The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

Theodore Parker, Unitarian Prophet

by Rick Davis

UUCS October 5, 2008

Every so often I think of doing something I will probably never do – write a book.  My latest idea is to write a book entitled Unitarian Universalist Religious Literacy:  What Every Member of Our Congregations Needs to Know About Our Tradition.   (This title is not original – it’s a variation of a recent popular book in religious literacy in general)

            This book – if I ever wrote it – would absolutely have to have a section on the life and ministry of Theodore Parker (1810-1860).  Why? Because he permanently altered the shape of our religious movement.  Let me tell you how.

            As a child Theodore Parker, like many American youngsters of his time, read the New England Primer – a schoolbook chock full of biblical and religious exhortations.  This primer filled him with such “ghastly” notions of God and the Devil that the little boy often cried himself to sleep at night with fears of eternal damnation.”   From this early experience Parker knew how fear based religion could haunt the minds and diminish the lives of people, and he wanted no part of it.   Fortunately, he was able to find a permanent religious home in the newly emerging American Unitarian Association – a faith grounded in a belief in the inherent goodness of people.

            He came from humble origins - a family of farmers, shopkeepers and mechanics -but early on – with his mother’s urging - he set his sights on the ministry.  He had extraordinary intellectual gifts, a nearly photographic memory, an inextinguishable passion for books and learning.  Once he was seen walking while he was reading, and he ran into a tree, knocking himself unconscious.  He was a prodigious academic athlete – possessed of an ambitious drive to outstrip all his classmates in his studies.  Judging from his life long passion for learning in all fields of human knowledge you could conclude that he his goal in life was to be omniscient.

            He read literally thousands of volumes on all subjects – theology, philosophy, history, science, just to name a few.  During his life he built the most extensive and varied private library in all of New England , and hence, probably the country.  He must have been a linguistic genius - his ability to learn languages was well nigh unbelievable.  In theology school he learned at least the rudiments of Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Arabic, Persian, Coptic.  He also dabbled in some African dialects and in Russian, too.   Of course, like most scholars of the day, he also knew German, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.   All through his life he continued to study and learn new languages. 

            And all through his life he literally burned the midnight oil and pushed himself too hard.  Indeed, he pushed so hard he wrecked his health.  Later in life he lamented that he had not read any book that showed him the “art” of living a balanced life.  

            Most likely, Parker could probably have studied a mere fraction of the amount he did and still have made the lasting contributions he did to our movement.  After all, it was his character and spirit, not the amount of knowledge he crammed into his head that led him to make such a difference.  (To be sure, his vast knowledge was an asset.)

            Parker went to Harvard Divinity School where a Unitarian faculty held sway.  That first generation of American Unitarian scholars and theologians were generally considered heretics by most Christians for rejecting certain key doctrines of Calvinist theology and for championing the use of reason in religious discourse.  But they were reluctant, socially respectable boat rockers who still regarded themselves as good, bible believing Christians.  Parker found most of these Unitarian elders to be cold and formal – able sometimes to touch his mind, but very seldom his heart. To hear truly passionate preaching he had to go to listen to the Universalists preach their heartfelt gospel of universal salvation.  

            Then came graduation time in the spring of 1838.  A brilliant young thirty three year old essayist – who had begun his career as a Unitarian minister but was now mostly speaking on the lecture circuit - was invited to speak.  Today, it’s very easy to find Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Harvard Divinity School Address - it’s included in most anthologies of his essays.  Most likely, you would be pleased with what you read.  Emerson’s language might strike you as archaic and flowery but his sentiments spiritually uplifting.  Yet to the Harvard faculty back in 1838 his address was a shocking and insulting diatribe.  In truth Emerson really was swinging a verbal a sledgehammer at the theological and institutional foundations on which they stood – it was natural for them to feel upset.

            Briefly, Emerson’s address was a Transcendentalist manifesto – he declared that the discovery of the highest spiritual truth came from looking within one’s soul, not relying on ancient scriptural accounts of what the prophets and sages of old had said or done.  Sure, revere those ancient biblical accounts, he said, but find the source of truth through your own direct spiritual intuition, your connection to universal truth – the “over-soul.”   

