Politics & Power Quote by Roger Williams

Conversion, for Roger Williams, is not a project you can fund, staff, and enforce. It is a dangerous calling that only counts if it begins somewhere beyond human ambition. By insisting that no one can "truly go forth" to convert nations or prophesy "but by the gracious inspiration" of the Holy Spirit, Williams draws a bright line between authentic ministry and the counterfeit versions sponsored by states, churches, or ego.

The phrase "present state of witnesses against Antichrist" does heavy work. In Williams's Puritan world, history is not neutral; it is a battlefield of testimony. "Witnesses" are those who speak under pressure, even at cost, against corrupt spiritual power. Naming "Antichrist" is less about apocalyptic theatrics than about identifying institutional religion when it becomes coercive, self-protective, and politically fused. It's a coded critique of Christendom's confidence that conquest and conversion can be the same act.

The subtext is Williams's signature suspicion: if your mission conveniently aligns with imperial expansion or magistrate power, it's probably not the Spirit. He lived this argument. Banished from Massachusetts Bay for challenging compulsory worship and state control over conscience, Williams helped found Rhode Island on the radical premise that faith cannot be legislated. In that context, this sentence functions like a theological tripwire. It turns the moral burden back on the would-be evangelist: prove you're moved by grace, not by authority, fashion, or fear.