REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
BY PATRICK MURFIN
CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH
For fifty years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s this congregation was known as the
Congregational Universalist Church. Beloved and accomplished Universalist ministers filled our
pulpit. We sit here today the heirs of a great tradition of a warm hearted and embracing liberal
tradition, yet most of us hardly know of its existence apart from the mysterious persistence of the
name as the second “U” in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Many things have contributed to this state of affairs. We will examine them today. Universalism
shrank from the seventh largest denomination in the United States in the years before the Civil
War to the runt half of the merger with the American Unitarian Association and then was nearly
swallowed up by the power of the Unitarians, then in the hay day of Humanist dominance.
Today, even though most members of UUA congregations continue to identify themselves as
Humanist, the hard edges of that philosophy have been knocked off. No longer do most
congregations rise up in revolt if a minister dare incorporate “God talk” into Sunday services.
Just about everyone, Humanists included, yearns for greater spirituality in their lives and
embrace those light touches of ritual in worship which comfort our need for a connection to The
Greater. Rev. William Sinkford, President of the UUA stirs up some controversy and much
discussion when he declares a need to develop “a language of reverence” among us, but he is
not driven out with brick bats and torches.
The current move to spirituality among us has many sources. We have rediscovered the
Transcendentalism of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Our emerging environmental
awareness has led us not only to the nature writings of New England sages, but to Earth
centered traditions from around the world. Feminism has displaced the old patriarchal model of
God, that fierce and jealous creature rejected by Humanists, and opens the possibility of a more
nurturing spirit. The meditative practices of Eastern religions bring peace to many.
Yet quietly, almost without notice, that homey and wholesome Universalist tradition has begun to
re-assert itself. Forty years after the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association it may
be that Unitarianism won the head of the movement, but Universalism has reclaimed and
redeemed its heart and soul.
Properly speaking, universalism with a small u is a tendency within Christianity that has sprung
up repeatedly and independently like a hearty weed in every corner of Christendom from its
earliest days. The basis of this tendency is quite simple. It is the discovery by thinking men and
women that scripture does not validate a vengeful God judging and consigning souls to either
salvation or eternal damnation. In general it has held that a loving God would not turn his back
on any of his children, but somehow find a way to reconcile all souls to him. The precise
mechanisms of this reconciliation may vary according to time and culture, the ultimate result
does not.
Nineteenth Century Universalists were eager to show that their faith is rooted in a long tradition
stretching to the earliest days of the Church. Their scholars did some of the most important and
original research into early Church records to document their claims. The early Church had no
settled doctrine of salvation and damnation. There is much evidence that the prevailing opinion,
at least among gentile converts in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria and Asia Minor, embraced
the idea that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice ultimately redeemed all souls. Among the great fathers of
the early church who embraced and expounded this view were Clement of Alexandria, his great
pupil Origen, influential bishops like Diodorus of Tarsus and the founders of the Eastern
Nestorian sect.
The early church tolerated many interpretations of the message of Jesus. But that began to
change as the followers of Paul began to assert theological hegemony over dissenting Bishops.
After Constantine proclaimed the Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he and
his successors determined to force conformity on the Church so as to make it a better and more
effective agent of social control. By 544 a Church Council under the control of the Emperor
Justinian denounced the teaching of Origen, the most influential proponent of universal
salvation., Subsequent councils made clear that universalism in any guise was rank heresy .
The tendency was suppressed ruthlessly, disappearing except at the fringes of Empire and
Church control.
But it never really vanished. Over the years many would come to the same conclusions as
those early Church fathers. It cropped up in the writings of Archbishop Germanus in the Eighth
Century and in the preaching of the early reformer Clement in Germany and France. Adherents
found refuge in isolated monasteries throughout Europe.
The emergence of the printing press made the Bible widely available to the laity for the first
time. People were able to read and study for themselves, to interpret the Word of God without
the intervention of priests, doctrine, or the heavy weight of Church tradition. The Protestant
Reformation was the natural result of this new technological revolution.
Soon among the Reformers many were adopting a theology of universal salvation. It spread
and took hold among some of the German mystics collectively known as the Anabaptists, the
ancestors of the Dunkers, Mennonites, Amish and other sects which settled in new world. It
percolated through the Low Countries. In Britain it developed among some Methodists, Quakers
and other dissenters. It was popularized in one form by the writing of James Relly in his 1759
book UNION.
In later years universalism would also emerge independently in many places and in many
guises. It would pop up among convert people in the great colonial empires, Catholic and
Protestant alike. Even today it is being rediscovered and preached by some Evangelicals in
America, including some high profile televangelists.
In most places, in most times universalism would remain a tendency within other religions or as
with the Anabaptists just a part of a wider dissenting tradition. In America it would become the
central identify characteristic of its own denomination.
If you have been around this congregation for a while you may be familiar with the foundation
story of Universalism in America. It has been dramatized in Church School pageants and retold
from the pulpit. It may be all you know about that side of our heritage. The oft told tale goes like
this:
In 1770 a failed and embittered Englishman, a disciple of universalist James Relly, departed the
old world after the death of his wife vowing never to preach again. Determined to make a new
start, he sailed for the new world. After his ship wrecked off the coast of New Jersey at a place
called Good Luck Point, he came ashore and was taken in by a farmer named Thomas Potter.
Potter had built a small chapel on his land and was waiting for a universalist preacher to speak
there. Murray took this to be an unmistakable sign from God and preached his first new world
sermon on universal salvation. From there he went on preaching this gospel up and down the
East Coast. He would go on to be appointed by General Washington a Chaplin in the
Continental Army, settle in Gloucester, Massachusetts where he would establish the first
Universalist Church in America, and found the first Universalist Conventions. He would take as a
wife Judith, the beautiful and brilliant widowed daughter of the influential and powerful Sergeant
family. Together they would build Universalism into a force in American religion.
The beauty of this foundation myth is that it is essentially true in its details. But it is not the
whole story. The German Anabaptists who settled in Pennsylvania were already well disposed
to universalism. The brilliant young Dr. George de Benneville had been preaching and teaching
universalism around Bucks county Pennsylvania and surrounding areas since 1741. Although
he established a chapel in his home, he did not attempt to establish a separate denomination,
but preached to the Dunkers, Mennonites, Universal Baptists, and some Quakers receptive to
his message. He arranged for the publication of a German language Bible with passages
supporting universal salvation highlighted in 1743. In a career that spanned decades he
influenced many including members of the semi-monastic sect called the Ephrata Society in New
Jersey who in turn introduced universal salvation to English speaking Baptists like Thomas
Potter. De Bennville’s followers in Philadelphia, particularly a young preacher named Elhanan
Winchester, founded a Universal Baptist church there in 1786, the first church in the country to
take the name “Universalist.” This church would become the spiritual home of the Revolutionary
leader Dr. Benjamin Rush and would latter offer the English Unitarian preacher/scientist Joseph
Priestly his first American pulpit.
Meanwhile, in the frontier counties of western Massachusetts, Vermont and the Hampshire
Grants, a group of primitive Baptists were independently arriving at a theology of universal
salvation. Caleb Rich struggled with Calvinist predestination. Despite efforts to restrain himself
and remain orthodox, he gradually came to believe that Christ had redeemed all souls. Denied
fellowship by the Baptists, he and his extended family began to preach on their own. In 1774 he
established his first fellowship at Warrick, the first openly universalist society in America pre-
dating both Murray’s Gloucester Church and the Philadelphia congregation. This brand of
Universalism was rougher around the edges than Murray’s carefully reasoned intellectual
approach. It was firmly in the Evangelical tradition and appealed to struggling pioneer farmers,
small tradesmen and eventually the emerging working class. It was visceral and emotional—and
highly appealing. It spread rapidly via circuit riding missionaries throughout Western New
England and into upstate New York.