            Emerson gave voice to young Theodore Parker’s own emerging convictions – he called Emerson’s address “the noblest and most inspiring strain I ever listened to.”  It was indeed a declaration of spiritual independence - call for complete intellectual and spiritual freedom that shocked many of the elders in the crowd who called it “the latest form of infidelity” because it challenged biblical authority, rendered Jesus purely human and challenged the authority of the elder theologians and scholars. 

            Emerson – who was never again invited to speak at Harvard - may have proclaimed this declaration of spiritual independence, but he was no longer a practicing Unitarian minister, and he typically stood aloof from conflicts.  It was Parker who took this transcendentalist cause and marched forth into his ministry.   This would prove to have profound, revolutionary implications for his ministry and for our movement, although no one, including Parker, could anticipate this.  As he later wrote:  “I did not know what was latent within myself, nor forsee all the doctrines which then were hid in my own first (transcendentalist) principles, what embryo fruit and flowers lay sheathed in obvious bud.”   Transcendentalist thought, when followed to its logical conclusions implicitly affirmed the equality of all people, without distinctions of race, class, or gender and this would lead to a call for all manner of social and political reforms.           

When this young lion looked behind to see who else was marching under the Transcendentalist banner he saw very few Unitarians indeed.   Most feared and loathed him for preaching this revolutionary new gospel.  One irate Unitarian wrote: “I would rather see every Unitarian congregation in our land dissolved and every one of our churches razed to the ground, than to assist in placing a man entertaining the sentiments of Theodore Parker in our pulpit.”. 

Some of Parker’s classmates agreed with his sentiments but feared to go along lest they ruin their future careers.  One young minister dared to exchange pulpits with him and was promptly fired by his congregation.  Most Unitarians now shunned Parker.  He was a thorn in their side, his radical ranting was an embarrassment to the whole movement – they wanted him gone and would have excommunicated him in an instant had that lay within their power.  But it did not.  The Unitarians had congregational polity which meant that only a congregation could fire a minister.  Besides, the Unitarian hierarchs did recognize an uncomfortable irony in their predicament – they were considered heretics by most Christians and now they wanted to condemn and excommunicate one of their own for heresy.  Indeed, once you let that genie called “heresy” –  that is, freedom of theological choice - out of the bottle it’s impossible to get it back in.

Their solution to this dilemma was to invite Parker to excommunicate himself – to leave this movement where he would never in his lifetime be welcome.  He declined to do so.  In a letter he asked his colleagues to state the sacred Unitarian doctrines and convictions that he had violated that they all, to a person, embraced.  There was no response – nor could there be – for their grounds for wanting him to leave the movement were grounded not in reason or conscience but in fear, close mindedness and bigotry.   Our movement almost lost Parker, though.  If he had caved in to this pressure and left the Unitarian movement we would be infinitely poorer. 

            The Unitarian establishment had grown conservative and respectable - apologists for the established social order.  Not to be too harsh toward our New England forbears but they were pretty staid and stuffy.  They considered passion and enthusiasm coming from the pulpit a vulgar display, and Parker, a truly passionate soul, just didn’t fit in.  So, Parker was now ostracized by most – not all – Unitarians - a lonely prophet in the wilderness.   Well, actually, he did have some company.  In fact a church had been founded to give this brave prophet a place to preach – the Twenty Eighth Congregational Society of Boston (Unitarian) – and it had seven thousand members.  So even if the respectable Unitarians didn’t want to hear about divisive issues like slavery or economic injustice, or the rights of women, or the newest insights of science and biblical scholarship, many others did, and they came in droves to hear Parker speak. 

They came from all classes – mostly the humblest.   He also attracted renowned intellectuals, social reformers, blacks, women seeking equality -  they all came to hear this pulls-no-punches, amazingly well read preacher speak his mind.  Then, too, since he couldn’t exchange pulpits with most colleagues he hit the lecture circuit, and his eloquent words became ever more widely disseminated across America and Europe .  Indeed, one young politician from Illinois became so enamored of Parker’s language that he would use some of it almost verbatim at the end of an address he gave after the battle of Gettysburg four years after Parker had died.  When Abraham Lincoln said “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” he was directly echoing sentiments Theodore Parker had earlier expressed. 

