Judd Birdsall

While attending Brown University, Adoniram Judson came to reject the pious Congregational ism of his upbringing in favor of Deism. His 1807 valedictory address hailed the value of free inquiry unhindered by religious faith. A few years after graduation, however, the ambitious freethinker’s intellectual confidence was shattered by a haunting experience in a drafty New [...]