Unitarian Universalism and Catholicism
"Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout"
An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, Poetry, and General Bloviating
Jan. 29th, 2006
The chat list of the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society has taken up the
issue of anti-Catholicism in our movement. It was noted that many of our most
distinguished founding ministers, including the revered William Ellery Channing
often wrote scathingly of Catholicism. Clergy and laity alike often engaged in
attempts at suppression or control of the “Papist menace.”
Why should this be so? Does it persist in Unitarian Universalism even today?
Anti-Catholicism ran deep in colonial Protestant culture. In pre-Revolutionary
Boston the annual "Pope Day" marches in November were a highlight of
the year. In these effigies of the Pope were dragged through the street
along with effigies of the Stuart pretender to the British throne and
burned. These marches often degenerated into semi-controlled riots
between competing bands from different neighborhoods, each marching
society with its own “officers” vying to out do the other in extravagance
of their anti-Catholic display. And this in a city without a Catholic
presence worth mentioning except for sailors stumbling off of ships in
the harbor. Made up of mechanics and apprentices, the Pope Day marching
societies became the nucleus of the Sons of Liberty. And on Sundays they sat
in the pews of all of those Boston churches destined to become
Unitarian.
It is hardly surprising that when large numbers of Irish and other Catholic
emigrants began pouring into the cities in the early 19th Century this kind of
reflexive anti-Catholicism--or anti-Popery as they themselves would have
preferred--would become a dominate theme expressed by even our most
distinguished clergy.
Resentment among laboring classes of the wage-base threatening immigrants
was intense. Meanwhile that segment of society designated as “the Mechanics”
in the 19th Century—the master craftsmen and tradesmen employing their own
apprentices and common laborers—were climbing to respectability as part of the
new middle class and some even turning into capitalists building industrial shops.
This group soon became the employers of immigrant labor while shifting their
class identification to the long dominant merchants and professionals. It was
easy to apply traditional Protestant outrage at “Popery” to exert control over the
new under class. Indeed by the 1840's probably came to dominate over strictly
"religious" objections.
Nativism, as evidenced by the Know-Nothing movement, flourished all over the
Northeast in the second quarter of the 19th Century. As it evolved from a semi-
secret society to an open political party, it won the governorship in
Massachusetts and made strong headway in state legislatures and city
governments. It was especially powerful in Up State New York, where it involved
many members of Unitarian Churches. One of our "Unitarian Presidents," Millard
Fillmore, ran for the office again on the Know-Nothing (American Party) ticket.
Interestingly though he won 870,000 popular votes, he carried only Maryland—a
state founded by Catholics and home of the first American diocese. In times
many of these same people became Free-Soilers and then Republicans,
carrying with them their anti-Catholic prejudices.
It should be pointed out that while the Universalists were not un-tainted by this, it
seems both far less virulent and less common among them. Hosea Ballou had a
long, close personal friendship with the Bishop of Boston and further alienated
his Unitarian critics by coming to the defense of a convent attacked by mobs.
A common focus for clashes between Unitarian and Catholics was education.
While Unitarians had always treasured education, they had been generally
content to leave it largely in the hands of the traditional “academies” set up
independently by that particularly starving frayed hem of respectable gentility,
the school master—often an aspiring or failed minister, layer or writer. It was only
when the Catholics began to set up their own school system that a passion for
publicly funded and controlled education really took off. The new public schools
of Horace Mann and his disciples were intended to inoculate even Catholic
children with decent American and Protestant values. Catholic tried in vain to
capture a bit of the public purse for the support of their school like the Town
meetings sometimes used to lend to the old academies. This was the locus of
unending battles, which echo down to our own time in controversies over
vouchers and other public subsidies for private education.
It is true that some Transcendentalists were more sympathetic to Catholics.
Some of them recognized the mystical appeal of Catholic ritual, which seemed
starkly absent from stripped, stern and rational Unitarianism. Orestes Brownson,
one of the leading figures of the movement, eventually converted to Catholicism.
But this interest was not universal nor necessarily precluded outbreaks of anti-
Catholic outrage among them.
Later, Henry Adams, the heir of generations of Unitarianism, would shock his
contemporaries by also converting.
Anti-Catholicism lingered on well into the Twentieth Century. Beacon
Press was still publishing popular anti-Catholic screeds well into the
1950's.
"Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout"
An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, Poetry, and General Bloviating
Jan. 29th, 2006
The chat list of the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society has taken up the
issue of anti-Catholicism in our movement. It was noted that many of our most
distinguished founding ministers, including the revered William Ellery Channing
often wrote scathingly of Catholicism. Clergy and laity alike often engaged in
attempts at suppression or control of the “Papist menace.”
Why should this be so? Does it persist in Unitarian Universalism even today?
Anti-Catholicism ran deep in colonial Protestant culture. In pre-Revolutionary
Boston the annual "Pope Day" marches in November were a highlight of
the year. In these effigies of the Pope were dragged through the street
along with effigies of the Stuart pretender to the British throne and
burned. These marches often degenerated into semi-controlled riots
between competing bands from different neighborhoods, each marching
society with its own “officers” vying to out do the other in extravagance
of their anti-Catholic display. And this in a city without a Catholic
presence worth mentioning except for sailors stumbling off of ships in
the harbor. Made up of mechanics and apprentices, the Pope Day marching
societies became the nucleus of the Sons of Liberty. And on Sundays they sat
in the pews of all of those Boston churches destined to become
Unitarian.
It is hardly surprising that when large numbers of Irish and other Catholic
emigrants began pouring into the cities in the early 19th Century this kind of
reflexive anti-Catholicism--or anti-Popery as they themselves would have
preferred--would become a dominate theme expressed by even our most
distinguished clergy.
Resentment among laboring classes of the wage-base threatening immigrants
was intense. Meanwhile that segment of society designated as “the Mechanics”
in the 19th Century—the master craftsmen and tradesmen employing their own
apprentices and common laborers—were climbing to respectability as part of the
new middle class and some even turning into capitalists building industrial shops.
This group soon became the employers of immigrant labor while shifting their
class identification to the long dominant merchants and professionals. It was
easy to apply traditional Protestant outrage at “Popery” to exert control over the
new under class. Indeed by the 1840's probably came to dominate over strictly
"religious" objections.
Nativism, as evidenced by the Know-Nothing movement, flourished all over the
Northeast in the second quarter of the 19th Century. As it evolved from a semi-
secret society to an open political party, it won the governorship in
Massachusetts and made strong headway in state legislatures and city
governments. It was especially powerful in Up State New York, where it involved
many members of Unitarian Churches. One of our "Unitarian Presidents," Millard
Fillmore, ran for the office again on the Know-Nothing (American Party) ticket.
Interestingly though he won 870,000 popular votes, he carried only Maryland—a
state founded by Catholics and home of the first American diocese. In times
many of these same people became Free-Soilers and then Republicans,
carrying with them their anti-Catholic prejudices.
It should be pointed out that while the Universalists were not un-tainted by this, it
seems both far less virulent and less common among them. Hosea Ballou had a
long, close personal friendship with the Bishop of Boston and further alienated
his Unitarian critics by coming to the defense of a convent attacked by mobs.
A common focus for clashes between Unitarian and Catholics was education.
While Unitarians had always treasured education, they had been generally
content to leave it largely in the hands of the traditional “academies” set up
independently by that particularly starving frayed hem of respectable gentility,
the school master—often an aspiring or failed minister, layer or writer. It was only
when the Catholics began to set up their own school system that a passion for
publicly funded and controlled education really took off. The new public schools
of Horace Mann and his disciples were intended to inoculate even Catholic
children with decent American and Protestant values. Catholic tried in vain to
capture a bit of the public purse for the support of their school like the Town
meetings sometimes used to lend to the old academies. This was the locus of
unending battles, which echo down to our own time in controversies over
vouchers and other public subsidies for private education.
It is true that some Transcendentalists were more sympathetic to Catholics.
Some of them recognized the mystical appeal of Catholic ritual, which seemed
starkly absent from stripped, stern and rational Unitarianism. Orestes Brownson,
one of the leading figures of the movement, eventually converted to Catholicism.
But this interest was not universal nor necessarily precluded outbreaks of anti-
Catholic outrage among them.
Later, Henry Adams, the heir of generations of Unitarianism, would shock his
contemporaries by also converting.
Anti-Catholicism lingered on well into the Twentieth Century. Beacon
Press was still publishing popular anti-Catholic screeds well into the
1950's.
On early Unitarian fears of 'popery'
by Philocrites
January 30, 2006
Although I'm delighted to see that Patrick Murfin has joined the interdependent web of
Unitarian Universalist blogs, I find it odd that his essay on Unitarian anti-Catholicism
overlooks any theological or doctrinal root for the sentiment. Murfin focuses, like a good
marxist, on class antagonism between the English Protestant New Englanders and Roman
Catholic Irish immigrants. I wouldn't try to quarrel with this line of thinking because I think it's
true so far as it goes, but sheer bigotry does not adequately account for the phenomenon.
Murfin's essay misses the fact that many early 19th-century Unitarians were also registering a
profound theological objection anchored in their own political theology.
He also assumes things about the ethnic and religious backgrounds of contemporary New
England Unitarian Universalists that I don't think hold up under scrutiny. Every UU
congregation I've visited in Massachusetts has large numbers of former Catholics — many
more, in most cases, than "legacy" Unitarians with brahmin roots. Additionally, the anti-
Catholic bias in Massachusetts strikes me as overwhelmingly a Catholic phenomenon these
days:
[Unitarians who are] Ex-Catholics are much angrier and more anticlerical than most
Protestants I know. Politically, of course, the state is center-left and increasingly
independent, but continues electing center-left Catholic Democrats to the legislature and
socially moderate fiscal conservatives as governor. So I don't see a political struggle that pits
marginal UUs against Catholics anymore. (Not to mention the fact that the UUA and every
other religious body in the state lined up with the four Catholic dioceses against the angry
Catholic state senators who wanted to force financial statements out of churches, which the
press — unable to see anything except Catholicism — barely noticed. The bill failed in the
House.)
But back to theological history. I have suggested before that early Unitarianism wove together
two different lines of thought. The first is what we usually think of when we say "unitarian." I
call it our heretical legacy, and it's the more obvious part: Because religious liberals were
willing to stand up for Christian doctrines that fell outside of the orthodox tradition, they were
labeled "unitarians."
While this is the better-known aspect of early Unitarian theology, it is not the characteristic that
lives on with particular vigor in contemporary Unitarian Universalism. (We may assume that
Jesus isn't co-substantial with God, but most of us hardly care.)
The other line of thought that animates early Unitarianism is what I would call the democratic
legacy. This is the line of thought that protested against the imposition of any particular
dogma by the state or similarly empowered agency. It's a political idea, and for Protestants in
revolutionary New England, the most compelling example of church-state coercion was
Rome. For Unitarians, of course, the more immediate context was the dispute over the place
of doctrine in determining who could join the local congregational church. The pope looked to
them like a worldly king using coercive and hierarchical power to impose theological and
intellectual conformity; as heirs to Protestantism and the Enlightenment, they didn't have
many affirmative ideas of the pope or Catholic ecclesiology to draw on. And the pope was not
exactly a big proponent of democracy or modernity back in the 19th century.
The Unitarians objected to bishops and popes as part of their theological commitment to
democracy. I don't dispute the fact that this theological idea got mixed with nativism and
economic anxieties about immigrants, nor do I dispute the observation that many Unitarians
expressed — as many contemporary UUs continue to express — deep illiteracy and bigotry
about other religions. But I think it's inaccurate and misleading to suggest that American
theological liberals — who objected to kings and popes as part of the same agenda — were
simply bigots. They weren't; they saw the papacy as an affront to true Christianity and true
liberty. They were Protestants.
(It should be obvious but apparently isn't that the reason 20th-century Unitarians celebrated
the Second Vatican Council is that they saw the Roman Catholic Church finally turning toward
democracy and openness.)
Changes later in the nineteenth century complicated matters, however. The Romantic
movement helped change how Americans understood the past. You can see the change
vividly in Boston: The "Old South Meetinghouse" from the Revolutionary era is plain red brick
with a tall white steeple; the new "Old South Church" built by the congregation in the late-
1800s is an ornate Gothic structure influenced by Italian cathedral architecture. Think about
that transition: The Puritans' great-great-grandchildren had embraced the architectural style
— and the liturgical stagecraft — they had condemned as "popery." You can see the same
thing in the rise of gothic architecture among the Unitarians and Universalists right on into the
early 20th century. These Protestants had fallen in love with the medieval, although they were
still prone to anti-Catholicism.
There were other changes, too. Leigh Eric Schmidt's wonderful new book, Restless Souls,
traces the modern meaning of "mysticism" to the Transcendentalists, a group of largely
Unitarian thinkers who, Schmidt says, rehabiltated the idea of the hermit, the religious
solitary, an idea that had been scorned by Protestants in America for 200 years. They also
broke the idea of mysticism — or what we now call "spirituality" — away from the church. (This
is part of what Murfin alludes to in saying that the Transcendentalists were not as anti-
Catholic as some other Unitarians. One could complicate this claim all over the place, but I'll
move on.)
