providence, which became the capital of Rhode Island, "the freest society in the world," Barry says. (In 1652 the state outlawed slavery.)

The story of Williams' arrival in America, his tolerance for other religions and his call for a "wall of separation" between the garden of the church and the "wilderness" of the world is told quite interestingly in Barry's book. Williams argued that the state should not force worship, saying “forced worship stinks in the nostrils of God.”

Barry will be at the St. Louis County Library at 7 tonight to discuss the book.

The author, who wrote about the 1918 plague in "The Great Influenza" and the 1927 Mississippi flood in "Rising Tide," is especially talented at making history interesting and readable. 

The publisher's information says that Barry argues that the history of Roger Williams and church and state has been important for several presidential elections. Understanding history helps readers understand the arguments over freedom today.