American Unitarianism Research Articles

American Unitarian Churches: Architecture of a Democratic Religion. By Ann Marie Borys. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2021. ix + 263 pp. $34.95 paper.

American Unitarian Churches: Architecture of a Democratic Religion. By Ann Marie Borys. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2021. ix + 263 pp. $34.95 paper.

The Father of Modern India and the Son of God: Rammohun Roy's Jesus Christ

Rammohun Roy, often hailed as the “Father of India,” was a key figure in the early internationalisation of religion who embraced Western critiques of Hinduism while holding fast to what he viewed as the Vedas' revelation of a single Supreme Spirit. The Precepts of Jesus was central to the theological and philosophical system he sought to create in dialogue with fellow Indians and Westerners alike. On one hand, Roy sought to present Jesus to the Indian public as a universal religious figure. On the other hand, his portrayal of a decidedly human Jesus strengthened ties with British and American unitarians while challenging the particularist foundation of trinitarian Christianity's claims to universality: the divinity of Christ and his unique atoning work. In response to Christian attacks on his booklet, Roy defended his views using careful exegesis of the biblical text, critiquing evangelical views using the very source of evangelical authority: the words of Jesus himself. Even as he undermined the evangelical identity of Jesus, Roy's decision to make Jesus Christ a significant person to educated Indians established a precedent for viewing Jesus as a universal religious figure unconstrained by the confines of Christianity.

American Unitarianism and the Protestant dilemma. The conundrum of biblical authority. By Lydia Willsky-Ciollo. Pp. xxiv + 281. Lanham, Md–London: Lexington Books, 2015. £70. 978 0 7391 8892 7

American Unitarianism and the Protestant dilemma. The conundrum of biblical authority. By Lydia Willsky-Ciollo. Pp. xxiv + 281. Lanham, Md–London: Lexington Books, 2015. £70. 978 0 7391 8892 7 - Volume 69 Issue 4

American Unitarianism and the Protestant Dilemma: The Conundrum of Biblical Authority. By Lydia Willsky-Ciollo . Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2015. xxiv + 281 pp. $100.00 cloth.

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Book Reviews

September 01 2016 American Unitarianism and the Protestant Dilemma: The Conundrum of Biblical Authority American Unitarianism and the Protestant Dilemma: The Conundrum of Biblical Authority. By LydiaWillsky-Ciollo. (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015. Pp. xxiv, 282. $100.00 cloth; $99.99 e-book.) J. D. Bowers J. D. Bowers Dr. J. D. Bowers, director of and professor in the Honors College at the University of Missouri, is the author of Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (2007). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information J. D. Bowers Dr. J. D. Bowers, director of and professor in the Honors College at the University of Missouri, is the author of Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (2007). Online Issn: 1937-2213 Print Issn: 0028-4866 © 2016 by The New England Quarterly2016Massachusetts Institute of Technology The New England Quarterly (2016) 89 (3): 515–517. https://doi.org/10.1162/TNEQ_r_00554 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation J. D. Bowers; American Unitarianism and the Protestant Dilemma: The Conundrum of Biblical Authority. The New England Quarterly 2016; 89 (3): 515–517. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/TNEQ_r_00554 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe New England Quarterly Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2016 by The New England Quarterly2016Massachusetts Institute of Technology Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality by Michel Mohr