My favorite mid-century Unitarians took things a scandalous step
further: Henry Whitney Bellows, in his 1859 "Suspense of Faith"
address, used "Catholicism" to typify the unifying and social dimensions
of religion and "Protestant" to typify the diversifying and individual
dimensions of religion.
[Maura Larkins note: both of these are mainstays of Unitarianism; they
are principles #7 and #1 respectively.]
He argued that Unitarianism had already swung as far to the Protestant
pole as it could without detaching itself from history. (Oops!) His thesis
wasn't well received, but the broad-church Unitarians like Bellows and Frederic
Henry Hedge became keenly interested what we would now call the "living
tradition" — the way that a historic tradition grows and changes while maintaining
vital connections to its past. For Bellows and Hedge, this meant recognizing that
Unitarianism wasn't so much a radical break with Christian tradition as a new
development within it. They embraced Catholicism as part of our tradition even
as they celebrated their liberal democratic Protestantism.
Quick recap: Unitarian anti-Catholicism, no matter how much it also reflected
ethnic or economic bigotry, also often reflected a theological and political
principle. We'd be seriously misled to overlook the importance of that principle.
And the Romantic movement and the changes it introduced in American
intellectual culture gave Unitarians new ways to understand and reappropriate
aspects of Catholicism. Do either of these points excuse 19th- or 20th-
century Unitarians from charges of anti-Catholic bigotry? No. I'm just
saying that intellectual history is still important.
by Philocrites
January 30, 2006
Although I'm delighted to see that Patrick Murfin has joined the interdependent web of
Unitarian Universalist blogs, I find it odd that his essay on Unitarian anti-Catholicism
overlooks any theological or doctrinal root for the sentiment. Murfin focuses, like a good
marxist, on class antagonism between the English Protestant New Englanders and Roman
Catholic Irish immigrants. I wouldn't try to quarrel with this line of thinking because I think it's
true so far as it goes, but sheer bigotry does not adequately account for the phenomenon.
Murfin's essay misses the fact that many early 19th-century Unitarians were also registering a
profound theological objection anchored in their own political theology.
He also assumes things about the ethnic and religious backgrounds of contemporary New
England Unitarian Universalists that I don't think hold up under scrutiny. Every UU
congregation I've visited in Massachusetts has large numbers of former Catholics — many
more, in most cases, than "legacy" Unitarians with brahmin roots. Additionally, the anti-
Catholic bias in Massachusetts strikes me as overwhelmingly a Catholic phenomenon these
days:
[Unitarians who are] Ex-Catholics are much angrier and more anticlerical than most
Protestants I know. Politically, of course, the state is center-left and increasingly
independent, but continues electing center-left Catholic Democrats to the legislature and
socially moderate fiscal conservatives as governor. So I don't see a political struggle that pits
marginal UUs against Catholics anymore. (Not to mention the fact that the UUA and every
other religious body in the state lined up with the four Catholic dioceses against the angry
Catholic state senators who wanted to force financial statements out of churches, which the
press — unable to see anything except Catholicism — barely noticed. The bill failed in the
House.)
But back to theological history. I have suggested before that early Unitarianism wove together
two different lines of thought. The first is what we usually think of when we say "unitarian." I
call it our heretical legacy, and it's the more obvious part: Because religious liberals were
willing to stand up for Christian doctrines that fell outside of the orthodox tradition, they were
labeled "unitarians."
While this is the better-known aspect of early Unitarian theology, it is not the characteristic that
lives on with particular vigor in contemporary Unitarian Universalism. (We may assume that
Jesus isn't co-substantial with God, but most of us hardly care.)
The other line of thought that animates early Unitarianism is what I would call the democratic
legacy. This is the line of thought that protested against the imposition of any particular
dogma by the state or similarly empowered agency. It's a political idea, and for Protestants in
revolutionary New England, the most compelling example of church-state coercion was
Rome. For Unitarians, of course, the more immediate context was the dispute over the place
of doctrine in determining who could join the local congregational church. The pope looked to
them like a worldly king using coercive and hierarchical power to impose theological and
intellectual conformity; as heirs to Protestantism and the Enlightenment, they didn't have
many affirmative ideas of the pope or Catholic ecclesiology to draw on. And the pope was not
exactly a big proponent of democracy or modernity back in the 19th century.
The Unitarians objected to bishops and popes as part of their theological commitment to
democracy. I don't dispute the fact that this theological idea got mixed with nativism and
economic anxieties about immigrants, nor do I dispute the observation that many Unitarians
expressed — as many contemporary UUs continue to express — deep illiteracy and bigotry
about other religions. But I think it's inaccurate and misleading to suggest that American
theological liberals — who objected to kings and popes as part of the same agenda — were
simply bigots. They weren't; they saw the papacy as an affront to true Christianity and true
liberty. They were Protestants.
(It should be obvious but apparently isn't that the reason 20th-century Unitarians celebrated
the Second Vatican Council is that they saw the Roman Catholic Church finally turning toward
democracy and openness.)
Changes later in the nineteenth century complicated matters, however. The Romantic
movement helped change how Americans understood the past. You can see the change
vividly in Boston: The "Old South Meetinghouse" from the Revolutionary era is plain red brick
with a tall white steeple; the new "Old South Church" built by the congregation in the late-
1800s is an ornate Gothic structure influenced by Italian cathedral architecture. Think about
that transition: The Puritans' great-great-grandchildren had embraced the architectural style
— and the liturgical stagecraft — they had condemned as "popery." You can see the same
thing in the rise of gothic architecture among the Unitarians and Universalists right on into the
early 20th century. These Protestants had fallen in love with the medieval, although they were
still prone to anti-Catholicism.
There were other changes, too. Leigh Eric Schmidt's wonderful new book, Restless Souls,
traces the modern meaning of "mysticism" to the Transcendentalists, a group of largely
Unitarian thinkers who, Schmidt says, rehabiltated the idea of the hermit, the religious
solitary, an idea that had been scorned by Protestants in America for 200 years. They also
broke the idea of mysticism — or what we now call "spirituality" — away from the church. (This
is part of what Murfin alludes to in saying that the Transcendentalists were not as anti-
Catholic as some other Unitarians. One could complicate this claim all over the place, but I'll
move on.)
My favorite mid-century Unitarians took things a scandalous step
further: Henry Whitney Bellows, in his 1859 "Suspense of Faith"
address, used "Catholicism" to typify the unifying and social dimensions
of religion and "Protestant" to typify the diversifying and individual
dimensions of religion.
[Maura Larkins note: both of these are mainstays of Unitarianism; they
are principles #7 and #1 respectively.]
He argued that Unitarianism had already swung as far to the Protestant
pole as it could without detaching itself from history. (Oops!) His thesis
wasn't well received, but the broad-church Unitarians like Bellows and Frederic
Henry Hedge became keenly interested what we would now call the "living
tradition" — the way that a historic tradition grows and changes while maintaining
vital connections to its past. For Bellows and Hedge, this meant recognizing that
Unitarianism wasn't so much a radical break with Christian tradition as a new
development within it. They embraced Catholicism as part of our tradition even
as they celebrated their liberal democratic Protestantism.
Quick recap: Unitarian anti-Catholicism, no matter how much it also reflected
ethnic or economic bigotry, also often reflected a theological and political
principle. We'd be seriously misled to overlook the importance of that principle.
And the Romantic movement and the changes it introduced in American
intellectual culture gave Unitarians new ways to understand and reappropriate
aspects of Catholicism. Do either of these points excuse 19th- or 20th-
century Unitarians from charges of anti-Catholic bigotry? No. I'm just
saying that intellectual history is still important.
"The young minister thanked Mr. Richardson for his speech and apologized for the rude
behavior of some self-righteous Unitarians who treat those others of this tradition with whom
they disagree so intolerantly."
The Gospel About Millard Fillmore
18 September 2005
Rev. John Robinson
...Elliot Richardson had been invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of
our Association of Free churches. He was then the martyred hero who
had resigned as Attorney General of these United States rather than
obey Richard Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox as Special Watergate
Prosecutor. He was a Unitarian from an old Unitarian family.
Not all Unitarians were happy to have him as speaker. There was much
agitation about the choice. Protesters tried to interrupt his speech, but
were finally prevailed upon to let him make it.
In the question and answer period that followed, one of the dissenters demanded to know
how Elliot Richardson, when Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, could have authorized the
infamous December bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong. Elliot Richardson pointed out to the
questioner that he had not been appointed to Secretary of Defense until after the bombings...
“But, I think the decision to bomb was right.” It was the sort of candor that impresses.
Later that evening a young minister, this was years ago, was on a hotel elevator on to which
Elliot Richardson stepped, unsuspectingly. Emboldened by spirits if not spirit. The young
minister thanked Mr. Richardson for his speech and apologized for the rude
behavior of some self-righteous Unitarians who treat those others of
this tradition with whom they disagree so intolerantly. And then, as an
illustration he launched into an impromptu sermon on Millard Fillmore...
History has been unkind to Millard Fillmore...One historian said of Fillmore: “He came to the
Presidency by the only road available to a man of limited ability, the death of his predecessor.”
He was accused of being both pro-slavery and abolitionist. It was said he did “not have
courage” “but was just inflexible.” They accused him of having “no position except
equivocation,” that he was “without personal earnest conviction, personal force, or capacity for
strong personal leadership.” His general rating as a president has been, until recently, below
average, way below. He is judged bad or poor in his religiousness by those who judge such
things. He was rejected by the religious community of which he was a member. He was a
Unitarian...
First, he illustrates the on-going tension in our free religious community, between the
prophetic and the practical - the privilege of moral purity and the necessity to make real world
decisions.
Second, he illustrates well how difficult it is to judge our contemporaries.
... He was not liked by either the abolitionist historians or those historians who were
apologists for the south. His association with the Know-Nothings tarnished his memory. And
perhaps most important, the principal source of information about him came from the
writings of his arch rival and enemy, the New York political boss Thurlow Weed, who called
Fillmore derisively, “That incorruptible man from Buffalo.” Weed was very corruptible.
Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin January 1, 1800, in upstate New York on his father’s
poor, unproductive, isolated, farm. Millard was his mother’s maiden name. His education
was sparse, no more than three months a year. He said that in the nine months working on
his father’s farm, he forgot more than he learned the other three months. But his ambitious
father apprenticed Millard to a cloth cutter, and then later got him a job in a law office. Millard’s
Education was mostly self-learning, though by 20 he had a position as a schoolteacher. And
then he became a lawyer. At 26 he married Abigail Powers who had taught him as he tried to
catch up on his education. At 28 he was elected to the New York State Assembly...
Millard fought many good fights in the New York State Assembly. He fought for repeal of a law
that required anyone testifying in court to swear that they believed in God and the hereafter.
He pushed for an end to imprisonment for debt, and bankruptcy laws to protect small
business interests. He fought for separation of church and state.
Millard was a party switcher right from the beginning. He was elected to the assembly as a
National Republican, the party of Jefferson. Then He was elected as an Anti-Mason, a party
he had helped to form. The Anti-Masons held that the Masonic Order with its lodges, secret
rites and oaths, loyalties to something other than the Constitution, constituted an invisible
Empire, a dangerous intrusion in a democracy. He wanted to get Masons out of government.
Fillmore was elected to Congress as a National Republican in 1832. His first term saw the
formation of the Whig Party, an event he supported, as he wanted to see a party of National
Union...
In 1836 he was again elected to the House of Representatives. There he was made chair of
the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He also was chair of a Select Committee
charged with investigation of election fraud in New Jersey (yes, I know, no change there).
Incredibly Fillmore’s committee found 5 congressmen of his own party guilty, threw them out
of congress, and thus handed control of The House to the opposition party! (IMAGINE!)
In 1842 he again left Congress, this time as a prominent Whig. The next year Horace Greely,
editor of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE (also an alleged Unitarian), urged Fillmore’s candidacy for
Vice-President. (Years later Fillmore repaid the favor by getting Greely out of debtors’ prison in
Paris.)
1844 was not the year for Millard to get the nomination. He was held to be anti-slave and anti-
Southern. He opposed the annexation of Texas as an attempt to swell slavery forces.
Later Millard opposed the Mexican War, which he believed would spread slavery and weaken
the North’s industrial economy.
1848 was the year when Fillmore was tapped as the Whigs vice-presidential candidate. He
balanced the ticket, with General Zachary Taylor, a Southerner, and slave owner, who was a
hero of the Mexican War (ironically). Taylor ran on a rough and ready image. Leading
abolitionists bolted the party, particularly New Englanders, notably the leading Unitarian,
Charles Francis Adams.
The Taylor-Fillmore ticket had no platform because whatever was said would alienate part of
the country. Abe Lincoln supported this ticket. On November 7, they won.
