Religious Tolerance in the Atlantic World : Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives

## Index I would like to thank the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, for permission to reproduce the cover image. The idea for this volume -and some of the essays contained within it -originated in two seminars on religious tolerance held under the auspices of the London Renaissance Seminar at Birkbeck, University of London. I would like to thank Sue Wiseman, the London Renaissance Seminar and the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck. Above all, I would like to thank the contributors to this volume for their thoughtful essays and for accepting the invitation to venture beyond traditional temporal boundaries. vii Placing topical debates in historical perspective, the essays by leading scholars of history, literature and political science explore issues of difference and diversity, inclusion and exclusion, and faith in relation to a variety of Christian groups, Jews and Muslims in the context of both early modern and contemporary England and America. What does it mean to be tolerant? Does tolerance entail open-mindedness or grudging forbearance? How is it possible to accommodate those who are themselves intolerant, or who profess loyalty to an alien set of laws? And how can tolerance be reconciled with both religious truth and secularity? This collection of essays by ten leading scholars of history, English literature and political science addresses these questions in the context of both early modern and contemporary England and America. Placing highly topical debates in vital historical perspective, the essays explore issues of difference and diversity, inclusion and exclusion, and faith and the state in relation to a variety of Christian groups, Jews and Muslims. They examine how far concepts of religious liberty have really evolved from that foundational era, how to distinguish between a comparative historical and a teleological approach to the history of tolerance, and how enduring problems of religious disharmony can be illuminated by early modern comparisons and contrasts Front Matter....Pages i-ix Religious Tolerance in the Atlantic World: Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives....Pages 1-13 Scripture and Toleration between Reformation and Enlightenment....Pages 14-40 Some Forms of Religious Liberty: Political Thinking, Ecclesiology and Religious Freedom in Early Modern England....Pages 41-72 Moral Logics of Enmity: Indians and English in Early America....Pages 73-110 Law and Civil Interest: William Penn’s Tolerationism....Pages 111-133 John Milton and Religious Tolerance: The Origins and Contradictions of the Western Tradition....Pages 134-148 Conformity, Loyalty and the Jesuit Mission to England of 1580....Pages 149-170 Commonwealth, Chosenness and Toleration: Reconsidering the Jews’ Readmission to England and the Idea of an Elect Nation....Pages 171-192 Present at the Creation: Diaspora, Hybridity and the Place of Jews in the History of English Toleration....Pages 193-213 Tolerating ‘Mahomet’: Or, Thinking about Then, Now....Pages 214-234 A Feminism of Convenience: Roger Williams, Egyptian Salafists and Liberty of Conscience for Women....Pages 235-252 Back Matter....Pages 253-275