Soon Caleb Rich and his associates and John Murray became aware of each other. Despite
differences in social class, style and nuances of theology, they recognized a kinship. In 1793,
with congregations scattered over New England and outposts in Pennsylvania, Virginia and
points south to the Carolinas, Murray, Rich and his associates joined by Elhanan Winchester,
met in Oxford, Massachusetts to found New England Universalist Convention. Regional
conventions in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York and other areas soon followed. Universalism
was off and running as a distinct religious movement.
Even in its infancy the upstart sect made waves. From the beginning John Murray and his
Gloucester congregation objected to paying taxes to support the local Standing Order church.
This battle for separation of church and state would continue into the 19th Century pitting the
Universalists and other dissenters against the tax supported established congregations, which
after 1820 mostly aligned themselves with the new Unitarians. It was a fight the Universalists
won at long last when Massachusetts finally ended tax payer support of parishes in the 1830’s—
the last state to do so.
The Universalists, driven by a fervor to share the good news spread rapidly. Often through inter-
connected extended families they pushed deep into New York State, west and south. Their self-
taught preachers competed with Baptists, Methodists, and the more conventional Presbyterians
leaving the Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans with their highly educated clergy and
comfortable middle to upper class congregations far behind. Preachers often debated orthodox
ministers and were famous for their ability to turn Biblical passages to their advantage. In the
era of revivalism sweeping the new nation following the Revolutionary War, the Universalists
stood in stark contrast to the usual hell fire and damnation and grew at a pace that outstripped
their abilities to settle ministers or establish permanent congregations. They were aided by an
active tract ministry and a plethora of local and national periodicals. In these pages
Universalism grew and evolved.
The Rellian universalism of John Murray had accepted the Calvinist idea of pre-destination
believing that through Christ the predestined fate of all souls was eventual reconciliation with
God after a period of punishment for sins. Elhahan Winchester in his book DIALOGUES ON
UNIVERSAL SALVATION advanced a different argument, one which also resonated with the
frontier preachers. He rejected both Calvinist pre-destination and original sin arguing instead
for a loving God, who like a Father forgave the excesses of his wayward Children. In return, he
argued that grateful people should strive to make their lives worthy of such a generous and
forgiving Lord by striving to model their behavior on the example of Jesus himself.
Hosea Ballou, who as a very young minister had been present at the founding Conference, also
dissented from Murray’s view. He had been influenced not only by Winchester, who had
ordained him, but by the radical Deism of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allan, who declared
that “Reason was the only oracle of man.” Ballou kept Winchester’s flame alive after the
formers early death in 1797 radicalizing it even more with Allan’s rationalism.
Conflicts were sure to arise. The young Ballou was invited to preach to Murray’s congregation
while the old man was on one of his evangelical tours. After giving his views of universalism
Murray’s formidable wife, Judith Sargent Murray, arose, announced, “The doctrine preached
here is not the one usually heard from this pulpit,” and brought the service to a premature end.
Murray continued to be revered as a founder, but his views were rapidly fading from general
acceptance. In 1803, meeting at Winchester, New Hampshire the Convention adopted a three
point Profession of Faith as the basic doctrine of the church. In general it reflected Murray’s
concern for scriptural primacy, and support of the Trinity. But it was loose enough in its
explanation of universal salvation, “…there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one
Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of
mankind to holiness and happiness,” to accommodate both Murray’s view in temporary
punishment and Ballou’s belief that there would be no punishment after death. Despite
reluctance of some delegates to require any binding creed, it continued to serve, changed very
little through the coming century.
In the early years of the 19th Century, Ballou, articulate and charismatic, emerged as the
acknowledged leader of Universalism. In 1805 he published his famous A TREATISE ON
ATONEMENT. It represented a dramatic breakthrough in religious imagination. In it he argued
that God would not have endowed humanity with the ability to reason if he did not trust us to use
that gift and that he would not make any “revelation” at odds with reason. In his view Jesus was
not a redeemer of damned sinners, but rather the messenger sent to reveal God’s love. Christ
suffered not because of men, but for them and that God need not be reconciled to humanity
rather that humans need to be reconciled to God. God’s power and love were infinite and it was
impossible for men to frustrate that power and love. This stood Calvinism on its head. Ballou
also rejected the Trinity as irrational. He could hardly have been more radical, yet his ideas
resonated across the nation.
Within a decade Trinitarianism and Biblical literalism had virtually disappeared from Universalist
teachings. In many ways Ballou’s Universalism anticipated by 15 years the liberal views that his
great rival in Boston, the Unitarian William Ellery Channing would expound in his great “Unitarian
Christianity” sermon. Yet despite their obvious kinship as liberal, dissenting movements, they
often remained at odds, deeply suspicious of one another. This was not so much a matter of
doctrine as a matter of style and most importantly class. The Boston Unitarians represented the
respectable upper and middle classes and were served by Harvard educated scholars given to
dispassionate discourse. The Universalists found their strength among farmers, laborers,
mechanics, and the lesser tradesmen and shopkeepers of the cities and towns. Their
preachers might study with one another for a short while, or they may simply feel the call and go
out until the strength of their efforts would be recognized by ordination by their peers. And
although they relied on rationalism, they expressed it in homey metaphors, not classical
allusions. They unabashedly appealed to the heart as well as to the head.
Ballou’s influence was enormous. Not only did he preach, but he influenced Universalist
opinions as editor and publisher of the Universalist Magazine and as a frequent contributor to
dozens of other national, regional and local publications. He could be contentious. Welcoming
Channing’s famous “Unitarian Christianity” sermon for its embrace of reason in Biblical
interpretation, he disputed Channing’s characterization of humans as “incorrigible sinners.”
The two great leaders often battled back and forth in print, although never in person, over
issues such as tax support for established congregations and the supposed depravity of
universal salvation.
Ballou also took on all comers among orthodox critics. Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians and
Congregationalist united to denounce universal salvation. They argued that without fear of
punishment people would have no restraint on their passions and would commit all manner of
crimes and abominations. That the perfectly pious lives of thousands of humble Universalists
belied the charges had no effect. Some states even banned Universalists from elective office or
sitting on juries under the supposition that they had no restraint to prevent corruption. Ballou
fought back with ever more vigorous declarations of God’s limitless love. His view of immediate
reconciliation with God upon death became known as Ultra Universalism and derided as a faith
of “Death and Glory.”
By the 1830’s a group of younger ministers, including close associates and disciples like
Thomas Whitmore were gently disputing the old man. They advanced a theory of limited
punishment before final restoration to the Lord. As the dispute continued it became mixed with
personal issues and ambitions. The denomination began to take sides. Most supported Ballou
out of loyalty. His nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd defended him. But in his heart the younger man
sided with those who became known as the Restorationists. A handful of the dissidents tried to
leave the denomination and start a new movement, but returned to the fold in a very few years.
Ballou may have won the immediate struggle, but he lost the longer war. Most ministers quietly
accepted the Restorationist view and it was general in the denomination within twenty years.
Theological disputes aside, Universalism was a growing and vital faith. You could almost watch
it advance behind the ever expanding frontier line. It had strong appeal for both of the great
ethnic stocks of American pioneers. It flourished with the New England diaspora as they pushed
gradually west through New York State and into the Upper Midwest after the opening of the Erie
Canal. Sons of Yankee stone farmers broke ground along the Upper Hudson. Their sons and
daughters pushed west into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Universalist ministers and lay
preachers like Jonathan Chapman seemed to be there almost as soon as they raised their
barns—or in Chapman’s case maybe even before--as he spread apple seedlings along with
gospel in Ohio becoming the legendary Johnny Appleseed.
By the same token, working south from Pennsylvania into the back country of Virginia and the
Carolinas it appealed to the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock whose rough and tumble independence
put themselves ever on the edge of civilization seeking “elbow room.” Close knit families would
produce preachers who over generations would serve tiny country cross road chapels.