On July 9, 1850, rough and ready Zachary Taylor died from illness. Fillmore became
President, the third President to be Unitarian. (In October of that same year this church was
founded.) Within a month Fillmore had aroused the ire of the North by signing the
Compromise of 1850. He did it, knowing that he had ruined any hope he had to run for the
Presidency on his own. He also earned the animosity of many Unitarians.
...The provision that enraged the abolitionists most was the strengthening of the fugitive slave
laws. It empowered federal agents to enforce the act. The Whig Party split over Fillmore’s
signing of the law.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Unitarian) said of the fugitive slave law, “I will not obey it, by God.”
Theodore Parker (author of the opening words this morning), a Boston Unitarian minister, led
an armed band of vigilantes that confronted slave hunters up from the South; intimidated
them into leaving; and saved a slave couple who had escaped to Boston. Parker had acted in
direct defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law. With loaded pistol and sword ready on his writing
desk Unitarian Parker wrote the Unitarian President, Fillmore, telling what he had done and
challenging Fillmore to enforce his “damned law.”
History has judged Fillmore harshly for that one law - a Unitarian President perpetuating
slavery - the scandal! Why did he do it? Talk of secession! Remember the times. Even before
Taylor’s inauguration, Virginia had passed legislation that threatened secession if the federal
government interfered with “Southern Institutions”. John C. Calhoun (also a Unitarian and
charter member of the Unitarian Church in Washington D.C.) and other Southern leaders
were making ominous warnings. Tension between the States in the House of
Representatives kept them from selecting a Speaker for over three weeks. By the time
Fillmore took office, the South was ringing with calls for secession, not only if slavery were
interfered with but if its expansion were checked.
Fillmore’s predecessor, Taylor, a Southerner, a slave owner and war hero, might have held
the country together had he lived to veto the compromise of 1850 as he had said he would.
Fillmore knew he could not hold the Union if he vetoed it. He set one goal, to preserve the
Union and the Constitution. To give up the great compromise forged in 1787-1788 would, he
knew, lead to the rupture of the Union. He thought the North was at that time not yet strong
enough to win a civil war. Modern historians agree.
By the end of October 1850, Fillmore had angered abolitionists by sending federal troops to
assist U.S. Marshal’s in the arrest of fugitive slaves. His determination for the compromise
was also felt in the South. He sent reinforcements for Charleston, South Carolina where
Southerners, angry over the North’s resistance to the fugitive slave laws, were threatening to
seize federal property.
Fillmore has been most severely criticized for not fighting slavery with determination.
However, there is another side. John F. Kennedy in Profiles of Courage chose to profile
Daniel Webster. Webster was also a Whig and a Unitarian.
...By 1856 the Whig party had disintegrated. The lines grew harder: Democrats to the South,
Republicans to the North. Millard Fillmore wanted a party for the Union. He then made the
second mistake for which he has been charged harshly. He offered himself to the American
Party, the Know-Nothings, anti-foreign and anti-Catholic, as candidate -- a devil of a thing for a
free religionist to do. He hoped to gather there the remnants of the Whigs. He then went off to
Europe on a 12-month vacation.
Ironically he was on foreign soil, after just completing an audience with the Pope when he
was notified that he had received the Know-Nothing’s nomination for President. He was
chosen because he was the only person of stature that they could get.
But many Know-Nothings were unhappy with him and bolted the party. Fillmore is not known
to have ever expressed any anti-Catholic sentiments. This though he had lost a bid for
Governor of New York because Catholics were angry that his militancy for separation of
church and state made him oppose state funding they sought for various Catholic institutions.
Fillmore expressed no support for the Know-Nothing goal of removing all Catholics from
office alleging they would be loyal to the Pope rather than the U.S.A. He did, however, believe
that foreigners should be fully Americanized in their views before becoming citizens. He was
also concerned that immigrants, who joined our diplomatic service, were sent to the
countries from which they had come. He thought it a potential conflict of interest.
In 1856, he ran for President as the American Party candidate with a Southern slaveholder as
his running mate. They emphasized in the campaign regional compromise and preservation
of the Union. They carried only the State of Maryland. However they also were the spoilers that
kept the Republicans from winning and thus put the Civil war off four more years. It is
important remember that the changes happening in this nation, at this time, were more
dramatic and far reaching in many ways than the computer revolution in our own. These were
the years of the industrial revolution. The dramatic growth of railroads and factories, was
changing the North for a subsistence farm economy to market agriculture and industrial
growth. These changes radically altered the balance between North and South, increasing
the might of the North disproportionately.
It is difficult to know whether Millard was in any sense a believer in Know-Nothingism, or if he
knew of the violence in which some of its members engaged, or if he merely compromised
himself to win his objective of continued Union of the States. He wouldn’t be the first prejudice
Unitarian. He was not a radical Abolitionist. He said, however, that he thought the fugitive
slave law odious but constitutional.
Slavery was a despicable practice. There is no apology for it. It is easy to condemn
compromisers. But it is harder to make the difficult decisions that the real world demands. If it
had not been for the courage of Fillmore the Civil war would have come sooner. And if the
South had succeeded in becoming independent, how long and how entrenched by bitterness
would slavery have lasted? Until today? And if cooler heads had prevailed, compromise
succeeded, would slavery possibly have collapsed anyway without the blood shed and
bitterness engendered by that fratricidal war?
The tension between the ideal and the real, the promise and what is practical, between moral
purity and the sin of every day life, is very real. It is a tension that we humans are both
burdened and blessed with. I leave you to struggle with these hard dilemmas. You do each
time you vote. I believe that we are at our best when we walk with each other talk with each
other, even in our differences, rather than separating.
Millard Fillmore lived out the balance of his days quietly in private life. He supported Lincoln,
met Lincoln in Buffalo when Lincoln was on his way from Illinois to his First Inaugural. He
took Lincoln to services at the First Unitarian Church of Buffalo. He thought that the
Republicans had provoked the Civil War but gave it his support at rallies. He thought Lincoln
too harsh – he strongly supported Andrew Johnson’s efforts at conciliation.
Fillmore was no Saint if you look for moral purity, nor was he our most brilliant President. He
refused an Honorary Degree from Oxford, because he had no earned degree of any kind. He
said he was “not entitled to it.” (Give him high marks on humility). But he was more than most
have given him credit for. He risked and lost his reputation to keep the vision of a United
States, even as others risked much to purify that vision. In looking up Eliot Richardson on the
Internet, I find that he is listed as an Episcopalian/Anglican. Perhaps he too felt the sting of
our righteousness at the General Assembly.
May we, O God, be people who understand that the course of truth and
good is never so easy, and that the tread of evil runs through each of
us, most surely when we are convinced of our own righteousness."
behavior of some self-righteous Unitarians who treat those others of this tradition with whom
they disagree so intolerantly."
The Gospel About Millard Fillmore
18 September 2005
Rev. John Robinson
...Elliot Richardson had been invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of
our Association of Free churches. He was then the martyred hero who
had resigned as Attorney General of these United States rather than
obey Richard Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox as Special Watergate
Prosecutor. He was a Unitarian from an old Unitarian family.
Not all Unitarians were happy to have him as speaker. There was much
agitation about the choice. Protesters tried to interrupt his speech, but
were finally prevailed upon to let him make it.
In the question and answer period that followed, one of the dissenters demanded to know
how Elliot Richardson, when Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, could have authorized the
infamous December bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong. Elliot Richardson pointed out to the
questioner that he had not been appointed to Secretary of Defense until after the bombings...
“But, I think the decision to bomb was right.” It was the sort of candor that impresses.
Later that evening a young minister, this was years ago, was on a hotel elevator on to which
Elliot Richardson stepped, unsuspectingly. Emboldened by spirits if not spirit. The young
minister thanked Mr. Richardson for his speech and apologized for the rude
behavior of some self-righteous Unitarians who treat those others of
this tradition with whom they disagree so intolerantly. And then, as an
illustration he launched into an impromptu sermon on Millard Fillmore...
History has been unkind to Millard Fillmore...One historian said of Fillmore: “He came to the
Presidency by the only road available to a man of limited ability, the death of his predecessor.”
He was accused of being both pro-slavery and abolitionist. It was said he did “not have
courage” “but was just inflexible.” They accused him of having “no position except
equivocation,” that he was “without personal earnest conviction, personal force, or capacity for
strong personal leadership.” His general rating as a president has been, until recently, below
average, way below. He is judged bad or poor in his religiousness by those who judge such
things. He was rejected by the religious community of which he was a member. He was a
Unitarian...
First, he illustrates the on-going tension in our free religious community, between the
prophetic and the practical - the privilege of moral purity and the necessity to make real world
decisions.
Second, he illustrates well how difficult it is to judge our contemporaries.
... He was not liked by either the abolitionist historians or those historians who were
apologists for the south. His association with the Know-Nothings tarnished his memory. And
perhaps most important, the principal source of information about him came from the
writings of his arch rival and enemy, the New York political boss Thurlow Weed, who called
Fillmore derisively, “That incorruptible man from Buffalo.” Weed was very corruptible.
Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin January 1, 1800, in upstate New York on his father’s
poor, unproductive, isolated, farm. Millard was his mother’s maiden name. His education
was sparse, no more than three months a year. He said that in the nine months working on
his father’s farm, he forgot more than he learned the other three months. But his ambitious
father apprenticed Millard to a cloth cutter, and then later got him a job in a law office. Millard’s
Education was mostly self-learning, though by 20 he had a position as a schoolteacher. And
then he became a lawyer. At 26 he married Abigail Powers who had taught him as he tried to
catch up on his education. At 28 he was elected to the New York State Assembly...
Millard fought many good fights in the New York State Assembly. He fought for repeal of a law
that required anyone testifying in court to swear that they believed in God and the hereafter.
He pushed for an end to imprisonment for debt, and bankruptcy laws to protect small
business interests. He fought for separation of church and state.
Millard was a party switcher right from the beginning. He was elected to the assembly as a
National Republican, the party of Jefferson. Then He was elected as an Anti-Mason, a party
he had helped to form. The Anti-Masons held that the Masonic Order with its lodges, secret
rites and oaths, loyalties to something other than the Constitution, constituted an invisible
Empire, a dangerous intrusion in a democracy. He wanted to get Masons out of government.
Fillmore was elected to Congress as a National Republican in 1832. His first term saw the
formation of the Whig Party, an event he supported, as he wanted to see a party of National
Union...
In 1836 he was again elected to the House of Representatives. There he was made chair of
the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He also was chair of a Select Committee
charged with investigation of election fraud in New Jersey (yes, I know, no change there).
Incredibly Fillmore’s committee found 5 congressmen of his own party guilty, threw them out
of congress, and thus handed control of The House to the opposition party! (IMAGINE!)
In 1842 he again left Congress, this time as a prominent Whig. The next year Horace Greely,
editor of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE (also an alleged Unitarian), urged Fillmore’s candidacy for
Vice-President. (Years later Fillmore repaid the favor by getting Greely out of debtors’ prison in
Paris.)
1844 was not the year for Millard to get the nomination. He was held to be anti-slave and anti-
Southern. He opposed the annexation of Texas as an attempt to swell slavery forces.
Later Millard opposed the Mexican War, which he believed would spread slavery and weaken
the North’s industrial economy.
1848 was the year when Fillmore was tapped as the Whigs vice-presidential candidate. He
balanced the ticket, with General Zachary Taylor, a Southerner, and slave owner, who was a
hero of the Mexican War (ironically). Taylor ran on a rough and ready image. Leading
abolitionists bolted the party, particularly New Englanders, notably the leading Unitarian,
Charles Francis Adams.
The Taylor-Fillmore ticket had no platform because whatever was said would alienate part of
the country. Abe Lincoln supported this ticket. On November 7, they won.
On July 9, 1850, rough and ready Zachary Taylor died from illness. Fillmore became
President, the third President to be Unitarian. (In October of that same year this church was
founded.) Within a month Fillmore had aroused the ire of the North by signing the
Compromise of 1850. He did it, knowing that he had ruined any hope he had to run for the
Presidency on his own. He also earned the animosity of many Unitarians.
...The provision that enraged the abolitionists most was the strengthening of the fugitive slave
laws. It empowered federal agents to enforce the act. The Whig Party split over Fillmore’s
signing of the law.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Unitarian) said of the fugitive slave law, “I will not obey it, by God.”
Theodore Parker (author of the opening words this morning), a Boston Unitarian minister, led
an armed band of vigilantes that confronted slave hunters up from the South; intimidated
them into leaving; and saved a slave couple who had escaped to Boston. Parker had acted in
direct defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law. With loaded pistol and sword ready on his writing
desk Unitarian Parker wrote the Unitarian President, Fillmore, telling what he had done and
challenging Fillmore to enforce his “damned law.”
