Mr. Jackson Lashier’s Sept. 21 column perpetuates a myth of early America that is repudiated even by many noted Christian historians.

For example, he claims that “The pilgrims and the puritans … came to America for religious freedom. They wanted the freedom to worship God without being afraid of the consequences. Thus America was established on religious freedom.”

But, as is noted in Religion and American Politics (Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 20), a book edited by the Christian historian Mark Noll: “The Puritans came to these shores not to establish religious freedom, but to practice their own form of orthodoxy.”

Indeed, these “Puritans” quickly sought to establish laws and use the court system to persecute the few Baptists and Quakers that lived among them.

They hanged four Quakers around 1660. Catholics and Jews were not welcome.

These Puritans and their successors actively sought to extinguish Native American religions.

Thus, America was founded, if anything, on religious oppression and conflict that diminished only when many traditional Christian beliefs were abandoned or de-emphasized.

In addition, many historians would argue that it was the abandonment of traditional Christian and biblical principles that led to the abolition of slavery, the rise of women’s rights, religious liberty and other freedoms that we value today.

Dr. Hector Avalos

Professor

Religious studies program

Faculty adviser, ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society