[MayflowerMadam]

“Nothing says Christian love like iron cages hanging to display the tortured, dismembered corpses of three Anabaptist leaders”

Much like the “Christian love” shown toward my ancestor in 1612. He was an Anabaptist burned at the stake for heresy.

[Big Red Badger]

Wow...
That’s personal.

[Cronos]

In 1612, Edward Wightman became the last person in England to be burned at the stake for heresy. A radical Anabaptist minister from Burton-on-Trent, he was convicted of various religious heresies, including anti-Trinitarianism

The execution was personally sanctioned by King James I, who earlier commissioned and legally mandated the KJV. The King James Bible was published in 1611. Just one year later, in 1612, King James I authorized the burning of Edward Wightman

The primary motive for creating the KJV was to replace the popular Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible contained marginal study notes that questioned the absolute authority of monarchs and promoted anti-monarchical ideas. By enforcing his own "Authorized Version"—which banned political notes—and executing radicals like Wightman, King James I was using both cultural and physical force to protect his absolute rule and the authority of the Church of England

[Cronos]

While Edward Wightman was condemned under the broad, often derogatory label of "Anabaptist" by the English Crown, his descendants belonged to the English Separatist Baptist movement, which was a distinct theological lineage.

Edward's children grew up exactly when the distinct English Baptist movement was organizing (around 1609–1640s). They rejected continental, radical Anabaptism. Instead, they embraced General and Particular Baptist theology, which grew out of English Puritanism. When his son John and the grandchildren migrated to Rhode Island in 1654, they integrated directly into the established colonial Baptist churches.

The Wightman descendants in America were strictly Baptists, actively distinguishing themselves from continental Anabaptists (like the Mennonites or Amish) i