History has judged Fillmore harshly for that one law - a Unitarian President perpetuating
slavery - the scandal! Why did he do it? Talk of secession! Remember the times. Even before
Taylor’s inauguration, Virginia had passed legislation that threatened secession if the federal
government interfered with “Southern Institutions”. John C. Calhoun (also a Unitarian and
charter member of the Unitarian Church in Washington D.C.) and other Southern leaders
were making ominous warnings. Tension between the States in the House of
Representatives kept them from selecting a Speaker for over three weeks. By the time
Fillmore took office, the South was ringing with calls for secession, not only if slavery were
interfered with but if its expansion were checked.
Fillmore’s predecessor, Taylor, a Southerner, a slave owner and war hero, might have held
the country together had he lived to veto the compromise of 1850 as he had said he would.
Fillmore knew he could not hold the Union if he vetoed it. He set one goal, to preserve the
Union and the Constitution. To give up the great compromise forged in 1787-1788 would, he
knew, lead to the rupture of the Union. He thought the North was at that time not yet strong
enough to win a civil war. Modern historians agree.
By the end of October 1850, Fillmore had angered abolitionists by sending federal troops to
assist U.S. Marshal’s in the arrest of fugitive slaves. His determination for the compromise
was also felt in the South. He sent reinforcements for Charleston, South Carolina where
Southerners, angry over the North’s resistance to the fugitive slave laws, were threatening to
seize federal property.
Fillmore has been most severely criticized for not fighting slavery with determination.
However, there is another side. John F. Kennedy in Profiles of Courage chose to profile
Daniel Webster. Webster was also a Whig and a Unitarian.
...By 1856 the Whig party had disintegrated. The lines grew harder: Democrats to the South,
Republicans to the North. Millard Fillmore wanted a party for the Union. He then made the
second mistake for which he has been charged harshly. He offered himself to the American
Party, the Know-Nothings, anti-foreign and anti-Catholic, as candidate -- a devil of a thing for a
free religionist to do. He hoped to gather there the remnants of the Whigs. He then went off to
Europe on a 12-month vacation.
Ironically he was on foreign soil, after just completing an audience with the Pope when he
was notified that he had received the Know-Nothing’s nomination for President. He was
chosen because he was the only person of stature that they could get.
But many Know-Nothings were unhappy with him and bolted the party. Fillmore is not known
to have ever expressed any anti-Catholic sentiments. This though he had lost a bid for
Governor of New York because Catholics were angry that his militancy for separation of
church and state made him oppose state funding they sought for various Catholic institutions.
Fillmore expressed no support for the Know-Nothing goal of removing all Catholics from
office alleging they would be loyal to the Pope rather than the U.S.A. He did, however, believe
that foreigners should be fully Americanized in their views before becoming citizens. He was
also concerned that immigrants, who joined our diplomatic service, were sent to the
countries from which they had come. He thought it a potential conflict of interest.
In 1856, he ran for President as the American Party candidate with a Southern slaveholder as
his running mate. They emphasized in the campaign regional compromise and preservation
of the Union. They carried only the State of Maryland. However they also were the spoilers that
kept the Republicans from winning and thus put the Civil war off four more years. It is
important remember that the changes happening in this nation, at this time, were more
dramatic and far reaching in many ways than the computer revolution in our own. These were
the years of the industrial revolution. The dramatic growth of railroads and factories, was
changing the North for a subsistence farm economy to market agriculture and industrial
growth. These changes radically altered the balance between North and South, increasing
the might of the North disproportionately.
It is difficult to know whether Millard was in any sense a believer in Know-Nothingism, or if he
knew of the violence in which some of its members engaged, or if he merely compromised
himself to win his objective of continued Union of the States. He wouldn’t be the first prejudice
Unitarian. He was not a radical Abolitionist. He said, however, that he thought the fugitive
slave law odious but constitutional.
Slavery was a despicable practice. There is no apology for it. It is easy to condemn
compromisers. But it is harder to make the difficult decisions that the real world demands. If it
had not been for the courage of Fillmore the Civil war would have come sooner. And if the
South had succeeded in becoming independent, how long and how entrenched by bitterness
would slavery have lasted? Until today? And if cooler heads had prevailed, compromise
succeeded, would slavery possibly have collapsed anyway without the blood shed and
bitterness engendered by that fratricidal war?
The tension between the ideal and the real, the promise and what is practical, between moral
purity and the sin of every day life, is very real. It is a tension that we humans are both
burdened and blessed with. I leave you to struggle with these hard dilemmas. You do each
time you vote. I believe that we are at our best when we walk with each other talk with each
other, even in our differences, rather than separating.
Millard Fillmore lived out the balance of his days quietly in private life. He supported Lincoln,
met Lincoln in Buffalo when Lincoln was on his way from Illinois to his First Inaugural. He
took Lincoln to services at the First Unitarian Church of Buffalo. He thought that the
Republicans had provoked the Civil War but gave it his support at rallies. He thought Lincoln
too harsh – he strongly supported Andrew Johnson’s efforts at conciliation.
Fillmore was no Saint if you look for moral purity, nor was he our most brilliant President. He
refused an Honorary Degree from Oxford, because he had no earned degree of any kind. He
said he was “not entitled to it.” (Give him high marks on humility). But he was more than most
have given him credit for. He risked and lost his reputation to keep the vision of a United
States, even as others risked much to purify that vision. In looking up Eliot Richardson on the
Internet, I find that he is listed as an Episcopalian/Anglican. Perhaps he too felt the sting of
our righteousness at the General Assembly.
May we, O God, be people who understand that the course of truth and
good is never so easy, and that the tread of evil runs through each of
us, most surely when we are convinced of our own righteousness."
"May we...be people who
understand that the course of
truth and good is never so
easy, and that the tread of evil
runs through each of us, most
surely when we are convinced
of our own righteousness."
understand that the course of
truth and good is never so
easy, and that the tread of evil
runs through each of us, most
surely when we are convinced
of our own righteousness."
"Tempest in a
Washbowl":
Emerson vs. the
Unitarians
American Transcendentalism Web
Ann Woodlief [talk to First Unitarian
Church, Richmond, VA]
Unitarians today like to claim Ralph
Waldo Emerson as one of their own,
and with good reason... Though he
eventually stopped preaching, he
remained a Unitarian until his death
at 79. But he cannot exactly be called
one of the Founding Fathers of
Unitarianism. His relationship
with the Unitarian
establishment and theology
was never simple or very
peaceful, but it makes a
fascinating story. Basically, this is
the story of a young liberal humanist
who challenged the religious
assumptions of his teachers
and elders, who were
themselves liberal for their
time but perhaps not as
humanist as Emerson was.
Emerson was willing to carry
their ideas to their logical
ends, to say what the Unitarians
were not yet ready to admit.
Emerson's ambivalence
about Unitarian thought
emerged subconsciously at
first...Oddly enough, he found his
eyes too weak to read theology,
though they improved remarkably
when he finally turned to other kinds
of reading...
Emerson definitely agreed with the
Unitarians that man has an almost
infinite capacity for good. But he was
developing his own religious
philosophy. Finally, in 1832 he
resigned from the Second Church
because he could no longer
administer in good conscience what
was to him the empty Communion
ritual. Then he took the money that
had been willed to him by Ellen and
he ran--to Europe for a year of travel,
study, and thought, and to escape
the expectations of well-intentioned
friends and family. When he
returned, he supplemented his
income by regular supply preaching,
a ministry that ended shortly after he
delivered his famous Divinity School
Address.
To understand Emerson's
ambivalence about Unitarian
doctrine, it is necessary to know
what that doctrine was. Basically,
Unitarianism developed in the
congregational churches of New
England as a protest against
Calvinist theology. Although
theoretically the dispute centered on
whether God was to be considered
as three persons--the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit--or one God,
it really originated as a reaction to
the Calvinist beliefs in evil,
predestination, and original sin. All
of these were beliefs that focused on
man as a sinner going either to
heaven or hell. The thrust of the
Unitarian church reformers was a
belief in the power of man's reason
and his innate capacity for good.
However, in the 1830s these
Unitarians were terrified that their
belief in man's potential good and in
a unified God would result in their
not being considered as true
Christians. In order to elevate man
as good and God as one, it had
been necessary to de-emphasize
the divine nature of Jesus. "Was
Jesus divine or human?" became a
crucial question. Unitarians were
quite unwilling to cross the line that
would deny Jesus divinity. Their
reason told them they had to
question the miracles and even the
divine nature of Jesus in order to
exalt man and his own capacity for
divinity and to respect the laws of
nature. But they resisted strongly, for
fear that they would no longer be
called Christians. Deep down they
were probably convinced that they
would be damned eternally if they
denied the divinity of Jesus, even if to
do so might increase the potential of
human beings.
Also, remember that the Unitarians
had had control of many
congregational churches for very
short time. If their doctrine appeared
to be unChristian, then they feared
that they would lose this precarious
control, and they were probably right.
So they became highly conservative,
fighting hard to insist that Jesus did
indeed break natural laws by
performing miracles and anyone
who did not agree was just not a real
Christian.
The younger Unitarians... had read
Emerson's book Nature and were
attracted to these exciting ideas,
ideas that said "Man is a god in
ruins," man should be self-reliant
and follow his intuition and feelings
as well as his reason to reach full
self-development. Like Emerson,
they thought that dried-up doctrines
of an earlier time should not get in
the way of original insights.
So, in 1838 the seven
graduating seniors of the
Harvard Divinity School
selected Emerson as a speaker at
the graduation...Emerson took the
pulpit and calmly and confidently lay
siege to some of the Unitarians'
most cherished ideas.
The Divinity School Address sound
innocuous enough to our ears today.
It called for religious self-reliance,
telling us not to depend on the
worn-out doctrines passed down but
to seek out our own convictions.
But to many of those who
heard it in 1838 or read it
when it was later printed,
the address was pure
Transcendental heresy.
A furor erupted in newspapers,
pulpits, and pamphlets against the
Address and Emerson. But
Emerson retreated to his study,
apparently quite calm and above the
storm, and refused to respond
publicly. He called the fuss "a
tempest in a washbowl," but his
journal shows us today that he was
upset by the vehemence of the
attacks against him...
Emerson's former Divinity School
professor, Andrews Norton, who
was usually a cautious and sober
man, wasted no time blasting the
address in the Boston Daily
Advertiser. He called the
graduates accessories to a
crime for inviting a "man
who attacks Christian as a
revelation and the Clergy"
to "deliver an incoherent
rhapsody." He assured his
readers that "We know what the
words God, Religion, Christianity,
mean." He was especially
concerned that "such false
preachers could have a
disastrous effect upon the
religion and moral state of
the community, that general
evil-doing might break out
in the community because
of this speech. Emerson's
response--in his journal only--was "It
is plain from all the noise that there
is atheism somewhere; the only
question is now, Which is the
atheist?" Norton became known
soon as the "hard-headed
Unitarian Pope." But he had
many clergy and
conservatives on his side
who thought Emerson was a
dangerous atheist and even
taught their children that he
was "a sort of a mad dog."
Meanwhile some Unitarian
ministers did come to
Emerson's support. Henry
Ware thought he could undo
the damage by preaching
another sermon in the
"Divinity School on the
"Personality of the Deity."...
Emerson's object was to "call
forth the free spirit" and "to
induce men to think for
themselves on all subjects,
and speak from their own full
hearts, and earnest
convictions," not "to be
slaves to routine, to custom,
to established creeds, to
public opinion, to the great
names of this age or of any
other."
Norton could not let this defense
pass unnoticed. In a sermon he
delivered at the Divinity School in
1839 called "A Discourse on the
Latest Form of Infidelity," he let his
audience know that such self-reliant
religious thinking was disastrous.
He insisted that Christianity must
rely for its existence on the reason
and the testimony of others through
history, and one man is too
imperfect to grasp religious
ideas intuitively and by
himself...
All told, it took two years for the
tempest to die down.
Emerson stopped
preaching, though the
concept of religious
self-reliance was the base
of all his later essays and
lectures. But never again
did he talk publicly about
Unitarian doctrines...
The upshot of the
controversy was a renewed
examination of religious
ideas on the part of many
people who were drawn into
the dispute. That made the
whole "tempest"
worthwhile. As Emerson
said, truth can often evolve
from the repeated
confrontation and
reconciliation of opposed
ideas, and the Unitarians
weathered this storm to
celebrate him as one of its
great thinkers.
Washbowl":
Emerson vs. the
Unitarians
American Transcendentalism Web
Ann Woodlief [talk to First Unitarian
Church, Richmond, VA]
Unitarians today like to claim Ralph
Waldo Emerson as one of their own,
and with good reason... Though he
eventually stopped preaching, he
remained a Unitarian until his death
at 79. But he cannot exactly be called
one of the Founding Fathers of
Unitarianism. His relationship
with the Unitarian
establishment and theology
was never simple or very
peaceful, but it makes a
fascinating story. Basically, this is
the story of a young liberal humanist
who challenged the religious
assumptions of his teachers
and elders, who were
themselves liberal for their
time but perhaps not as
humanist as Emerson was.
