This episode traces the decline of the Puritan "city on a hill," juxtaposed with the rise of separatists, Baptists and Presbyterians (who opposed a blending of church and state). Puritanism declined rapidly after the first generation of Puritans, so much so that a "halfway covenant" was instituted to baptize the children of unconverted parents. While established churches among Puritans and Anglicans languished, some eventually embracing Deism, independent Baptist and Presbyterian congregations thrived, WITHOUT state support. Rejecting a church-state synthesis, these traditions ultimately relied on early Luther, whose "priesthood of all believers" renders one's "religious" identity a matter of individual conscience, NOT subject to compulsion by an established church. Roger Williams argued for a "wall of separation between church and state" to protect the "garden of the church" from the corrupting effects of the "wilderness of the world." Modern day Christians and secularists commonly misrepresent the founders' insistence on a separation of church and state, often projecting their "culture war" narrative onto the founders. BOTH are guilty of historical eisegesis--reading into historical documents their own agenda. The episode details Madison's rage against "the diabolical persecution" perpetrated by Anglicans against Baptists in Virginia, informing his pluralist solution enshrined in the establishment clause of the Constitution.
