Three hundred years ago Roger Williams had remarkable insight into the relationship of the church and the state. More than any one else in history, he was the one who took a stand and would not allow church and state to blend in some unholy alliance that would eventually turn and persecute anyone who could not, for conscience sake, capitulate to its demands. This had been the pattern over and over in European history, and Williams was determined that it would not happen where he governed in the infant state of Rhode Island.

We hope in this paper to begin to unfold the mystery of Williams’s insight into why the separation of church and state must be upheld. Only then can the necessary forces grow and develop which will culminate in the apocalypse that brings Christ back and that ushers in the Millennial Kingdom.

Since colonial times, prophecy about the“last days” has been the fertile ground from which hundreds of millennial sects have arisen, each freshly applying the patterns and prophesies of the apocalypse to the events of its day.2 Inevitably, people’s fears and expectations of what the Bible predicts have made their mark on American politics.