Emerson was willing to carry
their ideas to their logical
ends, to say what the Unitarians
were not yet ready to admit.
Emerson's ambivalence
about Unitarian thought
emerged subconsciously at
first...Oddly enough, he found his
eyes too weak to read theology,
though they improved remarkably
when he finally turned to other kinds
of reading...
Emerson definitely agreed with the
Unitarians that man has an almost
infinite capacity for good. But he was
developing his own religious
philosophy. Finally, in 1832 he
resigned from the Second Church
because he could no longer
administer in good conscience what
was to him the empty Communion
ritual. Then he took the money that
had been willed to him by Ellen and
he ran--to Europe for a year of travel,
study, and thought, and to escape
the expectations of well-intentioned
friends and family. When he
returned, he supplemented his
income by regular supply preaching,
a ministry that ended shortly after he
delivered his famous Divinity School
Address.
To understand Emerson's
ambivalence about Unitarian
doctrine, it is necessary to know
what that doctrine was. Basically,
Unitarianism developed in the
congregational churches of New
England as a protest against
Calvinist theology. Although
theoretically the dispute centered on
whether God was to be considered
as three persons--the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit--or one God,
it really originated as a reaction to
the Calvinist beliefs in evil,
predestination, and original sin. All
of these were beliefs that focused on
man as a sinner going either to
heaven or hell. The thrust of the
Unitarian church reformers was a
belief in the power of man's reason
and his innate capacity for good.
However, in the 1830s these
Unitarians were terrified that their
belief in man's potential good and in
a unified God would result in their
not being considered as true
Christians. In order to elevate man
as good and God as one, it had
been necessary to de-emphasize
the divine nature of Jesus. "Was
Jesus divine or human?" became a
crucial question. Unitarians were
quite unwilling to cross the line that
would deny Jesus divinity. Their
reason told them they had to
question the miracles and even the
divine nature of Jesus in order to
exalt man and his own capacity for
divinity and to respect the laws of
nature. But they resisted strongly, for
fear that they would no longer be
called Christians. Deep down they
were probably convinced that they
would be damned eternally if they
denied the divinity of Jesus, even if to
do so might increase the potential of
human beings.
Also, remember that the Unitarians
had had control of many
congregational churches for very
short time. If their doctrine appeared
to be unChristian, then they feared
that they would lose this precarious
control, and they were probably right.
So they became highly conservative,
fighting hard to insist that Jesus did
indeed break natural laws by
performing miracles and anyone
who did not agree was just not a real
Christian.
The younger Unitarians... had read
Emerson's book Nature and were
attracted to these exciting ideas,
ideas that said "Man is a god in
ruins," man should be self-reliant
and follow his intuition and feelings
as well as his reason to reach full
self-development. Like Emerson,
they thought that dried-up doctrines
of an earlier time should not get in
the way of original insights.
So, in 1838 the seven
graduating seniors of the
Harvard Divinity School
selected Emerson as a speaker at
the graduation...Emerson took the
pulpit and calmly and confidently lay
siege to some of the Unitarians'
most cherished ideas.
The Divinity School Address sound
innocuous enough to our ears today.
It called for religious self-reliance,
telling us not to depend on the
worn-out doctrines passed down but
to seek out our own convictions.
But to many of those who
heard it in 1838 or read it
when it was later printed,
the address was pure
Transcendental heresy.
A furor erupted in newspapers,
pulpits, and pamphlets against the
Address and Emerson. But
Emerson retreated to his study,
apparently quite calm and above the
storm, and refused to respond
publicly. He called the fuss "a
tempest in a washbowl," but his
journal shows us today that he was
upset by the vehemence of the
attacks against him...
Emerson's former Divinity School
professor, Andrews Norton, who
was usually a cautious and sober
man, wasted no time blasting the
address in the Boston Daily
Advertiser. He called the
graduates accessories to a
crime for inviting a "man
who attacks Christian as a
revelation and the Clergy"
to "deliver an incoherent
rhapsody." He assured his
readers that "We know what the
words God, Religion, Christianity,
mean." He was especially
concerned that "such false
preachers could have a
disastrous effect upon the
religion and moral state of
the community, that general
evil-doing might break out
in the community because
of this speech. Emerson's
response--in his journal only--was "It
is plain from all the noise that there
is atheism somewhere; the only
question is now, Which is the
atheist?" Norton became known
soon as the "hard-headed
Unitarian Pope." But he had
many clergy and
conservatives on his side
who thought Emerson was a
dangerous atheist and even
taught their children that he
was "a sort of a mad dog."
Meanwhile some Unitarian
ministers did come to
Emerson's support. Henry
Ware thought he could undo
the damage by preaching
another sermon in the
"Divinity School on the
"Personality of the Deity."...
Emerson's object was to "call
forth the free spirit" and "to
induce men to think for
themselves on all subjects,
and speak from their own full
hearts, and earnest
convictions," not "to be
slaves to routine, to custom,
to established creeds, to
public opinion, to the great
names of this age or of any
other."
Norton could not let this defense
pass unnoticed. In a sermon he
delivered at the Divinity School in
1839 called "A Discourse on the
Latest Form of Infidelity," he let his
audience know that such self-reliant
religious thinking was disastrous.
He insisted that Christianity must
rely for its existence on the reason
and the testimony of others through
history, and one man is too
imperfect to grasp religious
ideas intuitively and by
himself...
All told, it took two years for the
tempest to die down.
Emerson stopped
preaching, though the
concept of religious
self-reliance was the base
of all his later essays and
lectures. But never again
did he talk publicly about
Unitarian doctrines...
The upshot of the
controversy was a renewed
examination of religious
ideas on the part of many
people who were drawn into
the dispute. That made the
whole "tempest"
worthwhile. As Emerson
said, truth can often evolve
from the repeated
confrontation and
reconciliation of opposed
ideas, and the Unitarians
weathered this storm to
celebrate him as one of its
great thinkers.
Michael Servetus
The Latter Rain
Living between 1511 and 1553, Michael Servetus was the first to discover the
pulmonary circulation of blood. This bold Spaniard was a scientist ahead of his
time and a free-lance theologian of rationalistic temper. Probably the best known
of the Spanish Protestants, Servetus was a native of Villanova who began to take
an interest in theology while studying law in Toulouse. In 1530 he met
Oecolampadius in Basel, to whom he explained his anti-trinitarian views. These
appeared in his book, "Concerning the Errors of the Trinity". When this and
others of his books caused a storm of indignation among the Protestant
reformers, he went to Lyon and worked as a corrector of proof and editor, and
then to Paris, where, under the pseudonym Villeneuve, he studied medicine.
There, incidentally, he discovered the pulmonary circulation of blood, for he
showed that it was carried from the heart to the lungs where it was aerated and
changed color.
Having got into difficulty with the medical faculty for lecturing on astrology,
Servetus left Paris in 1538, set up a private medical practice near Lyon, and, in
1544, became the friend and personal physician of the arch-bishop of Vienna,
still under his assumed name. Servetus still retained his interest in theology and
in 1533 he secretly published his "Restitution of Christianity" a manuscript copy
which he sent to John Calvin in 1546. Servetus had been led to the study of the
trinity by his concern over the stubborn refusal of the Jews and Moors in his
native Spain to be converted to Christianity. The "restitution" aimed to refute the
Nicene conception of the Trinity, which he called "a sort of three-headed
Cerberus", and to substitute an essentially pantheistic conception of God, with a
denial of the pre-existence of Jesus. He also rejected predestination in advance
of his times in the principles of Biblical criticism in that he interpreted Old
Testament prophecies as referring primarily to contemporary events.
Sevetus developed his own doctrines which were clearly heretical. His views
offended virtually all Christians, but especially Calvin. In his book, published in
Basel by his brothers-in-law and intended to replace Calvinism, Servetus
believed Christ was not called the Son of God until He was born, he had a Jewish
idea of the Trinity, and rejected infant baptism. When it was discovered that
Severetus had written the "Restitution", he was denounced as a heretic before
the court of the Inquisition at Vienne, arrested, escaped from prison and fled.
This had now earned him two death sentences from the Inquisition.
Servetus was perhaps too bold and prone to recklessness. On his way to
Italy Servetus foolishly stopped at Geneva and visited the church in which Calvin
was preaching. He was recognized, arrested, thrown into prison, and, after a long
trial, the Genevan Council sentenced Servetus to the stake.
It was through direct evidence supplied by Calvin that Servetus suffered
these injustices and condemned by the French Inquisition to death by a
slow fire. Servetus was refused an advocate at the trial, being told with
grim humor that he could lie well enough without one. The Spaniard was
found guilty on heresy on three primary charges: denying the Trinity,
declaring that infant baptism was an invention of the devil, and attacking
the doctrines of the Church of Geneva. During the trial, Calvin called
Servetus a "villainous cur". Calvin had wished the death be more
merciful than burning and that he should be beheaded, but he had
worked to secure the execution, some good men believed that the
severity should be blamed upon him. On October 27, 1553, the torch was
lit and in half an hour the spectators were satisfied. Disbelieving what
was happening to him, he was burned at the stake over green wood so
that it took three hours for him to die. Servetus met his death with
steadfastness and prayer, calling upon the Son of the eternal God to
grant him mercy.
The bigot and tyrant, John Calvin, never regretted the part
he played in the case against Servetus and wrote a book
defending his position. And though the leading Protestant
divines supported Calvin's view that the execution had
been more than justified,
The Latter Rain
Living between 1511 and 1553, Michael Servetus was the first to discover the
pulmonary circulation of blood. This bold Spaniard was a scientist ahead of his
time and a free-lance theologian of rationalistic temper. Probably the best known
of the Spanish Protestants, Servetus was a native of Villanova who began to take
an interest in theology while studying law in Toulouse. In 1530 he met
Oecolampadius in Basel, to whom he explained his anti-trinitarian views. These
appeared in his book, "Concerning the Errors of the Trinity". When this and
others of his books caused a storm of indignation among the Protestant
reformers, he went to Lyon and worked as a corrector of proof and editor, and
then to Paris, where, under the pseudonym Villeneuve, he studied medicine.
There, incidentally, he discovered the pulmonary circulation of blood, for he
showed that it was carried from the heart to the lungs where it was aerated and
changed color.
Having got into difficulty with the medical faculty for lecturing on astrology,
Servetus left Paris in 1538, set up a private medical practice near Lyon, and, in
1544, became the friend and personal physician of the arch-bishop of Vienna,
still under his assumed name. Servetus still retained his interest in theology and
in 1533 he secretly published his "Restitution of Christianity" a manuscript copy
which he sent to John Calvin in 1546. Servetus had been led to the study of the
trinity by his concern over the stubborn refusal of the Jews and Moors in his
native Spain to be converted to Christianity. The "restitution" aimed to refute the
Nicene conception of the Trinity, which he called "a sort of three-headed
Cerberus", and to substitute an essentially pantheistic conception of God, with a
denial of the pre-existence of Jesus. He also rejected predestination in advance
of his times in the principles of Biblical criticism in that he interpreted Old
Testament prophecies as referring primarily to contemporary events.
Sevetus developed his own doctrines which were clearly heretical. His views
offended virtually all Christians, but especially Calvin. In his book, published in
Basel by his brothers-in-law and intended to replace Calvinism, Servetus
believed Christ was not called the Son of God until He was born, he had a Jewish
idea of the Trinity, and rejected infant baptism. When it was discovered that
Severetus had written the "Restitution", he was denounced as a heretic before
the court of the Inquisition at Vienne, arrested, escaped from prison and fled.
This had now earned him two death sentences from the Inquisition.
Servetus was perhaps too bold and prone to recklessness. On his way to
Italy Servetus foolishly stopped at Geneva and visited the church in which Calvin
was preaching. He was recognized, arrested, thrown into prison, and, after a long
trial, the Genevan Council sentenced Servetus to the stake.
It was through direct evidence supplied by Calvin that Servetus suffered
these injustices and condemned by the French Inquisition to death by a
slow fire. Servetus was refused an advocate at the trial, being told with
grim humor that he could lie well enough without one. The Spaniard was
found guilty on heresy on three primary charges: denying the Trinity,
declaring that infant baptism was an invention of the devil, and attacking
the doctrines of the Church of Geneva. During the trial, Calvin called
Servetus a "villainous cur". Calvin had wished the death be more
merciful than burning and that he should be beheaded, but he had
worked to secure the execution, some good men believed that the
severity should be blamed upon him. On October 27, 1553, the torch was
lit and in half an hour the spectators were satisfied. Disbelieving what
was happening to him, he was burned at the stake over green wood so
that it took three hours for him to die. Servetus met his death with
steadfastness and prayer, calling upon the Son of the eternal God to
grant him mercy.
The bigot and tyrant, John Calvin, never regretted the part
he played in the case against Servetus and wrote a book
defending his position. And though the leading Protestant
divines supported Calvin's view that the execution had
been more than justified,
"As we celebrate our 50th
Anniversary as the Unitarian
Universalist Association, I feel
stirring in our evolution. A
feeling of the possible." —Rev.