Reviewed by: Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality by Michel Mohr Micah Auerback Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality. By Michel Mohr. Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. 346pages. Hardcover $39.95/£29.95/€36.00. Compared with their nearest counterparts in South Korea and the Sinophone world, the strains of Christianity dominant in Japan stand out for their theological liberality and relative amity toward other religious groups and teachings. In no polity of East Asia do Christians constitute an overwhelming majority of the population; in most, including Japan, they remain a small minority. The very distinct disposition of Christianity in Japan must therefore result not only from demography, but also from factors in history. Although writers of English have in fact been chronicling Protestant Christianity in Japan continuously since its introduction there in the mid-nineteenth century, the Japanese encounter with the one Christian group that has been arguably the most committed to liberal theology and cooperation across religions—the Unitarian Church—has only recently become the subject of a comprehensive monograph: Michel Mohr’s Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality. Unlike most previous literature in English about Unitarianism in Japan, Mohr’s research is not limited to sources written in that language. It not only draws on the formidable archives of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, but also cites copiously from contemporary sources in Japanese, with special emphasis on serial publications. This welcome study treats events from the first suggestion in the Japanese press (in 1886) that Japan might adopt the Unitarian creed to the establishment and development of a Unitarian mission in Japan and its closure in 1922 following the final refusal of the American Unitarian Association (AUA) to grant its Japanese branch full autonomy. Laudably, the study documents not only developments among the associates of the mission proper, but also the interpretations and uses of Unitarianism by parties in reformist Japanese Buddhist circles, at Waseda University, and in Japan’s socialist and labor movements. As the title suggests, the theme of universalism binds together these disparate developments; here, too, the author’s concerns are not limited to imported European notions of universality, but instead extend to the possibility of indigenous sources for universalism and to its use removed from the Unitarian world. The three main sections of the text employ three metaphors: “Seeds and Transplant,” “Bloom and Tensions,” and “Fracture and Rebuttals.” Not solely for the sake of metaphorical consistency, this review will propose that the final section could also be read as “Withering and Hybridization.” The first chapter in “Seeds and Transplant” begins by discussing the parameters of the study, setting up a contrast between the Meiji-era search for “universal truth” and the “surge in chauvinist expressions and . . . the emergence of Japanese colonialism” (p. 4). Elsewhere, the chapter notes competing claims within “universalism” itself—one an [End Page 418] appeal to the universal nature of religion and the other “an attempt to justify supremacy on the world stage, meaning quite the opposite of what this word seems to imply”—that gave “two diametrically opposed meanings” to the term (p. 16). The second chapter covers the 1887 dispatch of Unitarian representative Arthur May Knapp from the United States to Japan in response to an invitation by the political journalist Yano Fumio (Ryūkei); Knapp’s departure and succession by Clay MacCauley in 1890; and ambitious early efforts by the mission to build (and rebuild) its headquarters, operate a school of instruction in liberal theology, and spread its message—an aim it pursued through publication (of a periodical that merged in 1898 with Japan’s leading Christian journal, Rikugō zasshi), direct mailings, and public lectures. Contrary to its title, the section’s final chapter, “The Wavering of Early Japanese Support,” opens with the abrupt decision of the Boston headquarters of the AUA to stop funding the Unitarian school in Tokyo in 1895, which in the long term sabotaged the prospects of Unitarianism in Japan. Meanwhile, in the atmosphere of growing national self-confidence and self-assertiveness of the 1890s, some prominent Japanese allies of the Unitarian cause, including Kaneko Kentarō and possibly Fukuzawa Yukichi, proved themselves fair-weather friends. From 1900...

‘Advisers or Fellow-revisers’: Recognition, Status and the Revised Version

AbstractThe Revised Version is recalled in the history of English language biblical versions because of the intense public debates over its potential to supplant the Authorized Version of 1611. These highly politicized contests over text and translation have continued through to the present day and have sidetracked attention from the deeper issues of identity and status associated with scholarship and national standing. Philip Schaff led a committed and ambitious group of American Protestant and Unitarian scholars in efforts to be credited as equal participants with the English Revisers in the massive project of the revision of the long-standing and much-loved English translation. The formation of the American Revised Version Committee within a year of the commencement of the work of revision by the two English Revision Companies ushered in an immense behind-the-scenes struggle over the requisite standing for decisions over the wording of the revised translation. Linguistics and text became the arena on which contests for recognition, national pride and scholarly achievement were fought. The choice of weapons of influence ranged from promotion of academic ability to rhetorical appeals to threats of commercial subversion. This paper explores the significance of American efforts to be involved credibly and influentially in the work that culminated in the Revised Version of 1881/1885 in England and (as a testament to the standing of American biblical scholarship and the failure of international cooperation) the distinct American Standard Version of 1901.

The Classical American Pragmatists and Religion: A Reader. Edited by J. Caleb Clanton

Why read an anthology comprised of texts on religion written between the years 1819 and 1943 by American Unitarians (e.g., William Ellery Channing), American Transcendentalists (e.g., Margaret Fuller), proto-pragmatists (e.g., Chauncey Wright), classical American pragmatists, middle pragmatists (i.e., the students of classical American pragmatists), pragmatist sympathizers, and fellow travelers? What is the relevance of the classical American pragmatists' attempts to reconcile religion with the modern sciences during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for people living in the United States today? J. Caleb Clanton thinks that these questions need to be answered, and he answers them thusly: The answer to these questions is simple enough. We read these works with the hope that they will help us identify and resolve current problems surrounding religious belief and practice in America. We read these works so that we can make use of the resources they offer, and—equally important—so that we can avoid repeating the mistakes they display. Perhaps, in the end, these works have nothing to teach us. But, at the least, they're worth revisiting in case we can learn from them. (2)

Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (review)

Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America. By J. D. Bowers. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Pp. 282. Cloth, $50.00; Paper, $28.00.)Reviewed by David J. VoelkerAn old gibe declares that American Unitarians believe in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston. Accordingly, most historians have emphasized the New England roots of die denomination's history. Two recent books, however, challenge the Boston-centered account of American Unitarianism. John Allen Macaulay's Unitarianism in the Antebellum South (Tuscaloosa, AL, 2001) argues that English Unitarianism inspired a number of southern congregations. J. D. Bowers goes further, contending that English Unitarians, led by Joseph Priestley, founded a Unitarian movement in America in the 1790s, well before Unitarianism emerged as a distinct denomination in New England.Bowers is at his strongest when he is charting the theological conflicts among the English Unitarians and the liberal and orthodox Congregationalists of New England. He best sums up his core analysis as follows: [English] Socinians were pitted against [New England] Arians in a heavily contested dispute over ownership of the Unitarian name, the parameters of theological liberalism, and the very identity of Unitarianism itself. Congregationalists and other Trinitarians were only too happy to fan the flames and watch the two competing groups rend liberalism asunder (152). Bowers shows that by the 1820s New England liberals, led by William Ellery Charming, had successfully laid claim to the Unitarian label while denying any affiliation with the English Unitarians, who meanwhile failed to organize a sustainable denominational structure. By the late nineteenth century, Bowers notes, at least some Unitarians recognized Priestley's influence on their denomination's increasingly liberal beliefs. But he argues that historians have failed to appreciate Priestley's significance.Bowers briefly charts the development of a dissenting Unitarian tradition in late eighteenth-century England under the leadership of Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey. English Unitarians argued for the humanity of Jesus, accepting Socinian views, but they saw themselves as reformers rather than opponents of Christianity. As a small minority in England, Unitarians were often criticized for their beliefs. More dramatically, in 1791 Priestley fell victim to a riot in Birmingham that destroyed his home, laboratory, and chapel, as well as the property of other dissenters. In 1794, Priestley moved to the fledgling United States to pursue his scientific work and promote Unitarianism. (Bowers might have delved more deeply into the riot and its connection to Priestley's move.)As Bowers shows, Priestley was one of several English Unitarian clergymen who immigrated to the United States during the postRevolutionary period in search of a more congenial atmosphere for promoting their beliefs, only to meet fierce resistance. Priestley himself settled in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where he founded a long-lived Unitarian church and published a number of Unitarian works. Bowers notes that at least twenty other English Unitarian churches were founded in the United States during this period. He ably shows that orthodox Christian apologists fiercely criticized the English Unitarians for their Socinian denial of Christ's divinity, unintentionally making Unitarian ideas more widely familiar.Bowers also explains why the relationship between English Unitarians and the liberal Congregationalists in New England remained chilly, despite their shared rationalist bent. The religious liberals of the Boston area held Arminian views (rejecting orthodox Calvinist doctrine regarding predestination) and tended toward Arianism (seeing Jesus as more than human but subordinate to God). …

J. D. Bowers . Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America . University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press . 2007 . Pp. xiv, 282. $50.00.

For generations, historians have insisted that the roots of Unitarianism lie in the liberal wing of late colonial Puritan Congregationalism. In the background are New England pastors such as Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew, while the movement took more formal identity with a well-known sermon preached by New Englander William Ellery Channing in 1819. His “What Is Unitarian Christianity?” gave the movement a name as it claimed a place for this nascent denomination within the Christian family. J. D. Bowers demurs. In this study of the English Unitarian tradition, particularly as expressed by theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley, Bowers insists that multiple strands fed into emerging American Unitarianism. Priestley's version is also significant, if not more central, to those developments. When Priestley arrived in the United States in 1794, English Unitarianism had already crafted a place for itself in the dissenting landscape in Britain. Some early English Unitarians communicated with New England liberal Congregationalists. Richard Price, for example, corresponded extensively with Chauncy.

