Alan E. Johnson Quotes & Sayings

Roger Williams died sometime during the early months of 1683. Some of what he said and wrote during his lifetime belongs to the seventeenth century. But much of his historical and philosophical record speaks to us across the centuries. — Alan E. Johnson

During the nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries, certain politically active religious movements sought to have the United States declared - officially, if possible, but at least unofficially - a "Christian nation." This was an attempt to reverse the church-state separation principles and achievements of such great Founders as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Roger Williams, who was more religiously devout than just about anyone living in later centuries, opposed all attempts to call a particular nation "Christian," just as he opposed the terms "Christendom" and "Christian world." His arguments included a profound analysis of the importance of separation of church and state as well as a deep religious understanding of what Christianity is. — Alan E. Johnson

The first questions naturally raised by a person emerging from the fog of childhood are the same questions that led Aristotle and other great philosophers to think and write deeply on the subjects of first philosophy and ethics. — Alan E. Johnson