David Miller of UU Fellowship of
San Dieguito in Solana Beach
Anniversary as the Unitarian
Universalist Association, I feel
stirring in our evolution. A
feeling of the possible." —Rev.
David Miller of UU Fellowship of
San Dieguito in Solana Beach
"We can see in someone like Bentley how the Puritan commitment to
scholarship and Salem's earlier history informed the developing Unitarian
theology, which encouraged the use of reason in interpreting the Bible and
fostered religious toleration.
By 1800, the First Church in Salem had split into four different churches,
three of them Unitarian and one of them Congregational..."
The First Church in Salem, Unitarian
A "Short" History of the First Church in Salem
by the Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell
The First Church in Salem is one of the oldest churches founded in North
America. Its 377-year history began when thirty of the newly arrived Puritan
settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gathered together to form a church on
August 6, 1629. Among the members present were Roger Conant, the founder
of Salem, and John Endicott, the first Governor of the Colony. On that day, the
church called two Puritan ministers who had made the voyage from England with
the other colonists. The Rev. Samuel Skelton became the church's first Pastor
and the Rev. Francis Higginson was called as the church's first Teacher. It was
Rev. Higginson who composed the now famous Salem Covenant at its founding,
the very same covenant that has been used by each generation of church
members down through the centuries and is recited even today during the
weekly Sunday services:
We Covenant with the Lord and one with another,
And doe bynd our selves together in the presence of God,
To walke to together in all His waies,
According as he is pleased to reveale him self unto us,
In his Blessed word of truth.
It is clear that the Puritans who founded the First Church in Salem saw
themselves as being on pilgrimage to the City of God, to use the famous
Augustinian metaphor. As a result, they believed that they could somehow
perfect their world and community. Along with the Salem Covenant and its
language of "walking together," this belief in the church's ability to move towards
the Kingdom of God here in this world has reverberated down through the
centuries, inspiring and informing how the church developed. While the original
Calvinist theology of the founders transformed over time, some of the Puritan
values and practices have remained.
The First Church describes itself as not only one of the oldest protestant
churches founded in North America but also the first to be governed by
congregational polity. This qualification represents an amicable concession to
First Parish Church in Plymouth, which was formed by English Separatists in
Holland who then migrated to what became Plymouth in 1620. To this day,
members of the First Church are proud of their history as the original Puritan
church founded on these shores. They are also proud to be the place where
congregationalism began. Since its founding, the First Church has been
democratically governed by its voting members. The precedent for
self-government without the aid of bishops or presbyteries began here in Salem.
This independent-minded streak has been the source of the church's greatest
achievements and its worst failures over the centuries.
...[O]ther well-known individuals from the early history of the church include the
Rev. John Higginson, whose ministry spanned an incredible 48 years from 1660
to 1708. Rev. Higginson was the son of the church's first Teacher, Francis
Higginson. The church to this day retains its earliest records because of efforts
of this Rev. Higginson. In or around 1660, he took it upon himself to start a new
record book, seeing that the old one was "wett and torne." He copied all of the
old entries into this new volume, thereby saving the records for the first 31 years
of the church as a result. The record book he started was used until 1734 and
remains a prized possession of the First Church.
During Higginson's tenure, Salem and the Colony experienced significant growth
but also major upheaval, punctuated by political events in England and assorted
conflicts and battles with the Native Americans here in the colonies. This anxiety
became the backdrop for the most infamous episode of the church. For the
record, many people in Salem like to point out that the witch episode really
began in Salem Village, or modern day Danvers. In 1692, a few teenage girls
reported seeing visions and accused several members of the Salem Village
church of witchcraft. One of the girls was the nine-year-old daughter of the
parish minister, the Rev. Samuel Parris. Hysteria spread throughout Essex
County that resulted in some 138 people being arrested and imprisoned. Twenty
people were tried for witchcraft and executed. Members of this church caught up
in the hysteria included Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey, who were full members
of the First Church until they were excommunicated and sent to their deaths. For
the record, their memberships were formally reinstated during the Tercentennial
observance of the Witch Trials in 1992. At that time, an appropriately somber
memorial was erected in downtown Salem to remember the 20 people who lost
their lives during one New England's darkest episodes.
As for others who were involved during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, perhaps
the most well known is the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, the "junior" minister of the First
Church. Noyes fanned the flames of religious hysteria as a vocal persecutor of
the accused during the trials. Unlike Samuel Sewall and John Higginson, he
never expressed remorse for his involvement in the hysteria. It is said that he
died of a curse since one of the accused witches at her execution is reported to
have told him that "God will give you blood to drink." In 1717 Noyes apparently
died of an unusual throat disorder during which he asphyxiated on his own
blood. This local story later inspired the 19th Century Salem author Nathaniel
Hawthorne; in The House of the Seven Gables, Judge Pyncheon is cursed in a
similar way.
Hawthorne was a direct descendant of one of the judges during the witch trials
and was clearly influenced by his family's Puritan heritage in Salem. Like many
of his fellow Unitarians, Hawthorne creatively rebelled against the harsh theology
and opinions of his Puritan forbears.
In some ways, Hawthorne embodies a paradigmatic figure for what transpired in
Salem in general as a result of the witch hysteria. Those of us who live in Salem
believe that what is most interesting about our city is not what happened in
1692, but rather what occurred as a result.
In the decades following the Witch Trials, Salem began to change and become
more cosmopolitan and worldly. During the 18th Century, Salem flourished as a
center of maritime activity becoming an important port. During this period, the
First Church split several times, first to meet the needs of the growing population
in Salem and then because of arguments over ministers. Once again the fierce
belief in independence and self-governance asserted itself...
We can see in someone like Bentley how the Puritan commitment to
scholarship and Salem's earlier history informed the developing
Unitarian theology, which encouraged the use of reason in interpreting
the Bible and fostered religious toleration.
By 1800, the First Church in Salem had split into four different churches,
three of them Unitarian and one of them Congregational...
scholarship and Salem's earlier history informed the developing Unitarian
theology, which encouraged the use of reason in interpreting the Bible and
fostered religious toleration.
By 1800, the First Church in Salem had split into four different churches,
three of them Unitarian and one of them Congregational..."
The First Church in Salem, Unitarian
A "Short" History of the First Church in Salem
by the Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell
The First Church in Salem is one of the oldest churches founded in North
America. Its 377-year history began when thirty of the newly arrived Puritan
settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gathered together to form a church on
August 6, 1629. Among the members present were Roger Conant, the founder
of Salem, and John Endicott, the first Governor of the Colony. On that day, the
church called two Puritan ministers who had made the voyage from England with
the other colonists. The Rev. Samuel Skelton became the church's first Pastor
and the Rev. Francis Higginson was called as the church's first Teacher. It was
Rev. Higginson who composed the now famous Salem Covenant at its founding,
the very same covenant that has been used by each generation of church
members down through the centuries and is recited even today during the
weekly Sunday services:
We Covenant with the Lord and one with another,
And doe bynd our selves together in the presence of God,
To walke to together in all His waies,
According as he is pleased to reveale him self unto us,
In his Blessed word of truth.
It is clear that the Puritans who founded the First Church in Salem saw
themselves as being on pilgrimage to the City of God, to use the famous
Augustinian metaphor. As a result, they believed that they could somehow
perfect their world and community. Along with the Salem Covenant and its
language of "walking together," this belief in the church's ability to move towards
the Kingdom of God here in this world has reverberated down through the
centuries, inspiring and informing how the church developed. While the original
Calvinist theology of the founders transformed over time, some of the Puritan
values and practices have remained.
The First Church describes itself as not only one of the oldest protestant
churches founded in North America but also the first to be governed by
congregational polity. This qualification represents an amicable concession to
First Parish Church in Plymouth, which was formed by English Separatists in
Holland who then migrated to what became Plymouth in 1620. To this day,
members of the First Church are proud of their history as the original Puritan
church founded on these shores. They are also proud to be the place where
congregationalism began. Since its founding, the First Church has been
democratically governed by its voting members. The precedent for
self-government without the aid of bishops or presbyteries began here in Salem.
This independent-minded streak has been the source of the church's greatest
achievements and its worst failures over the centuries.
...[O]ther well-known individuals from the early history of the church include the
Rev. John Higginson, whose ministry spanned an incredible 48 years from 1660
to 1708. Rev. Higginson was the son of the church's first Teacher, Francis
Higginson. The church to this day retains its earliest records because of efforts
of this Rev. Higginson. In or around 1660, he took it upon himself to start a new
record book, seeing that the old one was "wett and torne." He copied all of the
old entries into this new volume, thereby saving the records for the first 31 years
of the church as a result. The record book he started was used until 1734 and
remains a prized possession of the First Church.
During Higginson's tenure, Salem and the Colony experienced significant growth
but also major upheaval, punctuated by political events in England and assorted
conflicts and battles with the Native Americans here in the colonies. This anxiety
became the backdrop for the most infamous episode of the church. For the
record, many people in Salem like to point out that the witch episode really
began in Salem Village, or modern day Danvers. In 1692, a few teenage girls
reported seeing visions and accused several members of the Salem Village
church of witchcraft. One of the girls was the nine-year-old daughter of the
parish minister, the Rev. Samuel Parris. Hysteria spread throughout Essex
County that resulted in some 138 people being arrested and imprisoned. Twenty
people were tried for witchcraft and executed. Members of this church caught up
in the hysteria included Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey, who were full members
of the First Church until they were excommunicated and sent to their deaths. For
the record, their memberships were formally reinstated during the Tercentennial
observance of the Witch Trials in 1992. At that time, an appropriately somber
memorial was erected in downtown Salem to remember the 20 people who lost
their lives during one New England's darkest episodes.
As for others who were involved during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, perhaps
the most well known is the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, the "junior" minister of the First
Church. Noyes fanned the flames of religious hysteria as a vocal persecutor of
the accused during the trials. Unlike Samuel Sewall and John Higginson, he
never expressed remorse for his involvement in the hysteria. It is said that he
died of a curse since one of the accused witches at her execution is reported to
have told him that "God will give you blood to drink." In 1717 Noyes apparently
died of an unusual throat disorder during which he asphyxiated on his own
blood. This local story later inspired the 19th Century Salem author Nathaniel
Hawthorne; in The House of the Seven Gables, Judge Pyncheon is cursed in a
similar way.
Hawthorne was a direct descendant of one of the judges during the witch trials
and was clearly influenced by his family's Puritan heritage in Salem. Like many
of his fellow Unitarians, Hawthorne creatively rebelled against the harsh theology
and opinions of his Puritan forbears.
In some ways, Hawthorne embodies a paradigmatic figure for what transpired in
Salem in general as a result of the witch hysteria. Those of us who live in Salem
believe that what is most interesting about our city is not what happened in
1692, but rather what occurred as a result.
In the decades following the Witch Trials, Salem began to change and become
more cosmopolitan and worldly. During the 18th Century, Salem flourished as a
center of maritime activity becoming an important port. During this period, the
First Church split several times, first to meet the needs of the growing population
in Salem and then because of arguments over ministers. Once again the fierce
belief in independence and self-governance asserted itself...
We can see in someone like Bentley how the Puritan commitment to
scholarship and Salem's earlier history informed the developing
Unitarian theology, which encouraged the use of reason in interpreting
the Bible and fostered religious toleration.
By 1800, the First Church in Salem had split into four different churches,
three of them Unitarian and one of them Congregational...
Life in Salem 1692;
Religion and Witchcraft
Church was the cornerstone
of 17th century life in New
England. Most people in
Massachusetts were
Puritans—colonists who had
left England seeking
religious tolerance. But the
strict Puritan code was far
from tolerant. It was against
the law not to attend
church—where men and
women sat on opposite sides
through long services. The
Puritan lifestyle was
restrained and rigid: People
were expected to work hard
and repress their emotions
or opinions. Individual
differences were frowned
upon. Even the dark,
somber Puritan dress was
dictated by the church.
Since Puritans were
expected to live by a rigid
moral code, they believed
that all sins—from sleeping
in church to stealing food—
should be punished. They
also believed God would
punish sinful behavior.
When a neighbor would
suffer misfortune, such as a
sick child or a failed crop,
Puritans saw it as God’s will
and did not help.
Puritans also believed the
Devil was as real as God.
Everyone was faced with the
struggle between the powers
of good and evil, but Satan
would select the weakest
individuals—women,
children, the insane—to
carry out his work. Those
who followed Satan were
considered witches.
Witchcraft was one of the
greatest crimes a person
could commit, punishable by
death.
In keeping with the Puritan
code of conformity, the first
women to be accused of
witchcraft in Salem were
seen as different and as
social outcasts: Tituba, a
slave; Sarah Good, a
homeless beggar; and
Sarah Osborne, a sickly old
woman who married her
servant.
