Bible Matters: the Scriptural Origins of American Unitarianism

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Vanderbilt Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive BIBLE MATTERS: THE SCRIPTURAL ORIGINS OF AMERICAN UNITARIANISM By LYDIA WILLSKY Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In Religion May, 2013 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor James P. Byrd Professor James Hudnut-Beumler Professor Kathleen Flake Professor Paul Lim Professor Paul Conkin TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………3 CHAPTER 1: WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING AND THE PASTORAL ROOTS OF UNITARIAN BIBLICISM………………………………………………………………………………..29 CHAPTER 2: WHAT’S “GOSPEL” IN THE BIBLE? ANDREWS NORTON AND THE LANGUAGE OF BIBLICAL TRUTH………………………………………...................................................77 CHAPTER 3: A PRACTICAL SPIRIT: FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE, THE BIBLE AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH…………………………………………………………………...124 CHAPTER 4: THE OPENING OF THE CANON: THEODORE PARKER AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF BIBLICAL AUTHORITY…………………………………………..168 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………...........................205 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………213 INTRODUCTION The New England Unitarians were a biblical people. They were not biblical in the way of their Puritan ancestors, who emulated the early apostolic Church and treated the Bible as a model for right living. They were a biblical people in the way almost every Protestant denomination of the nineteenth century was biblical: they believed that they could interpret the Book and uncover its true message. Like most American Protestants of that century, the Unitarians made the Bible their standard and source of belief. Not with doctrine, nor legalism, nor revival did the Unitarians seek to challenge what they perceived to be religious error, but “with the language of biblical sufficiency [did] they [attack] the traditional theology of their day.”1 During the years of 1803-1865, Unitarians were not cultural outliers, but active participants in upholding the biblical ethos of the nineteenth century in their desire to preserve the Protestant motto of sola scriptura, to make the Bible the only necessary tool for determining truth. Their devotion to maintaining the authority of the Bible was matched in strength by the often competing impulse to involve the Bible in attempts at rational inquiry, scientific investigation, and historical fact-checking, all to assess the Bible’s authority and accuracy on all matters of truth. These dual impulses often competed and therefore became potentially divisive for Protestants. Some chose sola scriptura over free inquiry, or vice versa. Some sought earnestly to balance both impulses in order to preserve biblical authority while giving due credit to the perpetual progress of the human mind. Most Unitarians fell into the latter category. They read the Bible closely, even critically at times, while simultaneously 1 David Holland, Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 66. 3 maintaining that it was the rule of faith, the source of truth, the clearest evidence of God’s love for humanity. For sixty years, the Bible and its interpretation mattered to Unitarians. ***** Born of a tradition (Congregationalism) steeped in devotion to the Bible, the New England Unitarians in general and William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), Andrews Norton (1786-1853), Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), and Theodore Parker (1810- 1860) in particular channeled this devotion into an increasingly liberal religious philosophy. They retained Congregationalist institutions and traditional forms, but eschewed the Congregationalist method for interpreting the Bible. This method, according to Channing, Norton, Hedge and Parker, burdened individual passages with the task of carrying the entire weight of complex theological concepts. So, rather than give up their beloved Bible because of these perceived interpretive errors, they devoted themselves to a new way of thinking about, reading, and interpreting the biblical text. There are several reasons for my selection of these four men as the protagonists in the history of Unitarian Biblicism. Each was intentional and open about his interpretation of the Bible and his use of the particular set of interpretive principles listed below. Furthermore, they all wrote and spoke often on the subject of the Bible and its interpretation, either in public material like sermons or treatises or in private correspondence and journals. They are also representative of the general tenor of Unitarian belief during that time, especially given the fact that they each had a say (and in some cases a guiding hand) in the major disputes involving Unitarians in those first sixty years. Certainly not everyone agreed with the opinions of the Unitarian Biblicists, 4 however the respect and prominence awarded these four men (with the possible exception of Norton in the 1830s) indicates that most Unitarians believed them capable of speaking for and about the Unitarian cause in public. Finally, in spite of their deliberate use of the same set of interpretive guidelines, these men were all very different from one another. They differed not only in temperament, but in motive. None of them agreed on precisely what shape their movement should take, only that the Bible should be a part of it. Though their theology and opinions often varied, Channing, Norton, Hedge, and Parker were united in their support of “free inquiry,” a founding assumption of their biblical thought. The Unitarian Biblicists’ devotion to the principle of free inquiry was equal to their devotion to the Bible. They believed firmly that no doctrine, creed, or theological belief should hinder the free pursuit of truth. In their view, truth was variable and appeared differently to different people. They also felt certain that truth was progressive and that individuals’ understanding of truth changed as human beings grew in knowledge. Channing, Norton, Hedge, and Parker each argued that the orthodox had constrained the search for truth with their dogmatism. They believed that savvy Bible readers must rid themselves of such dogma in order to extract truth from its pages Channing, Norton, Hedge, and Parker were not the first liberal Christians to challenge what Hans Frei refers to as the “realistic” interpretation of the Bible, or an interpretation of the Bible that was premised on the idea that the Bible was literally true and that every biblical word and every biblical story fit into a single cohesive narrative.2 A tradition of critical biblical scholarship among liberal religious thinkers existed in England in the seventeenth century and New England in the eighteenth and early 2 Hans Frei, The Eclipse of the Bible Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 3. 5 nineteenth centuries. The seventeenth century in England was a time of great upheaval, both religiously and politically. The English Revolution precipitated an authoritative vacuum, both in the monarchy and in the English church.3 Orthodoxy was in flux, competing views of toleration and persecution abounded depending upon who was on the throne or in the seat of Archbishop, and in all of this, new, radical theology began to arise from the Bible. It was during this period that seventeenth century English thinkers like Stephen Nye, Paul Best, and most importantly, John Biddle, arrived at certain liberal doctrines, like the unity of God, through their readings of the Bible.4 For Biddle and his contemporary Paul Best, years of misinterpretation of the Bible by “Rome,” the eternal culprit, had clouded its message and made certain doctrines orthodox that were matters of conscience only.5 Now, in a post-Reformation culture, there was a marked “privileging 3 For historical context on the English revolution see: John Spurr, The Post Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1603-1714. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2006), John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689. (New York: Longman, 2000), and Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 4 This particular period of scholarship on the Bible is best described in Paul Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), Philip Dixon, ‘Nice and Hot Disputes’: The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Seventeenth Century. (London: T & T Clark, 2003); Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution; Gerard Reedy. The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and Scripture in Late Seventeenth-Century England. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 120-130; and John McLachlan Socinianism in Seventeenth Century England. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951). See also the following primary sources: John Biddle, Twelve Questions or Arguments drawn out of Scripture, wherein…the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly refuted. (1647); Paul Best, Mysteries discovered, or, A mercurial picture pointing out the way from Babylon to the holy city for the good of all such as during that night of general errour and appostasie, 2 Thes. 2.3. Revel. 3.10 have been so long misted with Romes hobgoblin. (London: s.n., 1647); Arthur Bury, The Naked Gospel. (1690); Stephen Nye, A Brief History of

Load more