Tertullian Quotes
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions.
Tertullian. "To Scapula." Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, edited by Alexander Roberts et al., Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885, p. 105.
Pen name: Jack Nipps. Leland was a Baptist evangelist who had worked with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to secure Freedom of Conscience in Virginia. Many people think that ideas such as this are the views of irreligious men and women, but Leland was a devout, evangelical Baptist and Baptists suffered discrimination in early Colonial America. Freedom of conscience was essential for all religions who were not in the local majority. Tolerance essential. See 43,065.
Noah was the first Jewish Ambassador in America. See {627936} for his variation of Madison’s point.
This law governed the territories outside of the original 13 colonies. This is the first chance that Congress had to legislate on religious freedom, and they guaranteed that there would be no territory that would be founded by or unilaterally controlled by any particular religion at the expense of the religious freedom of other people.
Abdul Rahman, Afghan citizen, had converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years before. Conversion from Islam is a capital crime under Sharia Law which was the law of Afghanistan even after the Taliban had been overthrown. He was jailed and threatened with death. Statements like this and others made directly to the government persuaded the Afghan politicians to go against their mullahs who demanded the death penalty as is proscribed by Islamic Law—Sharia. The judges tried to get Rahman to recant and he would not (see {589518}). So they finally decided that he must be mentally insane and therefore could not be tried, and the problem was solved that way.
Tertullian (/tərˈtʌliən/; Latin: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; c. 155 – c. AD 220) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. Of Berber origin, he was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology."
