Usually when I tell a story of the
struggle between the establishment and the radical underdogs working to breathe
new life and freedom of expression into stale traditions, we Unitarian
Universalists identify with the radicals. But at the time when the first great
awakening swept New England beginning in 1734 our
Unitarian roots were sunk into the Boston Establishment. Folks stirred by the
Great Awakening felt that the established religion of the day had strayed from
Puritanism. One of these was Charles Whitefield who wrote in his journal that:
“It has the form of religion kept up, but has lost much of it’s [sic] power. I
have not heard of any remarkable stir for many years… There is much of the
pride of life to be seen in their assemblies. Jewels, patches, and gay apparel
are commonly worn by the female sex. The little infants who were brought to baptism
were wrapped up in such fine things, and so much pains taken to dress them,
that one would think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather
than to renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.” [i]
It was not just the worldliness and
“lack of stirring” that concerned Whitefield; he was disturbed by the theology
emerging among the established churches. Whitefield wrote that “Bad books are becoming
fashionable among tutors and students.” By this he meant a growing tendency
towards “Arminianism” which suggested that people are born with both the capacity
for sin and for righteousness. This
would mean that God’s will was not the final factor; we could chose God’s
grace, or we could choose to sin. These ideas were contrary to Calvinism, which
taught that God’s will was sovereign, that only God could decide whether we
were and part of the elect or we were sinners. The idea that we were free to
choose whether to choose sin or salvation became popular among Baptists,
Methodists, and Congregationalists. It was those Congregationalist churches,
that would one day be some of the first Unitarian churches; by the early 19th
century, Unitarianism had converted 9 of Boston’s original 13
orthodox Congregational churches.
Whitefield
criticized the puritan style churches of his day saying that Many Bostonians
“rest in head-knowledge, are close to Pharisees”[ii] In contrast,
this radical new movement, the Great Awakening, was characterized by “Great
fervor and emotion in prayer”. Whitefield had grown up in England, and came to America in 1739 to evangelize. He
worked here as an Itinerant Methodist preacher (traveling town to town) and is
considered to be a central figure of the Great Awakening. Whitefield had a
powerful preaching style that was quite new to his puritan audiences. He was
known to preach out of doors, in part because he commanded crowds of thousands
which couldn’t fit into the local churches but certainly also because in England the
traditional churches would not allow him to preach within their walls. News
reports of the day say that he would preach in a field, on tree stumps, or
even, one report said, on a horse. This was a movement that appealed to working
folks, who felt that the establishment churches did not speak to them.
Whitefield even preached to slaves, which scandalized many in the traditional
churches. Evangelicals today believe that the Great Awakening fostered such
revolutionary sentiment that it fomented the Revolutionary war.
Whitefield was a preacher who could engender great feelings in his audiences. David Garrick, then the most famous actor in Britain said of his preaching: "I would give a hundred guineas," he said, "if I could say 'Oh' like Mr. Whitefield." Jonathan Edwards's wife, Sarah, remarked, "He makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers generally do and aims more at affecting the heart. He is a born orator. A prejudiced person, I know, might say that this is all theatrical artifice and display, but not so will anyone think who has seen and known him."
The opposition looked on this with suspicion. One of the folks at the center of that opposition was Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) minister of the First Church Boston (Congregationalist). He championed the role of reason in religion, and was suspicious of all these expressions of emotion. Chauncey wrote:
“The next thing I shall take Notice of, as
what I can’t but think of dangerous Tendency, is that Terror so many have been
the Subjects of; Expressing itself in strange Effects upon the Body, such as
swooning away and falling to the Ground, where Persons have lain, for a Time,
speechless and motionless; bitter Shriekings and Screamings; Convulsion-like
Tremblings and Agitations, Strugglings and Tumblings, which, in some Instances,
have been attended with Indecencies I shan’t Mention; None of which Effects
seem to have been … peculiar to some particular Places or Constitutions; but
have been common all over the Land…” [iii]
Though Whitefield may have been a
particularly skilled orator, the emotional and spiritual passions of participants
in services during the Great awakening movement, including visions and trances,
seem to have been wide spread. The preachers would stress the sinful nature of
humans and their utter incapacity to overcome this nature without the direct
action of the grace of God working through the Holy Spirit. There was a focus,
in these services, on the necessity of Conversion or “new birth.” This conversion would be not a new understand
of ideas, but a visceral, emotional, spiritual, transformative experience.
Another hallmark of this movement was
the role of Itinerant preachers (often without formal ministerial training).
