“The Preacher Comrades” from CS in 1908: What do we know about them? Dorn’s tabulation: 28 Baptists, 22 Episcopal, 20 Congregational, 16 Methodist, 16 Presbyterian, 15 Christians, 11 Universalists, 8 Unitarians. Through the N’s (mostly) I count thirteen who are either affiliated with small liberal traditions, who became U or U after this list, or whose affiliation is primarily with People’s churches. At least 10 were Unitarian at some point. [ARDA data begin in 1925; it appears in that year Universalists had 575 clergy and Unitarians had 476, Episcopalians had 5700, Congregationalists had 5500, PCUSA had 9800, Northern Baptists had 9200, Southern Baptists had 19,000, Southern Methodists had 8000, Northern Methodists had 18,500, Disciples had 6845] So UUs are about 1 in 50, Episcopalians and Congregationalists perhaps 1 in 250, Disciples 1 in 450, Presbyterians 1 in 600, Baptists 1 in 1000, Methodists maybe 1 in 1800] Definitely need to check ratios for the smaller groups! ARDA lists 25 clergy in 1925 for New Jerusalem and 75 for Swedenborgian Church. So it is 1 in 50 Universalists and 1 in 60 Unitarians. A few notes on “Christian”—Christian Connection originally brought together (in 1808) the Christian movements of James O’Kelly (VA/NC Republican Methodists), ABner Jones/Elias Smith (ex Baptists from Vt and NH), and Barton Stone (Cane Ridge, Ky). Then in 1832 the Stone churches merged with Alexander Campbell’s movement. In 1850 the Christian Connection worked with Unitarians to found Antioch (and also Meadville, I think). Merged with Congregationalists in 1931, but a long history of cooperation with Unitarians before that, and included anti-Trinitarians. Published Herald of Gospel Liberty. Alabama Gardiner C. Tucker. Minister of Saint John’s (also or aka Grace Church) PE in Mobile. Served from 1885 to 1941. Father of Irwin St. John Tucker. Curiously, Dorn seems to have missed this expression of socialist loyalty, for he writes that “There is no hint in this childhood of unconventional politics. A Democrat who supported the gold standard, Irwin’s father strongly disapproved of William Jennings Bryan’s nomination in 1896.” Saint John’s Church is still active today. Arkansas L. E. Thornton, Mount Olivet Prestbyterian, Mammoth Springs. No information found. Church seems not to have survived. Arizona E. F. Lovejoy, Verde ME Mission, Camp Verde. Hmm. an E.F. Lovejoy was convicted of manslaughter as abortionist in Oklahoma in 1918, along with a Jesse Warren. Congregation survives. California Joseph S. David, New Jerusalem, San Diego. Church survives, founded 1883. B. Edmiston, New Jerusalem, Riverside. This is Rev. Berry Edmiston, raised in Tennessee, settled as a rancher in Riverside in 1878 and died in 1912. Evidently he was a bivocational minister. His son Rev. Lloyd Edmiston was ordained in 1915 and served the Riverside church thereafter. See John Brown and James Boyd, History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1922) 3: 1112. Church does not survive. >>>>>>> Lloyd Edmiston, “The Last Judgment,” New-Church Review 27 (April 1920): 143-59, makes case for social understanding of sin and salvation within the Swedenborgian context: “I believe the common thought of New-Church people, relative to the this-world effect of the Last Judgment, has been altogether inadequate. The wrongs they have seen in society have been thought of very largely as sins of individuals. They have been largely blind to the fact that there are social and class-imposed forms of wickedness, as well as personal offences. Such iniquitous social institutions are obviously subject to judgment overthrow independent of the regeneration of the class or classes responsible for them. This is the great task to which the well-disposed of all classes are now called. The one only way to release the people from the oppression of evil institutions is by the overthrow of those systems and the substitution of a heaven- ultimating order in their place.” (145) The theological context is NJ belief that the Last Judgment occurred in 18th century and that a New Age is manifesting itself since. Edmiston traces this new age from democratic revolutions to contemporary labor movement: “The trend of all these New Age forces is to the one end,--the ousting of the exploiters of labor from their last intrenchments.” (149) He turns quite explicitly socialist: “What then is the institutionalized and legalized inequity underlying all the remaining external slaveries in the world today? I believe the answer is: The ownership and control of all the resources of our common life by a part of the people, affording that part a means for extorting unearned incomes from the labor product of the rest of the people.” (149) Edmiston has a theological confidence in socialist victory: “If, as the result of the Last Judgment in the spiritual world, all things upon earth are to be