ABSTRACT
Christianity came to emphasize the knowledge of God and the world more than any other religious movement. This emphasis started at the beginning of the movement with a new concept of God, which rejected the typical stress of the time upon a unique, isolated, and transcendent deity. There is no simple way to identify people or groups as good guys and bad guys without a certain amount of equivocation. There were dissenting voices, who wished to push the cause of liberty much farther than Luther or Calvin were willing to proceed. One of the earliest was Sebastian Castellio, a professor from Basel and unrelenting critic of Calvin. Sectarian groups were most significant in spreading the message of Castellio and others to the masses. The Massachusetts Bay Colony has obtained the most infamous reputation through the years as the leading sponsor of bigotry and religious intolerance among the early colonies.