Chauncey retorts: “Some of these
Itinerants, ‘tis evident, have traveled about the Country preaching under the
full persuasion of an immediate Call form God; and as to most of them, it may
be feared, the grand Excitement, at the Bottom, has been, an overfond Opinion
of themselves and an unchristian one of their brethren. It has, therefore been
their practice, too commonly , not only to boast of their own superior
Goodness, wherever they have gone; but to insinuate suspicions against the fixed
pastors, if not to preach against them, and pray for them, as poor, carnal
unconverted men.” [Parke p. 52] Chauncey worried about a preacher who “mistakes the
workings of his own passions for the divine communications, and fancies himself
immediately inspired by the SPIRIT OF GOD, when all the while he is under no
other influence than that of an over-heated imagination.” [Robinson p. 12] Ironically
one of those Chauncey mentions with suspicion was “A stranger who has of
himself assumed the character of a preacher.” This stranger was John Murray,
the founder of the first Universalist church in America.
Another important preacher of the
Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, a Congregational minister in Northampton, Mass.
He had Studied at Yale, where he read Newton
and Locke. He lost the church he served as their minister by stating that “a
public profession of saving faith based on the candidate's religious
experiences as a qualification not only for Holy Communion but also for church
membership.” Dismissed from his church in 1750, got job in Indian mission at
Stockbridge. Eventually he became President of the College
of New Jersey (now Princeton)
in 1757. He died young from side effects of small pox inoculation. [iv]
What is important about Edwards is his
Influence on Congregational and Presbyterian theology. Being a learned man, he
was able to put together a Defense of determinism (Calvinism)-- a sort of
neo-orthodoxy. He postulated that the notion of Free will undermines god’s
sovereignty. He said in his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God:"
The world of
misery, the lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you...Hell’s
gaping mouth [is] wide open, and you have nothing to stand upon or take hold
of...It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up...The God
that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some
loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you. You have offended him...0 Sinner!
You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about
it, and ready every moment to singe...and burn it asunder. You have nothing to
lay hold of to save yourself. There is nothing that you have ever done,
nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. [v]
Another who spoke out in opposition
to the Great Awakening was Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766). He was the minister of
the West Church
in Boston
(congregational) and was a proponent of that Armenian Liberalism. Said Mayhew “God
is a ‘Wise and infinitely gracious being’” by reason “we resemble God Himself.”
He preached that Man can choose right and wrong (the central doctrine of
Arminianism) and of the Trustworthiness of reason and conscience (a founding
principle of American Democracy). Generally the tenants that held together that
opposition to the Great Awakening were important tenants for Unitarians
throughout our history: The belief in Human goodness and free will, the Unity
of God and the importance of using Reason in studying scripture.
Rationalism, Biblicism and moral
aspiration- these were the early response to 1st great awakening.
Perhaps for some the cool light of reason was a relief set alongside the heated
passion of the revival meetings. For some the use of reason in interpreting the
bible restored sure footing in a time when itinerant preachers teaching out of
a personal sense of call, imbued with the spirit. And Moral Aspiration- the
idea that we could of our own free will choose to do right, is it any wonder
that this idea grew in response to the hopelessness of feeling oneself held
over a fiery pit on a slender thread “There is nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do, to
induce God to spare you one moment.”
It turns out there were 4 “great
awakenings” all together, and I think the Second Great
Awakening (1825-35) had
the most direct impact on Universalism. This great awakening was another
revival movement that emerged during the early 1800s, This second great
awakening was a reaction against rationalism and desire for a church that
served the needs of common people. The theology of the second great awakening embodied
a transition between Calvinism and Arminianism, expressing a movement from
god’s absolute sovereignty to god as “moral governor.” In this theological
movement sin is seen now as a result of human action rather than
predetermination by an all powerful God. There is still the immanent threat of
Hellfire and damnation (which once again figured powerfully in the sermons of
this second great awakening) but now the response to this knowledge is for
humans to “repent.” It was called “New
Haven” theology because of influence of Yale. Once
again it was characterized by a
personal, emotional response to god. In Kentucky
and Tennessee
folks held interdenominational 4 day events called “camp meetings” which
attracted thousands of people. The Camp meetings emphasized conversion with
singing and shouting and dancing, and
folk style music. And once again Unitarians criticized the emotional
displays of the revivals and argued that goodness sprang from gradual character
building, not sudden emotional conversion.[vi]
One of the leaders of this movement
was Charles Grandison Finney
(August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) who has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism. He was an extemporaneous
preacher, known for his innovations in preaching and religious meetings. For
example, he developed the "anxious
seat", a place where those considering becoming Christians could come to
receive prayer, and he lead public prayer for people by name. He also bucked
the establishment by having women pray in public meetings of mixed gender.
