This paper analyzes the transition from seventeenth-century Puritan theocracy to the modern architecture of religious liberty through the lens of early Quaker persecution. It examines the experiences of Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson to argue that the violence towards the Quakers was a foundational disruption of sacrificial logic. It shows how the failure of Puritan scapegoating catalyzed a move toward a theological friendship and religious freedom. By tracing the development from William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to the twentieth-century contributions of the American, John Courtney Murray to Vatican II teaching on religious freedom, this paper demonstrates how the Quaker experience and theology anticipated modern religious toleration and the institutionalization of the right to exist.
Proposal