On the strength of these forces Universalism naturally arrived in McHenry County, where both
strands of pioneer stock met and mingled. Itinerant ministers were visiting the county soon after
the area was opened for settlement after the Black Hawk War. Competing largely with the
Methodists and Baptists who also employed saddle bag missionaries, Universalists would hold
meetings in various halls and establishments when ever they could. Daniel Parker Livermore, a
Universalist minister and editor and his wife Mary included Woodstock in trips out from Chicago
in the 1850’s. They held periodic meetings in halls over saloons despite being ardent
abstainers. Mary Rice Livermore would go on to a long career as a writer, speaker, heroic Civil
War nurse, and women’s rights crusader. Her story is featured in a framed picture hanging in
the church.
Members of the extended Pingry (sometimes spelled Pingree) family who’s various brothers and
cousins had been preaching in towns west from Ohio, settled around Crystal Lake and its twin
village Nunda and were holding regular house worship during the same decade.
There were soon enough Universalists to begin establishing permanent congregations in the
county. The Rev James R. Mack organized a church in McHenry in 1853 which erected a
building the following year. The Church persisted until 1929. The building still stands and is
currently occupied by a Pentecostal congregation. The simple frame structure is the oldest
church building in the county still in use.
The good people of Woodstock formed their church two years later. It served the city for more
than sixty years before disbanding in 1912. I have found passing references to shorter lived
Universalist congregations in Union and Marengo. There were undoubtedly other attempts at
forming churches that failed in a year or two for lack of regular ministerial leadership.
Meanwhile, despite its small town roots, Universalism was also establishing itself in many cities.
A more regular and establish clergy began to be developed and the denomination began to
developed colleges and seminaries to feed its need. Among the schools Tufts University, St.
Lawrence University, Lombard College, and ancestors of Akron University and Cal Tech stood
out. In Illinois Galesburg College opened as a Universalist institution providing an education for,
among others, Carl Sandburg.
Since the days of Rush and Winchester in Pennsylvania, Universalists had always been
interested in social and political issues of the day. They felt a duty to improve society. The
Philadelphia Convention under the influence of Rush had resolved to oppose slavery as early
as 1790, the first religious body in America to do so. Although that condemnation of slavery was
not universal among them, even in the South many Universalists--mostly hard scrabble back
country farmers resentful of the Tidewater aristocracy and fearful of slave competition for
employment--opposed the peculiar institution. The story told in the book and movie COLD
MOUNTIAN is based on the true tale of just such a Universalist family. The tiny country church
erected by the hero’s brother, Inman Chapel, is still standing. At a time when some Unitarians
were vocal abolitionists, many affluent merchants and manufactures in the pews with economic
ties to king cotton and slavery tacitly supported the institution. Opposition to slavery was far
more wide spread among Universalists.
Universalists were also early and voracious opponents of capital punishment and proponents of
prison reform. They spoke out against Jacksonian Indian removal policies and a wide range of
other issues. Yet another Ballou, a distant cousin named Adin, became the nation’s leading
advocate for peace and pacifism. His writings against war were widely influential around the
world. It was Adin Ballou’s words as much as Thoreau’s theory of Civil Disobedience that
influenced the work of the Christian pacifist Count Leo Tolstoy which in turn informed the
thinking of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Adin also took up the cause of utopian socialism and
founded one of the longest lasting experimental communities at Hopedale. After the community
dissolved he stayed on as minister to a local Unitarian congregation.
Because Universalism naturally implied equality among all people, it appealed strongly to
members of the emerging Women’s movement. Not only were women like Mary Livermore
acknowledged lay leaders, the denomination pioneered in the ordination of women. In 1863
Olympia Brown became the first woman in America to receive both full ordination and regular
employment as a parish minister. She served churches in Weymouth, Massachusetts;
Bridgeport, Connecticut where P. T. Barnum was the leading parishonier; and the Racine,
Wisconsin congregation that now bears her name. She was also a key leader of the movement
for women’s suffrage and the only one of her generation to live to cast a ballot. Another
Universalist woman, Clara Barton revolutionized battle field nursing care and went on to found
the American Red Cross.
In the years following the Civil War, Universalism seemed secure. True, it was no longer
experiencing the explosive growth of earlier years, but it achieved a level of both structural
stability and respectability long denied it. Governed principally by state and regional
conventions it finally found a national organizational base in the Universalist General
Convention, re-organized and institutionally strenghtened in John Murray’s home town of
Gloucester in 1870. It was a weak structure, but a structure none the less. The General
Convention would eventually become the Universalist Church of America in 1947.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, led by Dr. Henry Bellows were reorganizing themselves with
congregations formally united for the first time in the National Conference. Bellows and some
Universalist leaders, each yearning for a stronger, more “universal” church even began vague
discussions about merging the two liberal traditions. In the face of old rivalries nothing was apt
to come of it at the time.
Universalists also pioneered new forms of organization. The Women’s Association of
Universalists became the first continental organization of religious women. Soon other
denominations were following suit. In 1889 the first national religious youth group, the Young
People’s Christian Union was formed.
Rapid industrialization and advances in science were providing twin challenges to Universalists
and to many churches. Many young men were being lured from the agricultural villages at the
heart of Universalism into the dismal, smoke choked cities in search of work. Cut off from family
and cultural ties many fell away from the church.
Others were challenged by the new discoveries of science, Darwinism in particular.
Universalists, however were better prepared than most to face this new world. Their belief in
rationalism and rejection of Biblical literalism freed them from the constraints of many churches.
They could embrace the new discoveries as new revelations of God’s plan and method.
Because they did not rely on Bible fairy tails for proof of faith, they were better able to roll with
the punches. The Universalists became the first American denomination to officially embrace
Darwinism. This belays the frequent image of Universalists as simple and unsophisticated
Christians.
The 1893 the World Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition was a wake up call for many Universalists. Delegates came from all over the world.
For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—Hinduism,
Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well a practitioners of local native
cults and the wide variety of Christian, Jewish and Islamic practitioners. For some Universalists it
was a stunning development. They recognized a certain universality in the teachings of all
religions and observed how each functioned in the context of a traditional culture. Perhaps,
they began to surmise, Jesus Christ is not an essential agent, just one of many messengers of
God’s greater truth. And if indeed all humanity was reconciled to God upon death, then the
form of worship practiced on earth was not a critical matter.
Out of this insight a new Universalism began to be born, a Universalism beyond mere sectarian
Christianity which strove to be to truly Universal and inclusive. The very meaning of the term
began to change to reflect this new insight. In 1895, just two years after the Parliament, the
General Convention adopted a statement that “We believe in the universal Fatherhood of God,
and in the universal Brotherhood of Man. We believe that God, who hath spoken through all of
His Holy Prophets since the world began, hath spoken to us by His son Jesus Christ, our
Example and Savior. We believe that Salvation consists in spiritual oneness with God, who,
through Christ, will finally gather into one the whole family mankind.”
The following year appalled traditionalist voted to rescind the statement, but it was too late to put
the genie back into the bottle. Unitarians led by Jenkin Lloyd Jones of the Western Conference
of Unitarians and principle organizer of the World Parlaiment, were going through much the
same process at the same time.
By the early Twentieth Century a young minister named Clarence Skinner would take the
process even further. Imbued by a new sense of the common bonds of humanity and the
tradition of the Social Gospel movement Skinner was among those pressing for a new social
vision for his denomination. The country was at the time riven by a virtual class war between an
entrenched industrial oligarchy and militant unionists, a war in which quarter was seldom given
and was marked by the bullet, bayonet, and bullpen detentions. In response Skinner published
his seminal book, THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNIVERSALISM in 1915. Like John Jayne
Holmes among contemporary Unitarians he called for bold solidarity with the oppressed. These
ideas were adopted by the General Convention of 1917 as “Declaration of Social Principles.” A
reading of these principles reveals a clear influence over what is now in the UUA’s Seven
Principles.
The horrors of the First World War did much to shatter the simple faith of millions of Americans,
including many Universalists. What kind of a loving and merciful God would, after all, allow such
waste and carnage? That tough question impelled many clergy and religious thinkers to
embrace emerging Humanism, which rejected all systems which relied on supernatural power
and authority. These thinkers believed that the salvation of humanity lay only in the hands of
mankind and that it must act in its own behalf. This was a new kind of liberal religion advocated
by some Universalists and Unitarians alike—a religion not only with out Jesus, but without God.
