I have found these pleasant and historically accurate church services are becoming more rare.  Our own region had the current Lieutenant Governor telling his Baptist audience in the church service there was no such thing as separation of church and state.  If one takes a summer journey to Branson, Missouri you are likely to find old seventies crooners booking audiences with hits from yesterday.  You will also find many Mormon family groups who more than likely make fun of the President and sing songs stating, regarding the church and state, "There is no separation."
     I have noted that it is now more common to honor veterans in churches with flag waving services at this time of the year.  What once was a parade, has moved into the church.  I have met a few pastors who decided to take the American flag out of the auditorium.  Such an effort will likely be met with more than a few expressions of anger.  
     I listened to the David Barton speech so many times I can almost tell you what is coming next.  Barton's media presentation has Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin rivaling the piety of John Calvin, hosting more prayer meetings than Jonathan Edwards and teaching more Bible studies than Charles Spurgeon!
     In the midst of all the flag waving and longing for a more piety in the nation, we have forgotten one simple, yet startling fact.  Most American Christians, who render such a fervor for the faith of the founding fathers, would not be willing to have anything to do with their Massachusetts congregations.  John Barry has written an intriguing book named, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul.  The focus of the work is to describe the life of Roger Williams, the founding father who fashioned the American concept of liberty of the soul and conscious.  
     Barry wrote that Williams was persecuted by the early colony churches and even banished for his views.  One of his points of difference with the early settlers was the rights of Indians to own land.  The Puritans saw this as heresy and the Indians were nothing more than Old Testament Amalekites and they were the New Jerusalem.  
     This early American version of the church merged with the magistrate to control and define reality.  Unmarried men and women could not live alone, they had to board with a family or face discipline. Pg. 170   One man was excommunicated from the church for marrying a vain and proud woman.   Pg.  173  Roger Williams faced loss of home and career as well as church membership.  If he went back to England he faced being whipped, having his ears cut off and tongue bored.  He no doubt would have stayed in prison for the rest of his life.  Pg. 207  It was little better in New England with church and state merging to forge the official law of the land.  The church punished people by torture, (which was not waterboarding by the way.)  Some of the government officials wanted to kill Williams.  Pg. 209   An official law was established allowing capital punishment to be enforced on any who refused to attend church services.  In one of the Indian wars over 200 Pequots Indians surrendered after they lost a battle.  The Indians were than slaughtered and their wives and children sold as slaves.  Pg. 240  Adultery and blasphemy were both punishable by death.  Pg. 260  The church even enacted a law that demanded that every citizen rise at the same time each morning, an hour before day break.  Pg. 261
     Would we want a congregation where a small child came weeping before the church because her father was just slain because he did not attend church?  What layman would want to belong to a body who slaughtered hundreds of surrendering enemies and sold their family as slaves?  Obviously church members would come forward horrified at such practices and demand something be done to those who practiced such barbaric acts.  
     The Massachusetts early colony churches obviously gave way to a new vision.  This was the vision of Roger Williams and he laid the ground work for the First Amendment.  It was his vision that made July 4th what it is supposed to be.  He knew that all freedoms begin with religious freedom.    He stood alone and was banished by the Salem church.  He was left to himself, with no friends but the Indians.  He almost paid with his life.  He lost land, family, and endured the stress of being ostracized from his people.  He paid dearly for his vision.  It is his vision we celebrate, not ones who sought to mix the magistrate with the clergy.