reduced to order, then surely this power will speedily be abolished. The wonderful development of the machinery for democratic or co-operative control of common interests since the Last Judgment, indicates to me that some form of universal co-operation in the ownership and management of industry is to be the heaven-ultimating New Age order.” But he is agnostic about whether the change will be gradual or will involve “a chaos of violence and civil strife.” (151) If the latter is the case, the church’s role is “to mitigate the excesses of such a period.” He seems to lean to the chaos theory, because of self- destructive tendency of capitalism to create international and class war. “We know that in the spiritual-world judgments, evil is thus permitted to bring upon itself its own consummation and overthrow.” (154) He also works in a dig against the churches: “The churches of Christendom, founded upon faith-alone creeds, are manifesting an utter lack of insight and vision in matters of social justice. This has been one of the chief causes of the paganizing of the working classes in the industrial centers of civilization. It seems certain that the churches, founded upon dead doctrines, will continue their blind course, and in the passion and confusion of the transition period will line up in the defense of the consummated / capitalist system, and thereby complete the work of their own undoing.” (157-58) “But in spite of the reactions against all exemplified religions, all the old heart- hungers will remain, and a growing need for a genuine spiritual religion, one rightly relating man to the Lord and to the common good, will surely be manifest. I believe the Lord is preparing our opportunity. In the times that are coming, it will be of vital importance to our use as the propagandists of the Lord’s New-Age religion, that we be also the uncompromising champions of His New-Earth industrial order.” (158) Edmiston was apparently known as a socialist, for the editor notes on the one hand that the California Association had unanimously recommended its publication but on the other that “it presents only one side of the question now at issue before the public more or less confusedly as Capitalism versus Socialism.” (143) Edmiston ran repeatedly for state legislature (or at least for something called AD-78) in 1902 as nonpartisan and in 1904, 1906, 1908, and 1910 as a socialist, losing in all cases, with 12% in 1910. >>>>>> There is also a Henry M Edmiston who published a “Dream of the Socialist” and other radical poems in Rhymes for the Times (Lily Dale, N.Y.: Sunflower Publishing, 1904). G. D. King, Christian, Portersville. Church survives. No other info. *B. Fay Mills (1857-1916), Fellowship, Los Angeles. “Rev. Benj. Fay Mills Dead,” NYT May 2, 1916, p. 13. Born NJ, ordained Congregational in 1878. Pastored in Rutland to 1886. Evangelist to 1897. Withdrew from orthodox church in 1897. Conducted independent ministry in Boston 1897-99. Minister of First Unitarian Oakland 1899-1904. Founding minister of Los Angeles Fellowship until 1911, then founding minister of Chicago Fellowship until his death. Engaged in evangelistic work in NYC at Evangel Tent in 1915. Last book is The Divine Adventure, 1905. W. A. Corey, “The Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in Los Angeles,” Arena 33/187 (June 1905): 593-95, describes the LA Fellowship as “perhaps the most significant and remarkable religious movement in the world today.” Claims it gained over a thousand “contributing members” in its first few months. Describes Mills’s wife as a “teacher of Emerson.” Appears to be nascent institutional church, with a variety of cultural and charitable activities. Publishes Fellowship Magazine. “The matter of religious belief is altogether eliminated” from membership decision, but members must make a “pledge” to contribute financially and engage in “trustful and unselfish living.” Describes Mills as the dominating personality of the group. “Mr. Mills, as all the world knows, has broken finally and definitely with the old theological dogmas. He does not believe in the literalness of hell or heaven, or in the personality of God or the devil. Like all advanced thinkers, he has no creed, no definitely-settled statements of belief. He believes that truth is an unfoldment, and, being a student, he is constantly learning.” No mention of Socialism. >>>>> Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (p. 257: “Following the [1915 World’s] fair, the New Thought leaders began to arrive in Los Angeles: Annie Rix Militz, who established the University of Christ; Fenwicke Holmes, who founded the Southern California Metaphysical Institute; and Eleanor M. Reesberg, who organized the Metaphysical Library. During these years, New Thought studio-lecture rooms sprang up throughout the city and the Metaphysicians’ May Day Festival became an annual civic event.