[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.A “thousand” passages of scripture testifi ed against this sort of irrational“Demonism.”22In treating the Bible, especially the Gospels, as the wellspring of a commonsense religion unadulterated by dogmatic artifi ce, Franklin and Jefferson were, in a curious way, harbingers of the next wave in American religion—the series of revivals between the 1790s and the 1830s that came to be known as the Second Great Awakening.In addition to igniting a steady increase in religious participation that would continue through the twentieth century, the Second Great Awakening was a time when untold numbers of ordinary Americans deemed themselves to be the only rightful interpret-ers of scripture.23 In the earlier Great Awakening, led by Calvinists such as George Whitefi eld, “men and women seemed to think and speak in the passive mood, as if to underscore God’s action upon them,” notes historian Grant Wacker.24 But in the revivals of the early nineteenth century, a striking biblical populism emerged.Confi dent of the enabling grace they had received in Christ, hosts of people in burgeoning new movements rebelled against the old-style clergy who would restrict biblical exegesis—or the saving benefi t of Jesus’ death—to an elect few.25UNIVERSALISM: CALVINISM “IMPROVED”One popular religious movement that emerged on the heels of the new republic was named for its perspective on eternal election.Universalism, the idea that God would save all people in the end, was probably as old as Christianity itself.Its most important early exponent was the third-century From Methodists to Mormons107church father Origen, who, infl uenced partly by Neoplatonism, believed that all souls would ultimately be reunited with God after a period of purifi -cation by fi re.26 Universalism in the United States emerged in a very different social context but shared with its ancient precursor a heterodox reputation, which was one reason that the American movement never rose above minority status.As an independent religious denomination, the Universalist Church ceased to exist in 1961 with the merger that created today’s Unitarian Universalist Association.Even before the merger, the Universalists had often been beaten out by the wealthier and more infl uential Unitarians, who could boast of deep connections to Harvard and its Boston Brahmin alumni, for the honor of carrying the banner of American liberal religion.27Yet of the people who came to be nicknamed UUs, the Universalists actually had the longer denominational history and were the prototype of anti-predestinarian agitation in the early American republic.A description of the movement’s early days by Hosea Ballou II (1796–1861), fi rst president of Tufts University and grandnephew of the more famous Universalist theologian of the same name, is revealing.In the fi rst decades of the American nation, “there seems to have risen up, simultaneously, in different parts of the country, a sense of unsatisfi ed wants, a longing for something more than the old system of religion could give,” he wrote.“Here and there were individuals” who were “painfully groping.out of the stifl ing atmosphereof high Calvinism, to some freer issue.”28Among those individuals was John Murray (1741–1815), an immigrant from England who grew up on a diet of strict Calvinism and attended Whitefi eld’s preaching in London before falling under the infl uence of Whitefi eld’s ex-colleague James Relly.A book by Relly convinced Murray that scripture taught universal salvation.Christ was the fi rst elect, and all people were united in him: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23).Thus, when predestinarians quoted Ephesians 1:4 (“he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world”), they failed to realize that the “us” meant all of humanity.29 Even persons who had notheard the gospel “knew” Christ by virtue of their unity with him in the fl esh, Relly later argued.And as Luke 3:6 promised, “all fl esh shall see the salvation of God.” 30 After reading Relly’s book, Murray went to hear him preach in a London meetinghouse and came away remarking that it was “the fi rstconsistent sermon I have ever heard.”31 In 1770, Murray settled in America, where he founded the nation’s fi rst Universalist society in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1779.Meanwhile, another pioneer of the movement, Elhanan Winchester(1751–1797), was slowly embracing Universalist principles.A Massachusetts native with little formal education, Winchester schooled himself in 108PredestinationHebrew and Greek and became a Baptist minister in the theological mold of “hyper-Calvinist” John Gill (see chapter 6) before a book by a German mystic convinced him to reject the doctrine of limited atonement.32 WhenWinchester aired his newfound views in 1781, his Philadelphia congregation ousted him, and he formed a Universalist society at the University of Pennsylvania.In 1787, he began a seven-year sojourn in England, where as an itinerant preacher he spoke out against slavery and published works on universal salvation.Upon his return to the United States in 1794, he published a refutation of The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, who was, ironically, a would-be ally in the fi ght against Calvinistic predestination.33Murray and Winchester reveal the devil in the details of Universalism, for they disagreed over precisely how Christ redeemed humanity.Murray tended to speak of redemption in more predestinarian terms: election was indeed before time, as the Calvinists taught, but all people were elected, not some.His position resembled that of another Universalist, Joseph Huntington (brother of Samuel Huntington, governor of Connecticut and a signer of the Declaration), who argued in his 1796 book, Calvinism Improved, that the Calvinists were correct on everything except election’s extent.The biblical passages they marshaled to prove that only some individuals were elect—for example, the references to God’s loving Jacob and hating Esau (Mal.1:2–3; Rom.9:13)—concerned their status in this life, not the life to come.But on the absoluteness and eternity of God’s electing decree, Huntington was fi rm: “I hold to the doctrine of predestination as fully as any man in the world ever did, and that in the supra-lapsarian sense, which is the only consistent sense.” 34 In contrast, Winchester, who published an elegy on the death of John Wesley, preferred to speak in more Methodist terms of a universal grace that enabled all people to choose Christ.Unlike the Methodists, however, he extended the time of decision into the hereafter, assuming that some souls might resist Christ for thousands of years before all surrendered to God’s saving designs in the end.