Yet this was not a satisfactory answer for many, who yearned for faith and surer, simpler times.
Poor and working class men and women who had once responded enthusiastically to
Universalist Gospel began to turn instead to the sureness promised by a new brand of
Christianity—Fundamentalism. At the same time industrialization and the automobile were wiping
out the agricultural villages where universalism had thrived. Where hamlets of a couple of
hundred people clustered no more than a mornings brisk walk from surrounding farms in the
19th century and country market towns and county seats like Woodstock were spread out half a
day’s ride by horseback across the Midwest, new roads and automobiles made them nearly
obsolete. One historian studying Ohio, once rich with Universalist congregations, noted that
scores of them disappeared and the villages they once served vanished from the map.
And Universalism appeal as an alternative to rigid Calvinism was no longer unique. Most
mainline Protestant denominations had abandoned Calvinism in fact if not in theory by the new
century. They, too, were talking about a loving God filled with compassion and eager to forgive.
Hell fire and damnation faded from Sunday morning services. If these churches could not
promise universal salvation, they could offer something mighty close, a universally available
salvation which could be had pretty much for the asking and a tip of the hat to Jesus.
The experience of Universalism in McHenry County was typical. By the mid-Twenties all of the
old churches were gone, their members scattered through other congregations. In Woodstock
many of the remaining members of the Universalists came to the liberal First Congregational
Church, where they were welcomed with more or less open arms. But some yearned to re-
establish the old faith. One family left a $5000 bequest to who ever could form a new
Universalist church in the County. The promise of that money would play a crucial roll in
changing this congregation forever.
Church attendance for all denominations plummeted during the Roaring Twenties. Then the
Great Depression delivered a devastating economic blow. A dwindling number of members tried
to continue to support a minister and church on drastically reduced incomes. Churches all over
the country went into crisis. Many closed their doors forever. In Woodstock the same pain was
felt by the Congregationalists, by the Presbyterians from whom the local Congregationalists had
split in 1865 and the Baptists. In desperation the three self-governing congregations began
discussions aimed at a merger and the creation of “Federated Community Church” without
strong denominational ties. The Congregationalist and the Presbyterians voted to proceed with
the merger. The Baptists vetoed the plan killing it. All three struggled to stay afloat. It was then
that former Universalist recalled the bequest for a new congregation. What if the First
Congregational Church would also affiliate with the Illinois Universalist Convention? What if, in a
show of good faith, they would call a Universalist minister to their pulpit? Then would they be
eligible to receive the $5000 bequest and save the church?
On such mundane and decidedly unspiritual consideration was a new foundation laid. The
church received its fellowship into the Universalist Convention on May 1, 1938. The name was
changed to the Congregational Universalist Church and within a year Rev. Merton Aldridge, a
Universalist was called to the pulpit.
Aldridge was an outstand pastor. Despite the fact that litigation to claim the coveted $5000
dragged on until the early 1960’s, Aldridge was able to pull the congregation together and by
the thinnest of margins, save it. For the next ten years he ministered to the congregation.
Without emphasizing denominational affiliations, he none the less modeled the open
heartedness of Universalism. Soon some of the long time Congregationalists in the pews were
embracing Universalism. New members came on the basis of Aldridge’ reputation. After he died
in 1949, it was natural to continue to call Universalist ministers.
In the years after the Second World War the decline of Universalism had become precipitous.
Churches were disappearing at an alarming rate. Whole state and local conventions were
failing as membership plummeted. Much of what survived the aftermath of the First World War
could not survive the Second.
The Universalists cast around for new approaches to turn the tide. A group of young graduates
from Tufts divinity school in 1946 began meeting to find ways of reviving their denomination.
Known as the Humiliati, this group would meet for years and explore possibilities. They
distinguished themselves by adopting clerical collars, then rare in Liberal churches. Despite this
outward sign of traditionalism, the Humiliati broke new ground. They sought out a new
spiritualism to re-enforce Skinner’s Social Principles. A whole new generation of leadership
would emerge from this small group.
In Boston, headquarters of the Universalist Church, there was no active congregation by the late
1940’s. The Massachusetts Convention under the leadership of State Superintendent Clinton
Lee Scott, decided to experiment with the planning of a new congregation in the city. They
called Kenneth Patton, a humanist minister with a reputation for creativity do be the minister of
the new Charles Street Meeting House. He would emphasize the new Universalism by
introducing elements from many religions and cultures into the worship. He also integrated
music, visual, and performance art into services in a new and bold way. He wrote whole new
liturgies, breaking the constricting mold of the traditional Protestant service. Patton’s words and
poetry are still the most prolific in the UUA hymnal. Kenneth Patton changed liberal worship
forever. The Charles Street Meeting House may have eventually failed, but what Patton created
lives on.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, rooted largely in urban areas and around college campuses were
experiencing growth, a renaissance attributable to the vigorous Humanism which was then its
dominant theology. Cooperation between the two faiths had been growing for decades. The
youth groups had already merged and the religious education and publishing functions of both
denominations had been consolidated. A joint commission studied further cooperation and
recommended consolidation in 1957. In 1960 the two denominations voted to merge and the
following year Unitarian Universalist Association was born.
Many Universalists feared that the larger Unitarians would swamp the older partner and wipe out
its unique identity. In many ways their fears were justified. Despite an agreement between
Universalist General Superintendent Philip Giles and Unitarian President Dana Greeley that
neither would seek the presidency of the new association, Greeley ran for and was elected to
the post. He proceeded to create a structural clone of the old American Unitarian Association.
The Universalist state conventions were wiped out. Some, like Ohio, had considerable
resources which were absorbed by the UUA. The two denominations together now had too
many seminaries. A commission recommended closing the Universalist schools at Tufts and St.
Lawrence while leaving the Unitarian institutions of Meadville-Lombard and Star King in
California untouched.
New churches took the Unitarian Universalist name but many established ones, particularly the
historically Unitarian ones, kept their old identification. In many cities Universalist churches were
absorbed into Unitarian Congregations. The general tone of the denomination resembled more
closely the militant Humanism dominant among the Unitarians than the more spiritual version
favored by Universalists. Both the public and members in the pews often spoke simply of
Unitarianism, dropping the Universalist appellation entirely.
In Woodstock by the early 1970’s ministers were trained in the Unitarian tradition, not products
of Universalist seminaries. When the congregation decided to overhaul their by-law in the 1980’
s, leaders figured that no one knew what Universalism meant anymore, but that people did
recognize the term Unitarian. The name of the congregation was changed again, this time to the
Congregational Unitarian Church in hopes of making it clear that this was a liberal church.
Yet not long after the adoption of the new name, the winds of change began to blow again, as
they have so often in the history of both of our great faith traditions. The rise of feminism and
the spread of women clergy in the denomination encouraged a more spiritual view. Ecological
awareness played its part, as did awareness of eastern meditative practices. It was not that
Humanism was being rejected out of hand, but that it was being softened and deepened by new
understandings. In the search for spirituality, many are re-examining our Universalist roots.
No less a figure than Forrest Church, minister of the prestigious All Soul’s Church in New York
and perhaps our most prolific writer and most influential figure, has called for a New
Universalism. He has been echoed by others. A new wave of historic scholarship is re-
examining our Universalist heritage. Social activists look to the inclusiveness of Universalism as
an antidote for a perceived class and caste arrogance that persists among us. Universalism not
only answers Bill Sinkford’s call for greater reverence, but recent General Convention
resolutions advocating economic justice.
There is something lovable about the Universalists, warmth where the intellectual pretensions of
the Unitarians can leave us cold. In the end we need both traditions. Each compliments the
weaknesses of the other. Together they can build something new under the sun.
But today, let’s go with in ourselves and retrieve the Universalist buried within.
