Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1993 Theodore Parker's Man-Making Strategy: A Study of His Professional Ministry in Selected Sermons John Patrick Fitzgibbons Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Fitzgibbons, John Patrick, "Theodore Parker's Man-Making Strategy: A Study of His Professional Ministry in Selected Sermons" (1993). Dissertations. 3283. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3283 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1993 John Patrick Fitzgibbons Theodore Parker's Man-Making Strategy: A Study of His Professional Ministry in Selected Sermons by John Patrick Fitzgibbons, S.J. A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Chicago, Illinois May, 1993 Copyright, '°1993, John Patrick Fitzgibbons, S.J. All rights reserved. PREFACE Theodore Parker (1810-1860) fashioned a strategy of "man-making" and an ideology of manhood in response to the marginalization of the professional ministry in general and his own ministry in particular. Much has been written about Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and his abandonment of the professional ministry for a literary career after 1832. Little, however, has been written about Parker's deliberate choice to remain in the ministry despite formidable opposition from within the ranks of Boston's liberal clergy. With Emerson, Parker advocated a 11 manly 11 Christianity in terms of expressive individualism. That is, they championed the Romantic ideals of individualism and genius. Both developed compensatory strategies of manhood to counter the dominant entrepreneurial ideology of manhood at work which marginalized them. This dissertation concentrates on Parker's sermons dealing with education, the status of women, and class structure in the United States. Parker believed that the professional ministry must educate persons of all strata of society to a practical and radical care for other persons. The reason for my concentration is straightforward: Parker's man-making strategy can still inform us today because oppression and marginalization, especially of the poor and 1 women, remains embedded in the social fabric of our culture. Moreover, the professional ministry in this country continues to re-fashion itself in response to the structural evils of sexism and racism in order to educate persons beyond oppression. While African slavery is no longer a publicly sanctioned and legally protected structure in our society as it was in the time of Theodore Parker, the Anita Hill -- Clarence Thomas controversy and the Rodney King trial are poignant reminders of unfinished business. For Parker, slavery, the marginalization of women, and the oppression of minorities were evils to be overcome in time. In a democracy, as well as in Christianity (considered as absolute religion), there is no place for laws, mores, customs, or beliefs that oppress people, then or now. My interest in this topic developed while researching and writing my master's thesis in moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. That thesis is entitled "The Emergence of Ethics in American Transcendentalism: A Study in the Sacramentality of Human Action in the Early Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau's Walden and 'Civil Disobedience."' In the last two years, because of the paucity of primary source materials, my research has taken me to the libraries at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as the Boston Public Library, and the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, Massachusetts. This area holds the largest concentration of Parker materials. 11 I wish to thank profoundly Dr. James E. Rocks for his professional guidance, encouragement, and his gracious care. Such qualities are rare enough when encountered singly yet Dr. Rocks embodies them all. I am also grateful to Dr. Paul R. Messbarger whose professional acumen, articulate faith, and stimulating conversation were enormously encouraging. Dr. Gerald W. McCulloh guided me firmly yet gently through the complexities of nineteenth­ century Christian intellectual history with a clarity and compassion which modelled scholarship in the professional ministry. I hope to embody their professionalism and personal care. In addition, I wish to thank Sr. Rita Stalzer, C.S.J., reference librarian at the Cudahy Library of Loyola University of Chicago, for her wonderful assistance in tracking down rare materials and manuscripts. Also, thanks belong to Dr. Alan Seaburg, Curator of Manuscripts at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, and Dr. Laura V. Monti, Keeper of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Boston Public Library. To the Jesuit community of Chicago, I owe an incalculable debt. To all my brother Jesuits, I give my deepest thanks but especially to Richard W. Anderson, S.J., Philip J. Chmielewski, S.J., Francis J. Daly, S.J., Keith