Fear of magic and witchcraft
was common in New
England, as it had been in
Europe for centuries. Over
100 alleged witches had
been tried and hanged in
New England during the
1600s. But the hangings in
1692 Salem would be the
last ones in America.
Religion and Witchcraft
Church was the cornerstone
of 17th century life in New
England. Most people in
Massachusetts were
Puritans—colonists who had
left England seeking
religious tolerance. But the
strict Puritan code was far
from tolerant. It was against
the law not to attend
church—where men and
women sat on opposite sides
through long services. The
Puritan lifestyle was
restrained and rigid: People
were expected to work hard
and repress their emotions
or opinions. Individual
differences were frowned
upon. Even the dark,
somber Puritan dress was
dictated by the church.
Since Puritans were
expected to live by a rigid
moral code, they believed
that all sins—from sleeping
in church to stealing food—
should be punished. They
also believed God would
punish sinful behavior.
When a neighbor would
suffer misfortune, such as a
sick child or a failed crop,
Puritans saw it as God’s will
and did not help.
Puritans also believed the
Devil was as real as God.
Everyone was faced with the
struggle between the powers
of good and evil, but Satan
would select the weakest
individuals—women,
children, the insane—to
carry out his work. Those
who followed Satan were
considered witches.
Witchcraft was one of the
greatest crimes a person
could commit, punishable by
death.
In keeping with the Puritan
code of conformity, the first
women to be accused of
witchcraft in Salem were
seen as different and as
social outcasts: Tituba, a
slave; Sarah Good, a
homeless beggar; and
Sarah Osborne, a sickly old
woman who married her
servant.
Fear of magic and witchcraft
was common in New
England, as it had been in
Europe for centuries. Over
100 alleged witches had
been tried and hanged in
New England during the
1600s. But the hangings in
1692 Salem would be the
last ones in America.
Unitarian Universalist
Origins: Our Historic Faith
By Mark W. Harris
Unitarians and Universalists
have always been heretics.
We are heretics because we
want to choose our faith, not
because we desire to be
rebellious. “Heresy” in
Greek means “choice.”
During the first three
centuries of the Christian
church, believers could
choose from a variety of
tenets about Jesus. Among
these was a belief that
Jesus was an entity sent by
God on a divine mission.
Thus the word “Unitarian”
developed, meaning the
oneness of God. Another
religious choice in the first
three centuries of the
Common Era (CE) was
universal salvation. This
was the belief that no
person would be
condemned by God to
eternal damnation in a fiery
pit. Thus a Universalist
believed that all people will
be saved. Christianity lost
its element of choice in 325
CE when the Nicene Creed
established the Trinity as
dogma. For centuries
thereafter, people who
professed Unitarian or
Universalist beliefs were
persecuted.
This was true until the
sixteenth century when the
Protestant Reformation took
hold in the remote
mountains of Transylvania
in eastern Europe. Here the
first edict of religious
toleration in history was
declared in 1568 during the
reign of the first and only
Unitarian king, John
Sigismund. Sigismund’ s
court preacher, Frances
David, had successively
converted from Catholicism
to Lutheranism to Calvinism
and finally to Unitarianism
because he could find no
biblical basis for the
doctrine of the Trinity.
Arguing that people should
be allowed to choose
among these faiths, he said,
“We need not think alike to
love alike.”
In sixteenth-century
Transylvania, Unitarian
congregations were
established for the first time
in history. These churches
continue to preach the
Unitarian message in
present-day Romania. Like
their heretic forebears from
ancient times. these liberals
could not see how the
deification of a human being
or the simple recitation of
creeds could help them to
live better lives. They said
that we must follow Jesus,
not worship him.
During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries,
Unitarianism appeared
briefly in scattered
locations. A Unitarian
community in Rakow,
Poland, flourished for a
time, and a book called On
the Errors of the Trinity by a
Spaniard, Michael Servetus,
was circulated throughout
Europe. But persecution
frequently followed these
believers. The Polish
Unitarians were completely
suppressed, and Michael
Servetus was burned at the
stake. [See separate article
above about Servetus,
whose death was plotted by
John Calvin.]
Even where the harassment
was not so extreme, people
still opposed the idea of
choice in matters of
religious faith. In 1791,
scientist and Unitarian
minister Joseph Priestley
had his laboratory burned
and was hounded out of
England. He fled to America
where he established
American Unitarian
churches in the Philadelphia
area.
Despite these European
connections, Unitarianism
as we know it in North
America is not a foreign
import. In fact, the origins of
our faith began with some of
the most historic
congregations in Puritan
New England where each
town was required to
establish a congregationally
independent church that
followed Calvinist doctrines.
Initially these
congregational churches
offered no religious choice
for their parishioners, but
over time the strict doctrines
of original sin and
predestination began to
mellow.
By the mid-1700s a group of
evangelicals were calling for
the revival of Puritan
orthodoxy. They asserted
their belief in humanity’s
eternal bondage to sin.
People who opposed the
revival, believing in free
human will and the loving
benevolence of God,
eventually became
Unitarian. During the first
four decades of the
nineteenth century,
hundreds of these original
congregational churches
fought over ideas about sin
and salvation, and
especially over the doctrine
of the Trinity. Most of the
churches split over these
issues. In 1819, Unitarian
minister William Ellery
Channing delivered a
sermon called “Unitarian
Christianity” and helped to
give the Unitarians a strong
platform. Six years later the
American Unitarian
Association was organized
in Boston, MA.
Universalism developed in
America in at least three
distinct geographical
locations. The earliest
preachers of the gospel of
universal salvation
appeared in what were later
the Middle Atlantic and
Southern states. By 1781,
Elhanan Winchester had
organized a Philadelphia
congregation of Universal
Baptists. among its
members was Benjamin
Rush, the famous physician
and signer of the
Declaration of
Independence.
At about the same time, in
the rural, interior sections of
New England, a small
number of itinerant
preachers, among then
Caleb Rich, began to
disbelieve the strict Calvinist
doctrines of eternal
punishment. They
discovered from their biblical
studies the new revelation of
God’s loving redemption of
all. John Murray, an English
preacher who immigrated in
1770, helped lead the first
Universalist church in
Gloucester, MA, in the
battle to separate church
and state.
From its beginnings,
Universalism challenged its
members to reach out and
embrace people whom
society often marginalized.
The Gloucester church
included a freed slave
among its charter members,
and the Universalists
became the first
denomination to ordain
women to the ministry,
beginning in 1863 with
Olympia Brown.
Universalism was a more
evangelical faith than
Unitarianism. After officially
organizing in 1793, the
Universalists spread their
faith across the eastern
United States and Canada.
Hosea Ballou became the
denomination’s greatest
leader during the nineteenth
century, and he and his
followers, including
Nathaniel Stacy, led the way
in spreading their faith.
Other preachers followed
the advice of Universalist
publisher Horace Greeley
and went West. One such
person was Thomas Starr
King, who is credited with
defining the difference
between Unitarians and
Universalists: “Universalists
believe that God is too good
to damn people, and the
Unitarians believe that
people are too good to be
damned by God.” The
Universalists believed in a
God who embraced
everyone, and this
eventually became central
to their belief that lasting
truth is found in all religions,
and that dignity and worth is
innate to all people
regardless of sex, color,
race, or class.
Growing out of this inclusive
theology was a lasting
impetus in both
denominations to create a
more just society. Both
Unitarians and Universalists
became active participants
in many social justice
movements in the
nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Unitarian
preacher Theodore Parker
was a prominent abolitionist,
defending fugitive slaves
and offering support to
American abolitionist John
Brown.
Other reformers included
Universalists such as
Charles Spear who called
for prison reform, and Clara
Barton who went from Civil
War “angel of the
battlefield” to become the
founder of the American
Red Cross. Unitarians such
as Dorothea Dix fought to
“break the chains” of people
incarcerated in mental
hospitals, and Samuel
Gridley Howe started
schools for the blind. For
the last two centuries,
Unitarians and Universalists
have been at the forefront
of movements working to
free people from whatever
bonds may oppress them.
Two thousand years ago
liberals were persecuted for
seeking the freedom to
make religious choices, but
such freedom has become
central to both Unitarianism
and Universalism. As early
as the 1830s, both groups
were studying and
promulgating texts from
world religions other than
Christianity. By the
beginning of the twentieth
century, humanists within
both traditions advocated
that people could be
religious without believing in
God. No one person, no
one religion, can embrace
all religious truths.
By the middle of the
twentieth century it became
clear that Unitarians and
Universalists could have a
stronger liberal religious
voice if they merged their
efforts, and they did so in
1961, forming the Unitarian
Universalist Association...
Origins: Our Historic Faith
By Mark W. Harris
Unitarians and Universalists
have always been heretics.
We are heretics because we
want to choose our faith, not
because we desire to be
rebellious. “Heresy” in
Greek means “choice.”
During the first three
centuries of the Christian
church, believers could
choose from a variety of
tenets about Jesus. Among
these was a belief that
Jesus was an entity sent by
God on a divine mission.
Thus the word “Unitarian”
developed, meaning the
oneness of God. Another
religious choice in the first
three centuries of the
Common Era (CE) was
universal salvation. This
was the belief that no
person would be
condemned by God to
eternal damnation in a fiery
pit. Thus a Universalist
believed that all people will
be saved. Christianity lost
its element of choice in 325
CE when the Nicene Creed
established the Trinity as
dogma. For centuries
thereafter, people who
professed Unitarian or
Universalist beliefs were
persecuted.
This was true until the
sixteenth century when the
Protestant Reformation took
hold in the remote
mountains of Transylvania
in eastern Europe. Here the
first edict of religious
toleration in history was
declared in 1568 during the
reign of the first and only
Unitarian king, John
Sigismund. Sigismund’ s
court preacher, Frances
David, had successively
converted from Catholicism
to Lutheranism to Calvinism
and finally to Unitarianism
because he could find no
biblical basis for the
doctrine of the Trinity.
Arguing that people should
be allowed to choose
among these faiths, he said,
“We need not think alike to
love alike.”
In sixteenth-century
Transylvania, Unitarian
congregations were
established for the first time
in history. These churches
continue to preach the
Unitarian message in
present-day Romania. Like
their heretic forebears from
ancient times. these liberals
could not see how the
deification of a human being
or the simple recitation of
creeds could help them to
live better lives. They said
that we must follow Jesus,
not worship him.
During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries,
Unitarianism appeared
briefly in scattered
locations. A Unitarian
community in Rakow,
Poland, flourished for a
time, and a book called On
the Errors of the Trinity by a
Spaniard, Michael Servetus,
was circulated throughout
Europe. But persecution
frequently followed these
believers. The Polish
Unitarians were completely
suppressed, and Michael
Servetus was burned at the
stake. [See separate article
above about Servetus,
whose death was plotted by
John Calvin.]
Even where the harassment
was not so extreme, people
still opposed the idea of
choice in matters of
religious faith. In 1791,
scientist and Unitarian
minister Joseph Priestley
had his laboratory burned
and was hounded out of
England. He fled to America
where he established
American Unitarian
churches in the Philadelphia
area.
Despite these European
connections, Unitarianism
as we know it in North
America is not a foreign
import. In fact, the origins of
our faith began with some of
the most historic
congregations in Puritan
New England where each
town was required to
establish a congregationally
independent church that
followed Calvinist doctrines.
Initially these
congregational churches
offered no religious choice
for their parishioners, but
over time the strict doctrines
of original sin and
predestination began to
mellow.
By the mid-1700s a group of
evangelicals were calling for
the revival of Puritan
orthodoxy. They asserted
their belief in humanity’s
eternal bondage to sin.
People who opposed the
revival, believing in free
human will and the loving
benevolence of God,
eventually became
Unitarian. During the first
four decades of the
nineteenth century,
hundreds of these original
congregational churches
fought over ideas about sin
and salvation, and
especially over the doctrine
of the Trinity. Most of the
churches split over these
issues. In 1819, Unitarian
minister William Ellery
Channing delivered a
sermon called “Unitarian
Christianity” and helped to
give the Unitarians a strong
platform. Six years later the
American Unitarian
Association was organized
in Boston, MA.
Universalism developed in
America in at least three
distinct geographical
locations. The earliest
preachers of the gospel of
universal salvation
appeared in what were later
the Middle Atlantic and
Southern states. By 1781,
Elhanan Winchester had
organized a Philadelphia
congregation of Universal
Baptists. among its
members was Benjamin
Rush, the famous physician
and signer of the
Declaration of
Independence.
At about the same time, in
the rural, interior sections of
New England, a small
number of itinerant
preachers, among then
Caleb Rich, began to
disbelieve the strict Calvinist
doctrines of eternal
punishment. They
discovered from their biblical
studies the new revelation of
God’s loving redemption of
all. John Murray, an English
preacher who immigrated in
1770, helped lead the first
Universalist church in
Gloucester, MA, in the
battle to separate church
and state.
From its beginnings,
Universalism challenged its
members to reach out and
embrace people whom
society often marginalized.