BY PATRICK MURFIN
CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH
For fifty years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s this congregation was known as the
Congregational Universalist Church. Beloved and accomplished Universalist ministers filled our
pulpit. We sit here today the heirs of a great tradition of a warm hearted and embracing liberal
tradition, yet most of us hardly know of its existence apart from the mysterious persistence of the
name as the second “U” in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Many things have contributed to this state of affairs. We will examine them today. Universalism
shrank from the seventh largest denomination in the United States in the years before the Civil
War to the runt half of the merger with the American Unitarian Association and then was nearly
swallowed up by the power of the Unitarians, then in the hay day of Humanist dominance.
Today, even though most members of UUA congregations continue to identify themselves as
Humanist, the hard edges of that philosophy have been knocked off. No longer do most
congregations rise up in revolt if a minister dare incorporate “God talk” into Sunday services.
Just about everyone, Humanists included, yearns for greater spirituality in their lives and
embrace those light touches of ritual in worship which comfort our need for a connection to The
Greater. Rev. William Sinkford, President of the UUA stirs up some controversy and much
discussion when he declares a need to develop “a language of reverence” among us, but he is
not driven out with brick bats and torches.
The current move to spirituality among us has many sources. We have rediscovered the
Transcendentalism of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Our emerging environmental
awareness has led us not only to the nature writings of New England sages, but to Earth
centered traditions from around the world. Feminism has displaced the old patriarchal model of
God, that fierce and jealous creature rejected by Humanists, and opens the possibility of a more
nurturing spirit. The meditative practices of Eastern religions bring peace to many.
Yet quietly, almost without notice, that homey and wholesome Universalist tradition has begun to
re-assert itself. Forty years after the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association it may
be that Unitarianism won the head of the movement, but Universalism has reclaimed and
redeemed its heart and soul.
Properly speaking, universalism with a small u is a tendency within Christianity that has sprung
up repeatedly and independently like a hearty weed in every corner of Christendom from its
earliest days. The basis of this tendency is quite simple. It is the discovery by thinking men and
women that scripture does not validate a vengeful God judging and consigning souls to either
salvation or eternal damnation. In general it has held that a loving God would not turn his back
on any of his children, but somehow find a way to reconcile all souls to him. The precise
mechanisms of this reconciliation may vary according to time and culture, the ultimate result
does not.
Nineteenth Century Universalists were eager to show that their faith is rooted in a long tradition
stretching to the earliest days of the Church. Their scholars did some of the most important and
original research into early Church records to document their claims. The early Church had no
settled doctrine of salvation and damnation. There is much evidence that the prevailing opinion,
at least among gentile converts in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria and Asia Minor, embraced
the idea that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice ultimately redeemed all souls. Among the great fathers of
the early church who embraced and expounded this view were Clement of Alexandria, his great
pupil Origen, influential bishops like Diodorus of Tarsus and the founders of the Eastern
Nestorian sect.
The early church tolerated many interpretations of the message of Jesus. But that began to
change as the followers of Paul began to assert theological hegemony over dissenting Bishops.
After Constantine proclaimed the Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he and
his successors determined to force conformity on the Church so as to make it a better and more
effective agent of social control. By 544 a Church Council under the control of the Emperor
Justinian denounced the teaching of Origen, the most influential proponent of universal
salvation., Subsequent councils made clear that universalism in any guise was rank heresy .
The tendency was suppressed ruthlessly, disappearing except at the fringes of Empire and
Church control.
But it never really vanished. Over the years many would come to the same conclusions as
those early Church fathers. It cropped up in the writings of Archbishop Germanus in the Eighth
Century and in the preaching of the early reformer Clement in Germany and France. Adherents
found refuge in isolated monasteries throughout Europe.
The emergence of the printing press made the Bible widely available to the laity for the first
time. People were able to read and study for themselves, to interpret the Word of God without
the intervention of priests, doctrine, or the heavy weight of Church tradition. The Protestant
Reformation was the natural result of this new technological revolution.
Soon among the Reformers many were adopting a theology of universal salvation. It spread
and took hold among some of the German mystics collectively known as the Anabaptists, the
ancestors of the Dunkers, Mennonites, Amish and other sects which settled in new world. It
percolated through the Low Countries. In Britain it developed among some Methodists, Quakers
and other dissenters. It was popularized in one form by the writing of James Relly in his 1759
book UNION.
In later years universalism would also emerge independently in many places and in many
guises. It would pop up among convert people in the great colonial empires, Catholic and
Protestant alike. Even today it is being rediscovered and preached by some Evangelicals in
America, including some high profile televangelists.
In most places, in most times universalism would remain a tendency within other religions or as
with the Anabaptists just a part of a wider dissenting tradition. In America it would become the
central identify characteristic of its own denomination.
If you have been around this congregation for a while you may be familiar with the foundation
story of Universalism in America. It has been dramatized in Church School pageants and retold
from the pulpit. It may be all you know about that side of our heritage. The oft told tale goes like
this:
In 1770 a failed and embittered Englishman, a disciple of universalist James Relly, departed the
old world after the death of his wife vowing never to preach again. Determined to make a new
start, he sailed for the new world. After his ship wrecked off the coast of New Jersey at a place
called Good Luck Point, he came ashore and was taken in by a farmer named Thomas Potter.
Potter had built a small chapel on his land and was waiting for a universalist preacher to speak
there. Murray took this to be an unmistakable sign from God and preached his first new world
sermon on universal salvation. From there he went on preaching this gospel up and down the
East Coast. He would go on to be appointed by General Washington a Chaplin in the
Continental Army, settle in Gloucester, Massachusetts where he would establish the first
Universalist Church in America, and found the first Universalist Conventions. He would take as a
wife Judith, the beautiful and brilliant widowed daughter of the influential and powerful Sergeant
family. Together they would build Universalism into a force in American religion.
The beauty of this foundation myth is that it is essentially true in its details. But it is not the
whole story. The German Anabaptists who settled in Pennsylvania were already well disposed
to universalism. The brilliant young Dr. George de Benneville had been preaching and teaching
universalism around Bucks county Pennsylvania and surrounding areas since 1741. Although
he established a chapel in his home, he did not attempt to establish a separate denomination,
but preached to the Dunkers, Mennonites, Universal Baptists, and some Quakers receptive to
his message. He arranged for the publication of a German language Bible with passages
supporting universal salvation highlighted in 1743. In a career that spanned decades he
influenced many including members of the semi-monastic sect called the Ephrata Society in New
Jersey who in turn introduced universal salvation to English speaking Baptists like Thomas
Potter. De Bennville’s followers in Philadelphia, particularly a young preacher named Elhanan
Winchester, founded a Universal Baptist church there in 1786, the first church in the country to
take the name “Universalist.” This church would become the spiritual home of the Revolutionary
leader Dr. Benjamin Rush and would latter offer the English Unitarian preacher/scientist Joseph
Priestly his first American pulpit.
Meanwhile, in the frontier counties of western Massachusetts, Vermont and the Hampshire
Grants, a group of primitive Baptists were independently arriving at a theology of universal
salvation. Caleb Rich struggled with Calvinist predestination. Despite efforts to restrain himself
and remain orthodox, he gradually came to believe that Christ had redeemed all souls. Denied
fellowship by the Baptists, he and his extended family began to preach on their own. In 1774 he
established his first fellowship at Warrick, the first openly universalist society in America pre-
dating both Murray’s Gloucester Church and the Philadelphia congregation. This brand of
Universalism was rougher around the edges than Murray’s carefully reasoned intellectual
approach. It was firmly in the Evangelical tradition and appealed to struggling pioneer farmers,
small tradesmen and eventually the emerging working class. It was visceral and emotional—and
highly appealing. It spread rapidly via circuit riding missionaries throughout Western New
England and into upstate New York.
