In 19th century New England, ministers from different Protestant denominations of Christianity
challenged each other to 3-day or week-long debates over arcane spiritual issues,
and people traveled across counties to hear them. Hiram & Sarah Smith Horr were visited at
least twice by his sisters, a nephew, & a young lady with them for this
purpose.
What
questions were being debated and discussed with so much interest? Who were the people who were asking such
questions at this time?
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| Congregational symbol |
New England
was mostly populated with Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, and
Quakers. Our own Smith-Horr-Blakely
ancestors seemed to be primarily Congregationalist, but they hardly ever
mention regular church attendance, and they easily visited Methodist churches
as well, sometimes collaborating with Baptists, too, for a Sunday School
picnic.
During the
19th century, several radically different Christianity-based
religions became popular in New England: Unitarianism, Universalism,
Spiritualism, Mormonism, and Adventism.
Unitarianism is based on the idea that
God is one entity, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism, which defines God as
three persons in one being (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Unitarians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was
inspired by God in his moral teachings and can thus be considered a savior, but
perceive Christ as human rather than a Deity. Unitarianism rejects the doctrines of original
sin, predestination, and biblical inerrancy.
In the 19th century, Unitarians accepted the doctrine of
punishment in an eternal hell.
The theology
was perceived as deist, and it began to attract many people from wealthy and
educated backgrounds. In the United
States, it spread first in New England, and the first official acceptance of
the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by the
erstwhile Anglican King's Chapel in Boston in 1784.
Unitarianism
is considered to be a religiously liberal church. Its guiding principles are: the concept of the
unity of God, the message and example of
Jesus of Nazareth as a rational and enriching spiritual path, and the purpose
of creating a world of justice, peace, and human dignity.
Universalism claims that religion is a
universal human quality, not a special set of beliefs for a chosen people. Nineteenth century Universalists claimed that all
sinful and alienated human souls — because of divine love and mercy — would
ultimately be reconciled to a merciful God.
Universalism emphasizes the universal principles of most religions and
accepts other religions in an inclusive manner, believing in a universal
reconciliation between humanity and the divine. A belief in one common truth is also an
important tenet. The “living truth” is seen as more far-reaching than national,
cultural, or religious boundaries.
Another key
point within the Christian Universalist theology is the understanding that
mistranslations exist in many translations of the Bible, and that a translation
error from Greek is the cause of most Christians’ erroneous belief in eternal
punishment of souls in the afterlife.
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| Spiritualist sunflower |
Spiritualism is a belief that spirits
of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the
living. The afterlife, or "spirit world", is seen by spiritualists as
a place in which spirits continue to evolve, and thus can provide useful
knowledge to living people about moral and ethical issues. For a fuller exposition, see my blogpost of
March 29, A Child's Spiritualist Funeral .
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| Angel Moroni |
Mormonism: Joseph Smith founded Mormonism in Western New
York in the 1820s. Smith claimed that an
angel Moroni directed him to find buried golden plates which had Egyptian
writing on them, from which Smith wrote the text of the Book of Mormon. The
book described itself as a chronicle of early indigenous peoples of the
Americas, known as the Nephites, portraying them as Israelites who had a belief
in Christ many hundred years before his birth and who had settled in the
ancient Americas. Smith began to attract his early followers while he was
translating and dictating this text, then Smith said he returned the golden
plates to the Angel Moroni.
Mormonism
was very different from traditional Protestantism, and caused much consternation
among mainstream Christians. After
Smith's death in 1844, most Mormons followed Brigham Young on his westward
journey to the area that became the Utah Territory, calling themselves “The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (LDS Church). Mormons believe in an afterlife with three
degrees of glory, with hell (often called spirit prison) being a temporary
repository for the wicked between death and the resurrection.
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| Adventist herald angel |
Adventism began as an
inter-denominational Christian movement. Its most vocal leader was a Baptist
preacher, William Miller, who predicted the imminent return of Jesus Christ in
a Second Coming or Second Advent. Between
50,000 and 100,000 people in the United States supported Miller's very specific
prediction that “Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify,
and take possession of the same, with all the saints,” between March 1843 &
March 1844. After the "Great
Disappointment" of 1844, many people in the movement gave up on Adventism,
many gave up believing in any specific date, but they continued to expect a
second coming of Jesus).
In 1845, The
Albany Conference was called to attempt to determine the future course and
meaning of the movement. Following this meeting, the "Millerites"
then became known as "Adventists" or "Second Adventists".
However, the delegates disagreed on several theological points, and four groups
emerged. Although the Adventist churches
hold much in common, their theologies differ on whether the “intermediate state”
after death is unconscious sleep or consciousness, whether the ultimate
punishment of the wicked is annihilation or eternal torment, the nature of
immortality, whether or not the wicked are resurrected after the millennium,
and whether “the sanctuary” of scripture
refers to one in heaven or on earth.
During this
time, while many reform movements and new denominations were formed, membership
in Baptist and Methodist churches also rose rapidly. This period of religious ferment was called The
Second Great Awakening. It was characterized by enthusiasm, emotion, and an appeal to
the supernatural, but many of its participants also cherished the skeptical
rationalism and deism of the Enlightenment.
In my next
historical blogpost, I will describe Miles Grant's religious debates within their
historical context.
Info:
Wikipedia.com
images: Google Images
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