The Gloucester church
included a freed slave
among its charter members,
and the Universalists
became the first
denomination to ordain
women to the ministry,
beginning in 1863 with
Olympia Brown.
Universalism was a more
evangelical faith than
Unitarianism. After officially
organizing in 1793, the
Universalists spread their
faith across the eastern
United States and Canada.
Hosea Ballou became the
denomination’s greatest
leader during the nineteenth
century, and he and his
followers, including
Nathaniel Stacy, led the way
in spreading their faith.
Other preachers followed
the advice of Universalist
publisher Horace Greeley
and went West. One such
person was Thomas Starr
King, who is credited with
defining the difference
between Unitarians and
Universalists: “Universalists
believe that God is too good
to damn people, and the
Unitarians believe that
people are too good to be
damned by God.” The
Universalists believed in a
God who embraced
everyone, and this
eventually became central
to their belief that lasting
truth is found in all religions,
and that dignity and worth is
innate to all people
regardless of sex, color,
race, or class.
Growing out of this inclusive
theology was a lasting
impetus in both
denominations to create a
more just society. Both
Unitarians and Universalists
became active participants
in many social justice
movements in the
nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Unitarian
preacher Theodore Parker
was a prominent abolitionist,
defending fugitive slaves
and offering support to
American abolitionist John
Brown.
Other reformers included
Universalists such as
Charles Spear who called
for prison reform, and Clara
Barton who went from Civil
War “angel of the
battlefield” to become the
founder of the American
Red Cross. Unitarians such
as Dorothea Dix fought to
“break the chains” of people
incarcerated in mental
hospitals, and Samuel
Gridley Howe started
schools for the blind. For
the last two centuries,
Unitarians and Universalists
have been at the forefront
of movements working to
free people from whatever
bonds may oppress them.
Two thousand years ago
liberals were persecuted for
seeking the freedom to
make religious choices, but
such freedom has become
central to both Unitarianism
and Universalism. As early
as the 1830s, both groups
were studying and
promulgating texts from
world religions other than
Christianity. By the
beginning of the twentieth
century, humanists within
both traditions advocated
that people could be
religious without believing in
God. No one person, no
one religion, can embrace
all religious truths.
By the middle of the
twentieth century it became
clear that Unitarians and
Universalists could have a
stronger liberal religious
voice if they merged their
efforts, and they did so in
1961, forming the Unitarian
Universalist Association...
San Diego
Education Report
Education Report
Why This Website
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Study: Narcissism On
Rise In Pop Lyrics
NPR
April 26, 2011
A psychology
professor at the
University of Kentucky
analyzed hit songs
between 1980 and
2007 and found a
correlation between
egotistical song lyrics
and increasing
narcissism in society.
Michele Norris talks
with Dr. Nathan
DeWall about his
study.
Rise In Pop Lyrics
NPR
April 26, 2011
A psychology
professor at the
University of Kentucky
analyzed hit songs
between 1980 and
2007 and found a
correlation between
egotistical song lyrics
and increasing
narcissism in society.
Michele Norris talks
with Dr. Nathan
DeWall about his
study.
A Generation’s Vanity,
Heard Through Lyrics
By JOHN TIERNEY
New York Times
April 25, 2011
A couple of years ago,
as his fellow
psychologists debated
whether narcissism
was increasing, Nathan
DeWall heard Rivers
Cuomo singing to a
familiar 19th-century
melody. Mr. Cuomo,
the lead singer and
guitarist for the rock
band Weezer, billed
the song as “Variations
on a Shaker Hymn.”
Where 19th-century
Shakers had sung “ ’
Tis the gift to be
simple, ’tis the gift to
be free,” Mr. Cuomo
offered his own lyrics: “I’
m the meanest in the
place, step up, I’ll mess
with your face.” Instead
of the Shaker message
of love and humility,
Mr. Cuomo sang over
and over, “I’m the
greatest man that ever
lived.”
The refrain got Dr.
DeWall wondering:
“Who would actually
sing that aloud?” Mr.
Cuomo may have been
parodying the
grandiosity of other
singers — but then,
why was there so much
grandiosity to parody?
Did the change from
“Simple Gifts” to
“Greatest Man That
Ever Lived” exemplify a
broader trend?
Now, after a computer
analysis of three
decades of hit songs,
Dr. DeWall and other
psychologists report
finding what they were
looking for: a
statistically significant
trend toward
narcissism and hostility
in popular music. As
they hypothesized, the
words “I” and “me”
appear more
frequently along with
anger-related words,
while there’s been a
corresponding decline
in “we” and “us” and
the expression of
positive emotions.
“Late adolescents and
college students love
themselves more today
than ever before,” Dr.
DeWall, a psychologist
at the University of
Kentucky, says. His
study covered song
lyrics from 1980 to
2007 and controlled for
genre to prevent the
results from being
skewed by the growing
popularity of, say, rap
and hip-hop.
Defining the personality
of a generation with
song lyrics may seem a
bit of a reach, but Dr.
DeWall points to
research done by his co-
authors that showed
people of the same age
scoring higher in
measures of narcissism
on some personality
tests. The extent and
meaning of this trend
have been hotly
debated by
psychologists, some of
whom question the tests’
usefulness and say that
young people today
aren’t any more self-
centered than those of
earlier generations. The
new study of song lyrics
certainly won’t end the
debate, but it does offer
another way to gauge
self-absorption: the
Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The researchers find
that hit songs in the
1980s were more likely
to emphasize happy
togetherness, like the
racial harmony sought
by Paul McCartney and
Stevie Wonder in
“Ebony and Ivory” and
the group exuberance
promoted by Kool & the
Gang: “Let’s all
celebrate and have a
good time.” Diana Ross
and Lionel Richie sang
of “two hearts that beat
as one,” and John
Lennon’s “(Just Like)
Starting Over”
emphasized the
preciousness of “our life
together.”
Today’s songs,
according to the
researchers’ linguistic
analysis, are more
likely be about one
very special person:
the singer. “I’m
bringing sexy back,”
Justin Timberlake
proclaimed in 2006.
The year before,
Beyoncé exulted in
how hot she looked
while dancing — “It’s
blazin’, you watch me
in amazement.” And
Fergie, who boasted
about her “humps”
while singing with the
Black Eyed Peas,
subsequently released
a solo album in which
she told her lover that
she needed quality
time alone: “It’s
personal, myself and I.”
Two of Dr. DeWall’s co-
authors, W. Keith
Campbell and Jean M.
Twenge, published a
book in 2009 titled
“The Narcissism
Epidemic," which
argued that narcissism
is increasingly
prevalent among
young people — and
possibly middle-aged
people, too, although it’
s hard for anyone to
know because most of
the available data
comes from college
students.
For several decades,
students have filled out
a questionnaire called
the Narcissism
Personality Inventory, in
which they’ve had to
choose between two
statements like “I try not
to be a show-off” and “I
will usually show off if I
get the chance.” The
level of narcissism
measured by these
questionnaires has
been rising since the
early 1980s, according
to an analysis of
campus data by Dr.
Twenge and Dr.
Campbell.
Heard Through Lyrics
By JOHN TIERNEY
New York Times
April 25, 2011
A couple of years ago,
as his fellow
psychologists debated
whether narcissism
was increasing, Nathan
DeWall heard Rivers
Cuomo singing to a
familiar 19th-century
melody. Mr. Cuomo,
the lead singer and
guitarist for the rock
band Weezer, billed
the song as “Variations
on a Shaker Hymn.”
Where 19th-century
Shakers had sung “ ’
Tis the gift to be
simple, ’tis the gift to
be free,” Mr. Cuomo
offered his own lyrics: “I’
m the meanest in the
place, step up, I’ll mess
with your face.” Instead
of the Shaker message
of love and humility,
Mr. Cuomo sang over
and over, “I’m the
greatest man that ever
lived.”
The refrain got Dr.
DeWall wondering:
“Who would actually
sing that aloud?” Mr.
Cuomo may have been
parodying the
grandiosity of other
singers — but then,
why was there so much
grandiosity to parody?
Did the change from
“Simple Gifts” to
“Greatest Man That
Ever Lived” exemplify a
broader trend?
Now, after a computer
analysis of three
decades of hit songs,
Dr. DeWall and other
psychologists report
finding what they were
looking for: a
statistically significant
trend toward
narcissism and hostility
in popular music. As
they hypothesized, the
words “I” and “me”
appear more
frequently along with
anger-related words,
while there’s been a
corresponding decline
in “we” and “us” and
the expression of
positive emotions.
“Late adolescents and
college students love
themselves more today
than ever before,” Dr.
DeWall, a psychologist
at the University of
Kentucky, says. His
study covered song
lyrics from 1980 to
2007 and controlled for
genre to prevent the
results from being
skewed by the growing
popularity of, say, rap
and hip-hop.
Defining the personality
of a generation with
song lyrics may seem a
bit of a reach, but Dr.
DeWall points to
research done by his co-
authors that showed
people of the same age
scoring higher in
measures of narcissism
on some personality
tests. The extent and
meaning of this trend
have been hotly
debated by
psychologists, some of
whom question the tests’
usefulness and say that
young people today
aren’t any more self-
centered than those of
earlier generations. The
new study of song lyrics
certainly won’t end the
debate, but it does offer
another way to gauge
self-absorption: the
Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The researchers find
that hit songs in the
1980s were more likely
to emphasize happy
togetherness, like the
racial harmony sought
by Paul McCartney and
Stevie Wonder in
“Ebony and Ivory” and
the group exuberance
promoted by Kool & the
Gang: “Let’s all
celebrate and have a
good time.” Diana Ross
and Lionel Richie sang
of “two hearts that beat
as one,” and John
Lennon’s “(Just Like)
Starting Over”
emphasized the
preciousness of “our life
together.”
Today’s songs,
according to the
researchers’ linguistic
analysis, are more
likely be about one
very special person:
the singer. “I’m
bringing sexy back,”
Justin Timberlake
proclaimed in 2006.
The year before,
Beyoncé exulted in
how hot she looked
while dancing — “It’s
blazin’, you watch me
in amazement.” And
Fergie, who boasted
about her “humps”
while singing with the
Black Eyed Peas,
subsequently released
a solo album in which
she told her lover that
she needed quality
time alone: “It’s
personal, myself and I.”
Two of Dr. DeWall’s co-
authors, W. Keith
Campbell and Jean M.
Twenge, published a
book in 2009 titled
“The Narcissism
Epidemic," which
argued that narcissism
is increasingly
prevalent among
young people — and
possibly middle-aged
people, too, although it’
s hard for anyone to
know because most of
the available data
comes from college
students.
For several decades,
students have filled out
a questionnaire called
the Narcissism
Personality Inventory, in
which they’ve had to
choose between two
statements like “I try not
to be a show-off” and “I
will usually show off if I
get the chance.” The
level of narcissism
measured by these
questionnaires has
been rising since the
early 1980s, according
to an analysis of
campus data by Dr.
Twenge and Dr.
Campbell.
President Peter
Morales Visits the
Capital Region UUA
Unitarian Universalists
Celebrate
"If we love the same
things, we have the
same religion."
...Reverend Morales
emphasized the need for us
to be creative and forward
looking if we are to meet new
challenges and indeed
become “the religion for
our time.” He advised us,
for example, to “honor” but
not “worship” our past – for
when the past, including our
past successes, become our
fundamental identity we
inevitably pay less attentive
to the very real and present
needs of those who are now
coming through our doors
for the first time. As UUs we
tend to be uncomfortable
with demonstrations of
enthusiasm for our own
religion [Maura Larkins
comment: I have noticed
the exact opposite. In my
experience, Unitarians are
quite enthusiastic about
themselves; they are also
very frequently critical of
other religions, particularly
Catholics.]and joke about
ourselves as “God’s frozen
people” – but we must
recognize that inherent in
that joke is the danger of our
becoming a dwindling elite.
[Maura Larkins comment:
Calling oneself an elite
sounds like the Unitarians I
know.]
Morales Visits the
Capital Region UUA
Unitarian Universalists
Celebrate
"If we love the same
things, we have the
same religion."
...Reverend Morales
emphasized the need for us
to be creative and forward
looking if we are to meet new
challenges and indeed
become “the religion for
our time.” He advised us,
for example, to “honor” but
not “worship” our past – for
when the past, including our
past successes, become our
fundamental identity we
inevitably pay less attentive
to the very real and present
needs of those who are now
coming through our doors
for the first time. As UUs we
tend to be uncomfortable
with demonstrations of
enthusiasm for our own
religion [Maura Larkins
comment: I have noticed
the exact opposite. In my
experience, Unitarians are
quite enthusiastic about
themselves; they are also
very frequently critical of
other religions, particularly
Catholics.]and joke about
ourselves as “God’s frozen
people” – but we must
recognize that inherent in
that joke is the danger of our
becoming a dwindling elite.
[Maura Larkins comment:
Calling oneself an elite
sounds like the Unitarians I
know.]