Soon Caleb Rich and his associates and John Murray became aware of each other. Despite
differences in social class, style and nuances of theology, they recognized a kinship. In 1793,
with congregations scattered over New England and outposts in Pennsylvania, Virginia and
points south to the Carolinas, Murray, Rich and his associates joined by Elhanan Winchester,
met in Oxford, Massachusetts to found New England Universalist Convention. Regional
conventions in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York and other areas soon followed. Universalism
was off and running as a distinct religious movement.
Even in its infancy the upstart sect made waves. From the beginning John Murray and his
Gloucester congregation objected to paying taxes to support the local Standing Order church.
This battle for separation of church and state would continue into the 19th Century pitting the
Universalists and other dissenters against the tax supported established congregations, which
after 1820 mostly aligned themselves with the new Unitarians. It was a fight the Universalists
won at long last when Massachusetts finally ended tax payer support of parishes in the 1830’s—
the last state to do so.
The Universalists, driven by a fervor to share the good news spread rapidly. Often through inter-
connected extended families they pushed deep into New York State, west and south. Their self-
taught preachers competed with Baptists, Methodists, and the more conventional Presbyterians
leaving the Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans with their highly educated clergy and
comfortable middle to upper class congregations far behind. Preachers often debated orthodox
ministers and were famous for their ability to turn Biblical passages to their advantage. In the
era of revivalism sweeping the new nation following the Revolutionary War, the Universalists
stood in stark contrast to the usual hell fire and damnation and grew at a pace that outstripped
their abilities to settle ministers or establish permanent congregations. They were aided by an
active tract ministry and a plethora of local and national periodicals. In these pages
Universalism grew and evolved.
The Rellian universalism of John Murray had accepted the Calvinist idea of pre-destination
believing that through Christ the predestined fate of all souls was eventual reconciliation with
God after a period of punishment for sins. Elhahan Winchester in his book DIALOGUES ON
UNIVERSAL SALVATION advanced a different argument, one which also resonated with the
frontier preachers. He rejected both Calvinist pre-destination and original sin arguing instead
for a loving God, who like a Father forgave the excesses of his wayward Children. In return, he
argued that grateful people should strive to make their lives worthy of such a generous and
forgiving Lord by striving to model their behavior on the example of Jesus himself.
Hosea Ballou, who as a very young minister had been present at the founding Conference, also
dissented from Murray’s view. He had been influenced not only by Winchester, who had
ordained him, but by the radical Deism of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allan, who declared
that “Reason was the only oracle of man.” Ballou kept Winchester’s flame alive after the
formers early death in 1797 radicalizing it even more with Allan’s rationalism.
Conflicts were sure to arise. The young Ballou was invited to preach to Murray’s congregation
while the old man was on one of his evangelical tours. After giving his views of universalism
Murray’s formidable wife, Judith Sargent Murray, arose, announced, “The doctrine preached
here is not the one usually heard from this pulpit,” and brought the service to a premature end.
Murray continued to be revered as a founder, but his views were rapidly fading from general
acceptance. In 1803, meeting at Winchester, New Hampshire the Convention adopted a three
point Profession of Faith as the basic doctrine of the church. In general it reflected Murray’s
concern for scriptural primacy, and support of the Trinity. But it was loose enough in its
explanation of universal salvation, “…there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one
Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of
mankind to holiness and happiness,” to accommodate both Murray’s view in temporary
punishment and Ballou’s belief that there would be no punishment after death. Despite
reluctance of some delegates to require any binding creed, it continued to serve, changed very
little through the coming century.
In the early years of the 19th Century, Ballou, articulate and charismatic, emerged as the
acknowledged leader of Universalism. In 1805 he published his famous A TREATISE ON
ATONEMENT. It represented a dramatic breakthrough in religious imagination. In it he argued
that God would not have endowed humanity with the ability to reason if he did not trust us to use
that gift and that he would not make any “revelation” at odds with reason. In his view Jesus was
not a redeemer of damned sinners, but rather the messenger sent to reveal God’s love. Christ
suffered not because of men, but for them and that God need not be reconciled to humanity
rather that humans need to be reconciled to God. God’s power and love were infinite and it was
impossible for men to frustrate that power and love. This stood Calvinism on its head. Ballou
also rejected the Trinity as irrational. He could hardly have been more radical, yet his ideas
resonated across the nation.
Within a decade Trinitarianism and Biblical literalism had virtually disappeared from Universalist
teachings. In many ways Ballou’s Universalism anticipated by 15 years the liberal views that his
great rival in Boston, the Unitarian William Ellery Channing would expound in his great “Unitarian
Christianity” sermon. Yet despite their obvious kinship as liberal, dissenting movements, they
often remained at odds, deeply suspicious of one another. This was not so much a matter of
doctrine as a matter of style and most importantly class. The Boston Unitarians represented the
respectable upper and middle classes and were served by Harvard educated scholars given to
dispassionate discourse. The Universalists found their strength among farmers, laborers,
mechanics, and the lesser tradesmen and shopkeepers of the cities and towns. Their
preachers might study with one another for a short while, or they may simply feel the call and go
out until the strength of their efforts would be recognized by ordination by their peers. And
although they relied on rationalism, they expressed it in homey metaphors, not classical
allusions. They unabashedly appealed to the heart as well as to the head.
Ballou’s influence was enormous. Not only did he preach, but he influenced Universalist
opinions as editor and publisher of the Universalist Magazine and as a frequent contributor to
dozens of other national, regional and local publications. He could be contentious. Welcoming
Channing’s famous “Unitarian Christianity” sermon for its embrace of reason in Biblical
interpretation, he disputed Channing’s characterization of humans as “incorrigible sinners.”
The two great leaders often battled back and forth in print, although never in person, over
issues such as tax support for established congregations and the supposed depravity of
universal salvation.
Ballou also took on all comers among orthodox critics. Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians and
Congregationalist united to denounce universal salvation. They argued that without fear of
punishment people would have no restraint on their passions and would commit all manner of
crimes and abominations. That the perfectly pious lives of thousands of humble Universalists
belied the charges had no effect. Some states even banned Universalists from elective office or
sitting on juries under the supposition that they had no restraint to prevent corruption. Ballou
fought back with ever more vigorous declarations of God’s limitless love. His view of immediate
reconciliation with God upon death became known as Ultra Universalism and derided as a faith
of “Death and Glory.”
By the 1830’s a group of younger ministers, including close associates and disciples like
Thomas Whitmore were gently disputing the old man. They advanced a theory of limited
punishment before final restoration to the Lord. As the dispute continued it became mixed with
personal issues and ambitions. The denomination began to take sides. Most supported Ballou
out of loyalty. His nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd defended him. But in his heart the younger man
sided with those who became known as the Restorationists. A handful of the dissidents tried to
leave the denomination and start a new movement, but returned to the fold in a very few years.
Ballou may have won the immediate struggle, but he lost the longer war. Most ministers quietly
accepted the Restorationist view and it was general in the denomination within twenty years.
Theological disputes aside, Universalism was a growing and vital faith. You could almost watch
it advance behind the ever expanding frontier line. It had strong appeal for both of the great
ethnic stocks of American pioneers. It flourished with the New England diaspora as they pushed
gradually west through New York State and into the Upper Midwest after the opening of the Erie
Canal. Sons of Yankee stone farmers broke ground along the Upper Hudson. Their sons and
daughters pushed west into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Universalist ministers and lay
preachers like Jonathan Chapman seemed to be there almost as soon as they raised their
barns—or in Chapman’s case maybe even before--as he spread apple seedlings along with
gospel in Ohio becoming the legendary Johnny Appleseed.
By the same token, working south from Pennsylvania into the back country of Virginia and the
Carolinas it appealed to the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock whose rough and tumble independence
put themselves ever on the edge of civilization seeking “elbow room.” Close knit families would
produce preachers who over generations would serve tiny country cross road chapels.
