Every Man’s Conscience

I’m a Baptist, and I love church history, but I have to confess that there was far more that I didn’t know than that I did in this very helpful book! Ryan King persuasively shows that liberty of conscience has been cherished and enjoyed for so long in this country because of the theology of 17th century English Baptists and their willingness to follow through with concerted action, at times very sacrificially. 

Should we desire that all non-Christians experience freedom of conscience? It’s good to examine the treatment of persecuted groups of Muslims and Jews in 16th and 17th century England and note that ‘it was into such a world of religious coercion and persecution that a numerically small and socially suppressed group of Baptist believers pleaded for religious liberty, not only for themselves but for anyone who could be called their neighbour’.