Those Hypocritical Puritans!
My son's U.S. history textbook claims, "But the Puritans were hypocrites: the religious freedom they wanted for themselves they denied to others." Sigh. What about using history to actually understand the way people in the past would have seen this issue, rather than shoving them into our own mindsets and categories? The Puritans wanted to be able to practice what they thought was the scripturally correct religion, not have "freedom of religion" for themselves. They wanted everyone to be free to worship God correctly (which they thought they understood how to do) and no one, themselves included, to be free to worship incorrectly. If you asked a Puritan, "Would you want to have freedom of religion for yourself if tomorrow you became a Satanist?" the Puritan would have said, "No! The civil authorities should force me back onto the path of righteousness if they can, and if they cannot they should keep me from corrupting others, by whatever force t...