On the strength of these forces Universalism naturally arrived in McHenry County, where both
strands of pioneer stock met and mingled. Itinerant ministers were visiting the county soon after
the area was opened for settlement after the Black Hawk War. Competing largely with the
Methodists and Baptists who also employed saddle bag missionaries, Universalists would hold
meetings in various halls and establishments when ever they could. Daniel Parker Livermore, a
Universalist minister and editor and his wife Mary included Woodstock in trips out from Chicago
in the 1850’s. They held periodic meetings in halls over saloons despite being ardent
abstainers. Mary Rice Livermore would go on to a long career as a writer, speaker, heroic Civil
War nurse, and women’s rights crusader. Her story is featured in a framed picture hanging in
the church.
Members of the extended Pingry (sometimes spelled Pingree) family who’s various brothers and
cousins had been preaching in towns west from Ohio, settled around Crystal Lake and its twin
village Nunda and were holding regular house worship during the same decade.
There were soon enough Universalists to begin establishing permanent congregations in the
county. The Rev James R. Mack organized a church in McHenry in 1853 which erected a
building the following year. The Church persisted until 1929. The building still stands and is
currently occupied by a Pentecostal congregation. The simple frame structure is the oldest
church building in the county still in use.
The good people of Woodstock formed their church two years later. It served the city for more
than sixty years before disbanding in 1912. I have found passing references to shorter lived
Universalist congregations in Union and Marengo. There were undoubtedly other attempts at
forming churches that failed in a year or two for lack of regular ministerial leadership.
Meanwhile, despite its small town roots, Universalism was also establishing itself in many cities.
A more regular and establish clergy began to be developed and the denomination began to
developed colleges and seminaries to feed its need. Among the schools Tufts University, St.
Lawrence University, Lombard College, and ancestors of Akron University and Cal Tech stood
out. In Illinois Galesburg College opened as a Universalist institution providing an education for,
among others, Carl Sandburg.
Since the days of Rush and Winchester in Pennsylvania, Universalists had always been
interested in social and political issues of the day. They felt a duty to improve society. The
Philadelphia Convention under the influence of Rush had resolved to oppose slavery as early
as 1790, the first religious body in America to do so. Although that condemnation of slavery was
not universal among them, even in the South many Universalists--mostly hard scrabble back
country farmers resentful of the Tidewater aristocracy and fearful of slave competition for
employment--opposed the peculiar institution. The story told in the book and movie COLD
MOUNTIAN is based on the true tale of just such a Universalist family. The tiny country church
erected by the hero’s brother, Inman Chapel, is still standing. At a time when some Unitarians
were vocal abolitionists, many affluent merchants and manufactures in the pews with economic
ties to king cotton and slavery tacitly supported the institution. Opposition to slavery was far
more wide spread among Universalists.
Universalists were also early and voracious opponents of capital punishment and proponents of
prison reform. They spoke out against Jacksonian Indian removal policies and a wide range of
other issues. Yet another Ballou, a distant cousin named Adin, became the nation’s leading
advocate for peace and pacifism. His writings against war were widely influential around the
world. It was Adin Ballou’s words as much as Thoreau’s theory of Civil Disobedience that
influenced the work of the Christian pacifist Count Leo Tolstoy which in turn informed the
thinking of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Adin also took up the cause of utopian socialism and
founded one of the longest lasting experimental communities at Hopedale. After the community
dissolved he stayed on as minister to a local Unitarian congregation.
Because Universalism naturally implied equality among all people, it appealed strongly to
members of the emerging Women’s movement. Not only were women like Mary Livermore
acknowledged lay leaders, the denomination pioneered in the ordination of women. In 1863
Olympia Brown became the first woman in America to receive both full ordination and regular
employment as a parish minister. She served churches in Weymouth, Massachusetts;
Bridgeport, Connecticut where P. T. Barnum was the leading parishonier; and the Racine,
Wisconsin congregation that now bears her name. She was also a key leader of the movement
for women’s suffrage and the only one of her generation to live to cast a ballot. Another
Universalist woman, Clara Barton revolutionized battle field nursing care and went on to found
the American Red Cross.
In the years following the Civil War, Universalism seemed secure. True, it was no longer
experiencing the explosive growth of earlier years, but it achieved a level of both structural
stability and respectability long denied it. Governed principally by state and regional
conventions it finally found a national organizational base in the Universalist General
Convention, re-organized and institutionally strenghtened in John Murray’s home town of
Gloucester in 1870. It was a weak structure, but a structure none the less. The General
Convention would eventually become the Universalist Church of America in 1947.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, led by Dr. Henry Bellows were reorganizing themselves with
congregations formally united for the first time in the National Conference. Bellows and some
Universalist leaders, each yearning for a stronger, more “universal” church even began vague
discussions about merging the two liberal traditions. In the face of old rivalries nothing was apt
to come of it at the time.
Universalists also pioneered new forms of organization. The Women’s Association of
Universalists became the first continental organization of religious women. Soon other
denominations were following suit. In 1889 the first national religious youth group, the Young
People’s Christian Union was formed.
Rapid industrialization and advances in science were providing twin challenges to Universalists
and to many churches. Many young men were being lured from the agricultural villages at the
heart of Universalism into the dismal, smoke choked cities in search of work. Cut off from family
and cultural ties many fell away from the church.
Others were challenged by the new discoveries of science, Darwinism in particular.
Universalists, however were better prepared than most to face this new world. Their belief in
rationalism and rejection of Biblical literalism freed them from the constraints of many churches.
They could embrace the new discoveries as new revelations of God’s plan and method.
Because they did not rely on Bible fairy tails for proof of faith, they were better able to roll with
the punches. The Universalists became the first American denomination to officially embrace
Darwinism. This belays the frequent image of Universalists as simple and unsophisticated
Christians.
The 1893 the World Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition was a wake up call for many Universalists. Delegates came from all over the world.
For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—Hinduism,
Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well a practitioners of local native
cults and the wide variety of Christian, Jewish and Islamic practitioners. For some Universalists it
was a stunning development. They recognized a certain universality in the teachings of all
religions and observed how each functioned in the context of a traditional culture. Perhaps,
they began to surmise, Jesus Christ is not an essential agent, just one of many messengers of
God’s greater truth. And if indeed all humanity was reconciled to God upon death, then the
form of worship practiced on earth was not a critical matter.
Out of this insight a new Universalism began to be born, a Universalism beyond mere sectarian
Christianity which strove to be to truly Universal and inclusive. The very meaning of the term
began to change to reflect this new insight. In 1895, just two years after the Parliament, the
General Convention adopted a statement that “We believe in the universal Fatherhood of God,
and in the universal Brotherhood of Man. We believe that God, who hath spoken through all of
His Holy Prophets since the world began, hath spoken to us by His son Jesus Christ, our
Example and Savior. We believe that Salvation consists in spiritual oneness with God, who,
through Christ, will finally gather into one the whole family mankind.”
The following year appalled traditionalist voted to rescind the statement, but it was too late to put
the genie back into the bottle. Unitarians led by Jenkin Lloyd Jones of the Western Conference
of Unitarians and principle organizer of the World Parlaiment, were going through much the
same process at the same time.
By the early Twentieth Century a young minister named Clarence Skinner would take the
process even further. Imbued by a new sense of the common bonds of humanity and the
tradition of the Social Gospel movement Skinner was among those pressing for a new social
vision for his denomination. The country was at the time riven by a virtual class war between an
entrenched industrial oligarchy and militant unionists, a war in which quarter was seldom given
and was marked by the bullet, bayonet, and bullpen detentions. In response Skinner published
his seminal book, THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNIVERSALISM in 1915. Like John Jayne
Holmes among contemporary Unitarians he called for bold solidarity with the oppressed. These
ideas were adopted by the General Convention of 1917 as “Declaration of Social Principles.” A
reading of these principles reveals a clear influence over what is now in the UUA’s Seven
Principles.
The horrors of the First World War did much to shatter the simple faith of millions of Americans,
including many Universalists. What kind of a loving and merciful God would, after all, allow such
waste and carnage? That tough question impelled many clergy and religious thinkers to
embrace emerging Humanism, which rejected all systems which relied on supernatural power
and authority. These thinkers believed that the salvation of humanity lay only in the hands of
mankind and that it must act in its own behalf. This was a new kind of liberal religion advocated
by some Universalists and Unitarians alike—a religion not only with out Jesus, but without God.