Finney was also an abolitionist. Perhaps it’s not surprising that a movement
where both women and black persons participated, and a movement where folks
were responsible for their own moral choices
would spark social action in areas like temperance and abolitionism. This
was something I hadn’t realized -- I hadn’t realized that abolition was an area
where liberal and evangelical theologies came together to create change. It
makes me wonder how many other times liberals and evangelicals have stood
shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for social change. I wonder if it could serve
as an important model for us today.
This was not the only powerful
religious movement of the day that swept through Western
New York in particular. It is because of this period of religious
fervor that the area between Albany and Lake
Erie is called the “burned over” region of New York. The term was coined during second
great awakening by Charles
Grandison Finney,
one of those 19th century evangelicals, who had said that “the area
had been so heavily evangelized as to have no "fuel"
(unconverted population) left over to "burn" (convert).”
Universalism became a major
antagonist of the Second Great Awakening and evangelical culture under the
leadership of the great Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou. By articulating a
doctrine of universal salvation, we pointed out and challenged the Protestant
drift away from traditional Calvinist orthodoxy because this idea of repentance
actually challenges god’s sovereignty. So in a way, the Universalists were the
orthodox Calvinists during this period, because they believed that God was
still all powerful, but had a loving, rather than a judgmental character.[vii]
Between the first and second Great Awakenings, that “stranger” John Murray
spread his radical idea through itinerant preaching, and we saw the settlement
of the first Universalist churches (including the church of the Restoration in
Philadelphia and later UUCAS) Now during the time of the second Great Awakening,
Universalism grew from the radical fringe to be the 6th largest
denomination in the country, as folks were hungry for an alternative to
hellfire preaching. It was during this period that many of the rural
Universalist churches in Pennsylvania and New York.
As 21st century UUs, we
sometimes look at the passion and drama of the revival movements, those “great
awakenings” from the vantage point of cool reason. We are proud to bring our
rational minds into those most important questions- of who we are, of how we
are to live, of how we are saved, and for what we are saved. It feels good to
know that we can figure out with our own minds the important truths of life. But sometimes we look at the passion and
inspiration of these evangelical services, both in history and in our
neighboring churches, wishing we could have that much heart, that much spirit
in our Sunday worship. A few years back
I was teaching a class on “religion and the media” and we showed the clip of a
revival meeting from a popular movie. When the clip was over, a number of us
said things like “I wish I could feel the spirit like that in worship” but one
of our older members who had been a child in Germany at the time of the second
world war said “Oh, I don’t like it, it reminds me of the Nazi rallies during
the war.”
This is, perhaps, the natural ebb and
flow of religion. We become tired of the old established ways, which seem to
them boring, stale, and bereft of inspiration. We worry that we and our
neighbors are following their religions teachings in name only, that “one would
think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather than to renounce
the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.” Long to wake up from this
spiritual sleepiness, we long for
revival. So we shake off the head-bound sermons of the learned clergy, and sing
and dance and yell in a field or on a tree stump.
Sometimes this divide between those
who let the heart rule and those who are ruled by the mind, the reason, can be the deepest divide in religion, perhaps deeper
than that of theological conflicts. If we understand and explore both kinds of
knowledge, both kinds of spiritual truth, we increase not only our own spiritual
wisdom but also our capacity to understand the spirituality, the theology of
our neighbors. Our UU faith is more than the cool reason of our enlightenment
forefathers. We have also in our history the passionate preaching of our itinerant
Universalist forbearers. In fact, the congregation I serve in Athens started out as a Baptist church. And
the old histories say that when an itinerant preacher called Noah Murray
began preaching in the twin tiers he
drew such crowds that the Rev. Moses Park (minister of the Baptist church in Athens) went to debate
with him but was himself converted and
soon his congregation with him.
This morning’s service seems kind of
rooted in the head. We sang kind of old timey hymns and talked about our
history, (except joys and concerns, which many call the heart of our service)
but those were hymns of the great awakening. The words of John Edwards of
dangling over hellfire seem strange to us now, but that same preaching sent
folks into visions and trances. Yes sometimes, we are rooted in our heads, but
also in our hearts and in the spirit of life. But I know this congregation has danced around a
May Pole out in the field. So
Awakening, reviving is not something that can be done once, but is something
which must be done again and again, each time we fall into rote routine, each
time we fall out of balance whether that be as individuals, as a congregation,
or as Unitarian Universalism. Let us always be awakening.
[iii] From Chauncy ”Seasonal thoughts on
the state of Religion in New England” cited
in Epic of Unitarianism p. 53
[vii] [From The Universalist Movement in America,
1770-1880 by Ann
Lee Bressler (Religion in America:
Oxford University Press) http://www.wordtrade.com/religion/christianity/universalismR.htm]
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