(Biblical references to “everlasting” punishment, he insisted, were simply fi gures of speech indicating a long but not interminable duration.) To Murray, Winchester’s intermediate state looked suspiciously like the Catholic notion of “purgatorial satisfaction,” which threatened the already-accomplished redemption in Christ [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.A “thousand” passages of scripture testifi ed against this sort of irrational“Demonism.”22In treating the Bible, especially the Gospels, as the wellspring of a commonsense religion unadulterated by dogmatic artifi ce, Franklin and Jefferson were, in a curious way, harbingers of the next wave in American religion—the series of revivals between the 1790s and the 1830s that came to be known as the Second Great Awakening.In addition to igniting a steady increase in religious participation that would continue through the twentieth century, the Second Great Awakening was a time when untold numbers of ordinary Americans deemed themselves to be the only rightful interpret-ers of scripture.23 In the earlier Great Awakening, led by Calvinists such as George Whitefi eld, “men and women seemed to think and speak in the passive mood, as if to underscore God’s action upon them,” notes historian Grant Wacker.24 But in the revivals of the early nineteenth century, a striking biblical populism emerged.Confi dent of the enabling grace they had received in Christ, hosts of people in burgeoning new movements rebelled against the old-style clergy who would restrict biblical exegesis—or the saving benefi t of Jesus’ death—to an elect few.25UNIVERSALISM: CALVINISM “IMPROVED”One popular religious movement that emerged on the heels of the new republic was named for its perspective on eternal election.Universalism, the idea that God would save all people in the end, was probably as old as Christianity itself.Its most important early exponent was the third-century From Methodists to Mormons107church father Origen, who, infl uenced partly by Neoplatonism, believed that all souls would ultimately be reunited with God after a period of purifi -cation by fi re.26 Universalism in the United States emerged in a very different social context but shared with its ancient precursor a heterodox reputation, which was one reason that the American movement never rose above minority status.As an independent religious denomination, the Universalist Church ceased to exist in 1961 with the merger that created today’s Unitarian Universalist Association.Even before the merger, the Universalists had often been beaten out by the wealthier and more infl uential Unitarians, who could boast of deep connections to Harvard and its Boston Brahmin alumni, for the honor of carrying the banner of American liberal religion.27Yet of the people who came to be nicknamed UUs, the Universalists actually had the longer denominational history and were the prototype of anti-predestinarian agitation in the early American republic.A description of the movement’s early days by Hosea Ballou II (1796–1861), fi rst president of Tufts University and grandnephew of the more famous Universalist theologian of the same name, is revealing.In the fi rst decades of the American nation, “there seems to have risen up, simultaneously, in different parts of the country, a sense of unsatisfi ed wants, a longing for something more than the old system of religion could give,” he wrote.“Here and there were individuals” who were “painfully groping.out of the stifl ing atmosphereof high Calvinism, to some freer issue.”28Among those individuals was John Murray (1741–1815), an immigrant from England who grew up on a diet of strict Calvinism and attended Whitefi eld’s preaching in London before falling under the infl uence of Whitefi eld’s ex-colleague James Relly.A book by Relly convinced Murray that scripture taught universal salvation.Christ was the fi rst elect, and all people were united in him: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23).Thus, when predestinarians quoted Ephesians 1:4 (“he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world”), they failed to realize that the “us” meant all of humanity.29 Even persons who had notheard the gospel “knew” Christ by virtue of their unity with him in the fl esh, Relly later argued.And as Luke 3:6 promised, “all fl esh shall see the salvation of God.” 30 After reading Relly’s book, Murray went to hear him preach in a London meetinghouse and came away remarking that it was “the fi rstconsistent sermon I have ever heard.”31 In 1770, Murray settled in America, where he founded the nation’s fi rst Universalist society in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1779.Meanwhile, another pioneer of the movement, Elhanan Winchester(1751–1797), was slowly embracing Universalist principles.A Massachusetts native with little formal education, Winchester schooled himself in 108PredestinationHebrew and Greek and became a Baptist minister in the theological mold of “hyper-Calvinist” John Gill (see chapter 6) before a book by a German mystic convinced him to reject the doctrine of limited atonement.32 WhenWinchester aired his newfound views in 1781, his Philadelphia congregation ousted him, and he formed a Universalist society at the University of Pennsylvania.In 1787, he began a seven-year sojourn in England, where as an itinerant preacher he spoke out against slavery and published works on universal salvation.Upon his return to the United States in 1794, he published a refutation of The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, who was, ironically, a would-be ally in the fi ght against Calvinistic predestination.33Murray and Winchester reveal the devil in the details of Universalism, for they disagreed over precisely how Christ redeemed humanity.Murray tended to speak of redemption in more predestinarian terms: election was indeed before time, as the Calvinists taught, but all people were elected, not some.His position resembled that of another Universalist, Joseph Huntington (brother of Samuel Huntington, governor of Connecticut and a signer of the Declaration), who argued in his 1796 book, Calvinism Improved, that the Calvinists were correct on everything except election’s extent.The biblical passages they marshaled to prove that only some individuals were elect—for example, the references to God’s loving Jacob and hating Esau (Mal.1:2–3; Rom.9:13)—concerned their status in this life, not the life to come.But on the absoluteness and eternity of God’s electing decree, Huntington was fi rm: “I hold to the doctrine of predestination as fully as any man in the world ever did, and that in the supra-lapsarian sense, which is the only consistent sense.” 34 In contrast, Winchester, who published an elegy on the death of John Wesley, preferred to speak in more Methodist terms of a universal grace that enabled all people to choose Christ.Unlike the Methodists, however, he extended the time of decision into the hereafter, assuming that some souls might resist Christ for thousands of years before all surrendered to God’s saving designs in the end.(Biblical references to “everlasting” punishment, he insisted, were simply fi gures of speech indicating a long but not interminable duration.) To Murray, Winchester’s intermediate state looked suspiciously like the Catholic notion of “purgatorial satisfaction,” which threatened the already-accomplished redemption in Christ [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]