Yet this was not a satisfactory answer for many, who yearned for faith and surer, simpler times.
Poor and working class men and women who had once responded enthusiastically to
Universalist Gospel began to turn instead to the sureness promised by a new brand of
Christianity—Fundamentalism. At the same time industrialization and the automobile were wiping
out the agricultural villages where universalism had thrived. Where hamlets of a couple of
hundred people clustered no more than a mornings brisk walk from surrounding farms in the
19th century and country market towns and county seats like Woodstock were spread out half a
day’s ride by horseback across the Midwest, new roads and automobiles made them nearly
obsolete. One historian studying Ohio, once rich with Universalist congregations, noted that
scores of them disappeared and the villages they once served vanished from the map.
And Universalism appeal as an alternative to rigid Calvinism was no longer unique. Most
mainline Protestant denominations had abandoned Calvinism in fact if not in theory by the new
century. They, too, were talking about a loving God filled with compassion and eager to forgive.
Hell fire and damnation faded from Sunday morning services. If these churches could not
promise universal salvation, they could offer something mighty close, a universally available
salvation which could be had pretty much for the asking and a tip of the hat to Jesus.
The experience of Universalism in McHenry County was typical. By the mid-Twenties all of the
old churches were gone, their members scattered through other congregations. In Woodstock
many of the remaining members of the Universalists came to the liberal First Congregational
Church, where they were welcomed with more or less open arms. But some yearned to re-
establish the old faith. One family left a $5000 bequest to who ever could form a new
Universalist church in the County. The promise of that money would play a crucial roll in
changing this congregation forever.
Church attendance for all denominations plummeted during the Roaring Twenties. Then the
Great Depression delivered a devastating economic blow. A dwindling number of members tried
to continue to support a minister and church on drastically reduced incomes. Churches all over
the country went into crisis. Many closed their doors forever. In Woodstock the same pain was
felt by the Congregationalists, by the Presbyterians from whom the local Congregationalists had
split in 1865 and the Baptists. In desperation the three self-governing congregations began
discussions aimed at a merger and the creation of “Federated Community Church” without
strong denominational ties. The Congregationalist and the Presbyterians voted to proceed with
the merger. The Baptists vetoed the plan killing it. All three struggled to stay afloat. It was then
that former Universalist recalled the bequest for a new congregation. What if the First
Congregational Church would also affiliate with the Illinois Universalist Convention? What if, in a
show of good faith, they would call a Universalist minister to their pulpit? Then would they be
eligible to receive the $5000 bequest and save the church?
On such mundane and decidedly unspiritual consideration was a new foundation laid. The
church received its fellowship into the Universalist Convention on May 1, 1938. The name was
changed to the Congregational Universalist Church and within a year Rev. Merton Aldridge, a
Universalist was called to the pulpit.
Aldridge was an outstand pastor. Despite the fact that litigation to claim the coveted $5000
dragged on until the early 1960’s, Aldridge was able to pull the congregation together and by
the thinnest of margins, save it. For the next ten years he ministered to the congregation.
Without emphasizing denominational affiliations, he none the less modeled the open
heartedness of Universalism. Soon some of the long time Congregationalists in the pews were
embracing Universalism. New members came on the basis of Aldridge’ reputation. After he died
in 1949, it was natural to continue to call Universalist ministers.
In the years after the Second World War the decline of Universalism had become precipitous.
Churches were disappearing at an alarming rate. Whole state and local conventions were
failing as membership plummeted. Much of what survived the aftermath of the First World War
could not survive the Second.
The Universalists cast around for new approaches to turn the tide. A group of young graduates
from Tufts divinity school in 1946 began meeting to find ways of reviving their denomination.
Known as the Humiliati, this group would meet for years and explore possibilities. They
distinguished themselves by adopting clerical collars, then rare in Liberal churches. Despite this
outward sign of traditionalism, the Humiliati broke new ground. They sought out a new
spiritualism to re-enforce Skinner’s Social Principles. A whole new generation of leadership
would emerge from this small group.
In Boston, headquarters of the Universalist Church, there was no active congregation by the late
1940’s. The Massachusetts Convention under the leadership of State Superintendent Clinton
Lee Scott, decided to experiment with the planning of a new congregation in the city. They
called Kenneth Patton, a humanist minister with a reputation for creativity do be the minister of
the new Charles Street Meeting House. He would emphasize the new Universalism by
introducing elements from many religions and cultures into the worship. He also integrated
music, visual, and performance art into services in a new and bold way. He wrote whole new
liturgies, breaking the constricting mold of the traditional Protestant service. Patton’s words and
poetry are still the most prolific in the UUA hymnal. Kenneth Patton changed liberal worship
forever. The Charles Street Meeting House may have eventually failed, but what Patton created
lives on.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, rooted largely in urban areas and around college campuses were
experiencing growth, a renaissance attributable to the vigorous Humanism which was then its
dominant theology. Cooperation between the two faiths had been growing for decades. The
youth groups had already merged and the religious education and publishing functions of both
denominations had been consolidated. A joint commission studied further cooperation and
recommended consolidation in 1957. In 1960 the two denominations voted to merge and the
following year Unitarian Universalist Association was born.
Many Universalists feared that the larger Unitarians would swamp the older partner and wipe out
its unique identity. In many ways their fears were justified. Despite an agreement between
Universalist General Superintendent Philip Giles and Unitarian President Dana Greeley that
neither would seek the presidency of the new association, Greeley ran for and was elected to
the post. He proceeded to create a structural clone of the old American Unitarian Association.
The Universalist state conventions were wiped out. Some, like Ohio, had considerable
resources which were absorbed by the UUA. The two denominations together now had too
many seminaries. A commission recommended closing the Universalist schools at Tufts and St.
Lawrence while leaving the Unitarian institutions of Meadville-Lombard and Star King in
California untouched.
New churches took the Unitarian Universalist name but many established ones, particularly the
historically Unitarian ones, kept their old identification. In many cities Universalist churches were
absorbed into Unitarian Congregations. The general tone of the denomination resembled more
closely the militant Humanism dominant among the Unitarians than the more spiritual version
favored by Universalists. Both the public and members in the pews often spoke simply of
Unitarianism, dropping the Universalist appellation entirely.
In Woodstock by the early 1970’s ministers were trained in the Unitarian tradition, not products
of Universalist seminaries. When the congregation decided to overhaul their by-law in the 1980’
s, leaders figured that no one knew what Universalism meant anymore, but that people did
recognize the term Unitarian. The name of the congregation was changed again, this time to the
Congregational Unitarian Church in hopes of making it clear that this was a liberal church.
Yet not long after the adoption of the new name, the winds of change began to blow again, as
they have so often in the history of both of our great faith traditions. The rise of feminism and
the spread of women clergy in the denomination encouraged a more spiritual view. Ecological
awareness played its part, as did awareness of eastern meditative practices. It was not that
Humanism was being rejected out of hand, but that it was being softened and deepened by new
understandings. In the search for spirituality, many are re-examining our Universalist roots.
No less a figure than Forrest Church, minister of the prestigious All Soul’s Church in New York
and perhaps our most prolific writer and most influential figure, has called for a New
Universalism. He has been echoed by others. A new wave of historic scholarship is re-
examining our Universalist heritage. Social activists look to the inclusiveness of Universalism as
an antidote for a perceived class and caste arrogance that persists among us. Universalism not
only answers Bill Sinkford’s call for greater reverence, but recent General Convention
resolutions advocating economic justice.
There is something lovable about the Universalists, warmth where the intellectual pretensions of
the Unitarians can leave us cold. In the end we need both traditions. Each compliments the
weaknesses of the other. Together they can build something new under the sun.
But today, let’s go with in ourselves and retrieve the Universalist buried within.
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