J. Esenther, S.J., Robert F. Harvanek, S.J., William H. Hogan, S.J., James D. Holub, S.J., Edward J. Mattimoe, S.J., James M. McCann, S.J., and Lawrence Reuter, S.J. I would like to thank the whole staff of University Ministry at Loyola University of Chicago for unflagging support, especially lll Angela Cesar, Brenda Eagan, I.B.V.M., Maureen Fuechtmann, Joanne G. Nicgorski, O.S.F., Shannon M. Queenan, and Annette Spiezio. Finally, my most profound thanks go to the finest friends a person could ever call one's own: Stephen Campbell, S.J., Heidi Cerneka, Thomas F. Fitzgibbons, Anne Marie and Raymond Hood, Tammy Dee Jones, Rudy Marcozzi, Lori and Michael Meehan, T. Jerome Overbeck, S.J., and William Rehg, S.J. lV AD MAJOREM DE/ GLORIAM To My Parents John Francis Fitzgibbons and Rosemary Brady Fitzgibbons TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ......................................... i Chapter 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN NEW ENGLAND WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE BOSTON AREA, FROM THE EIGHTEENTH INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE CAREER OF THE PROFESSIONAL MINISTER . 1 2. THE ROLE OF THE MINISTER IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AS ARTICULATED BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON ...... 60 3. PARKER'S UNDERSTANDING OF MINISTRY, HIS SENSE OF AN AUDIENCE, AND HIS MAN-MAKING STRATEGIES . 93 4. PROPHETIC UTTERANCES ON THE REFASHIONING OF SOCIETY IN SELECTED SERMONS AND ADDRESSES ............................. 133 WORKS CONSULTED LIST . 239 CHAPTER ONE AN OVERVIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN NEW ENGLAND WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE BOSTON AREA, FROM THE EIGHTEENTH INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE CAREER OF THE PROFESSTIONAL MINISTER In Church ministry of every age, there is a dynamic tension between theory and praxis, the theologian and the pastor. Questions about the relationship of theology and ministry, how theological positions generate a certain type or types of ministry, as well as how ministerial style shapes the development of theology, present themselves to ministers and theologians in every era. Clearly, the relationship of theology and ministry is reciprocal: "Theology intends an understanding of faith that is ultimately practical. Its insights are meant to shape ministry. Ministry, on the other hand, is both shaped by theology and critiques the adequacy of theological formulations to the life of the Church. "1 2 Antebellum professional ministry of the liberal caste provides no exception. Indeed the predominant task of the early nineteenth-century liberals was to shape ministry to the pastoral needs of a population whose cultural identity was going through profound change. As economic prosperity grew and a strong urban middle class emerged, so did growth in literacy and culture. The merging of careers, especially ministerial and literary careers, was very common. The "typical" New England author was a male born between 1800 and 1820 whose work appeared between 1820 and 1865. His parents were better educated and more affluent than the average New Englander. He was born in northeastern Massachusetts and reared in the same locality. He matriculated at Harvard and after college tried his hand at law, medicine, or very likely, the professional ministry. 2 "Divinity and law were each pursued, for varying lengths of time, by about one-quarter of the male writers [a total of 112 out of a total of 276]. Those who chose divinity were far less likely to give it up, perhaps because the ministry, seen as the less lucrative and prestigious career by most genteel young men, . tended to attract a more self-selected and committed group of novices than did the law" (Buell 1986, 379). For Theodore Parker, the interplay between theology and ministry, the intellectual life and the practical realities of pastoral care forged his career in as manifest a manner as it did of that of Emerson. Both Parker and Emerson 3 chose a career in ministry in an era of decline in the profession's prestige and both were among the most famous literary figures of their day. While much has been written about Emerson's change in career after 1832, relatively little has been said about Parker's perseverance as a minister or the reasons for his immense popularity. While Emerson was in great demand as a lecturer, Parker was arguably the most controversial preacher in Boston from 1843 onward and certainly the most popular preacher in Boston from 1852 until his departure for Europe in 1859 and premature death in 1860. In both careers, the new theology of Transcendentalism shaped the respective ministries. Yet, in Parker's career, the prophetic call to "self-reliance" and expressive individualism through literary endeavor remained, whatever else it was, a primarily religious enterprise.