Reformed Calvinists Deserve Credit For Political Liberty, But not Liberty of Conscience or Religious Liberty

Mark David Hall and his cohorts have shown an undeniably powerful, reformed/Calvinistic component driving the political-theological dimensions of the American founding. The "Calvinist resisters" as they have been termed, because they taught a privilege/right/duty to "resist tyranny." Here is Mark quoting John Adams on the matter:

In 1787, John Adams wrote that John Ponet’s Short Treatise on Politike Power (1556) contains “all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterwards dilated on by Sidney and Locke.”  He also noted the significance of Stephanus Junius Brutus’ Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos.  ...

Other names in this tradition might include Samuel Rutherford of "Lex Rex" fame and John Knox, who lead the reformation of the Church of Scotland. Calvin, as part of the political leadership of the City State of Geneva, saw a theological unitarian named Michael Servetus executed for heresy. To the extent that Calvin's 16th and 17th century "resisters" spoke on the matter, to a man, they supported Servetus' execution. A later generation of reformed thinkers, including America's founders John Witherspoon, Roger Sherman and others would not have supported what happened to Servetus because by that time they had accepted principles of liberty of conscience as taught by John Locke and his successors. 

Locke was not necessarily the first figure to argue for the right to freely practice and publicly speak on matters that others view as heretical. But, it's important to note that they came from outside of the Calvinist/reformed tradition. The Dutch Arminians and the American Roger Williams anticipated Locke. However, America's founders, including ministers preaching from the pulpit, were much likelier to invoke Locke than Williams, or other sources who may have anticipated Locke. 

This is ironic for numerous reasons, one of which is that Roger Williams founded an American colony. And to the extent that orthodox Christians like Witherspoon might wish to invoke a traditional orthodox Christian on the behalf of the proposition of "liberty of conscience" for all, they had that in Williams but instead turned to Locke, a putative Christian, but unorthodox, and who posited a notion of "state of nature/social contract and rights" that was, as Leo Strauss put it, "wholly alien to the Bible." 

Whatever contributions the reformed Calvinist types contributed to the notions of political liberty in the American founding, it's not right to credit them for the notions of liberty of conscience/religious liberty that America's founders endorsed. For that we would have to credit other Christian traditions and the Enlightenment.