Parker was greatly concerned that this new experiment – a democratic society in America - was not living up to its promise.  He could see quite clearly how America was failing - especially in regards to its tragic acceptance of slavery in the South.  That was an age when conscientious citizens were being stirred to join reform movements that challenged social, racial and economic injustice, but most of those reformers worked outside of the church because they were not welcome within it.  Yet Parker, stretched the meaning of church when other Unitarians would have allowed it to shrink.  He saw the church as the place where the great social sins of society should be clearly rebuked, not ignored. 

            Parker lived in Boston - one of America ’s great teeming cities.  There he saw paupers on the street, he visited the destitute in the poorhouse; he saw the jails full of citizens only from the poorer classes; he saw women oppressed, mistreated and forced by poverty into lives of prostitution; he saw escaped slaves being captured and taken back down south into bondage:  And then he also saw obscene levels of wealth, corrupt politicians, predatory and exploitative businessmen and industrialists.   He was not happy with what he saw, and he let America know about it, and he didn’t care whose feathers he ruffled.

            He wasn’t afraid to go where very few had dared to go before.  If someone quoted the bible to justify a wrong – say, capital punishment or slavery he responded:  “If the bible sanction(s) capital punishment – homicide with the pomp and formality of law – the bible is wrong.  It fills me with amazement that worthy (people) in these days should go back to such sources for their wisdom – seek in the records of a barbarous people to justify their atrocious acts.” 

            This was the Transcendentalist in Parker speaking – if his moral intuition told him one thing and that ancient text, the bible, said another thing, he cast the bible aside, listened to his conscience and marched forth to do its bidding. 

Above all, Parker marched forth to battle America ’s original sin – slavery.   Not too many Unitarians marched with him.  These northern Unitarians, many from the merchant classes, had economic ties to slavery, and they shunned the abolitionists until fairly late in the day.  They considered them uncouth.

Parker did not shun the abolitionists -  he became one of their leaders, and he spoke out:  As one biographer, Henry Steele Commager writes: “He (Parker) spoke and his voice rolled like thunder over the land; he hammered and Boston complacency cracked under his blows; the fulminated and reputations shriveled in that terrible flame.  He preached in Boston and the Music Hall could not hold the thousands who came to the of the “New Crime against humanity” (slavery):  he lectured in New York, and the tabernacle was electric with excitement as he described the “great battle between Slavery and Freedom”:  he carried his message to the people of the country, from the Bay to Mississippi, and they came to hear him, fifty thousand strong.”   The power of the Holy Spirit of righteous outrage filled him as he spoke.  He was like a Hebrew prophet railing against injustice, and he knew in his soul that he was truly speaking of behalf of God and all humankind. 

Parker didn’t just preach.  He acted – he harbored fugitive slaves in his house, and he fomented rebellion against the Fugitive Slave Law and other human laws which violated the Laws of love and equality.   He put himself on the line.  He took a stand and on this issue and others, society benefited.  Not as much as would be hoped because as we consider the causes for which Parker fought we can see that the battles are still far from won.  His vision was to “build up a great state where there was honorable work for every hand, bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every mind, and love and faith in every heart.”  

Parker’s vision stretched us, helped us realize our responsibility as a religious people.  I don’t know what Unitarian Universalism would look like today had he never been born, but I know we would have a smaller heart and more limited vision.  Although he was never welcomed by the Unitarian establishment in his own day he is now, belatedly, recognized as one of our greatest figures - "a canonical figure—the model of a prophetic minister in the American Unitarian tradition."

He’s was a prophet who called out for more love, justice, compassion in all spheres of life.  He was a visionary who saw where society needed to go and he led the way.   His life and ministry shaped our tradition – a cutting edge faith that goes where the spirit of truth and love will lead us.