Stamped with Glory: Lewis Tappan and the Africans of the Amistad

Abolitionism came relatively late to Lewis Tappan. Devotional, benevolent and hardworking are all words that describe Tappan in his twenties and thirties. Social reformer he was not. In 1818, Tappan abandoned the Calvinism of his mother for Unitarianism, then fashionable for a socially ambitious merchant. For the next eight years, Tappan enjoyed the typical life of an upper-middle-class New England merchant. He took his new faith seriously, however, editing a Unitarian journal, and becoming the first treasurer of the American Unitarian Association. In the mid-1820's, America experienced The Great Second Awakening, a widespread revival of religion and religious debate and Tappan became a zealous Christian. Around 1830, at the age of forty-one, Tappan began to take an interest in the slavery question. In the summer of 1833, Tappan resolved to do whatever he could for the abolitionist cause. It turned out to be a lot.In 1839 when word of the arrest of the Amistad Africans reached Lewis Tappan in New York, he called a meeting of the city's leading abolitionists. Tappan recognized that the Amistad story could be used to bring to the attention of the public the plight of the hundreds of thousands American slaves. Not content to merely collect donations, Tappan set off for New Haven. He met the Africans for the first time at the city jail. The usually quiet town of Hartford took on a carnival atmosphere as the time of trial approached. The great excitement surrounding the case pleased Tappan and his fellow abolitionists. Lewis Tappan published his account of the complicated legal maneuverings which, not surprisingly, reflected his abolitionist bias. As much as he might have wished it would be so, Tappan could not have expected any federal district judge to issue a decision repudiating the institution of slavery. In October 1840, Lewis Tappan visited John Quincy Adams at his home in Massachusetts. Tappan asked Old Man Eloquent to join Roger Baldwin in arguing the Africans' case in Washington. The former President at first resisted. But Adams believed firmly in the rightness of the cause. He finally agreed to join Baldwin in arguments before the Court. By the blessing of God, I will argue the case before the Supreme Court, Adams told Tappan. On March 9, 1841, the Supreme Court announced its decision that the Negroes were kidnapped Africans, who by the laws of Spain itself were entitled to their freedom.Lewis Tappan sat in the audience at Cooper Hall in January 1863 as Negro minister Henry Garnat opened the Emancipation Jubilee with a reading of Lincoln's Proclamation freeing the slaves. When the reading finished, Tappan joined the crowd in giving three cheers for the President. The abolitionist movement had come along way since the Amistad turned up along Long Island's coast and Tappan as much as anyone was responsible for its progress.

The Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission

The Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission

Charles Lyell’s debt to North America: his lectures and travels from 1841 to 1853

Abstract Charles and Mary Lyell visited North America four times from 1841 to 1853. During the first three visits, Lyell lectured and they travelled widely. The lectures were great successes with the American public in spite of Lyell’s poor elocutionary skills. Comparisons of lecture topics covered over a decade provide insights into the rapid development of the young science of geology and of Lyell’s changing preoccupations. Included were crustal movements; uniformity of causes through time; coral reefs and oceanic subsidence; Carboniferous conditions; the early appearance of reptiles; palaeoclimate; the submergence of land and the origin of drift; biogeography; and a uniform organic plan with arguments against transmutation and historical progression. The Lyells saw more of the United States and Canada than had most citizens. Their conveyances included horseback, stagecoach, train, railroad handcar, and steamboat. Accommodation varied from elegant hostelries to dirt-floored shacks. Their travels took them from the Atlantic coast to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and from the St Lawrence valley to the Gulf Coast. America gained from Lyell the enhancement of the stature of geology, several original contributions to the understanding of its geology, and a positive impression of the New World conveyed back to Britain. Lyell’s reward was greater, however, thanks to the generosity of American guidance in his field work. He gained many fresh geological examples for his books, published two travel journals and more than 30 journal articles and presented at least eight lectures in Britain about American geology, making him the local British authority on America. He especially gained new evidence for his opposition to biological progression and for his submergence theory for the drift. Besides enhancing his geological reputation, Lyell also made an incisive comparison of British and American education, which drew him into public reforms at home sponsored by Prince Albert. Finally, his exposure to American Unitarianism, coupled with disenchantment with the Anglican Church, caused Lyell to shift his religious allegiance.

The indexing waltz.

Obesity ResearchVolume 3, Issue 4 p. 357-359 Free Access The Indexing Waltz Dr. George A. Bray, Corresponding Author Dr. George A. Bray Department of Medicine, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA.6400 Perkins Rd., Baton Rouge, LA 70808.Search for more papers by this author Dr. George A. Bray, Corresponding Author Dr. George A. Bray Department of Medicine, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA.6400 Perkins Rd., Baton Rouge, LA 70808.Search for more papers by this author First published: July 1995 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1550-8528.1995.tb00161.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. References 1 Billings JS. Literature and institutions. In: EH Clarke, HJ Bigelow, SD Gross, TG Gaillard, JS Billings, eds. A Century of American Medicine: 1776–1876. Brinklow, MD: Old Hickory Bookshop; 1962, reprint of original edition. 2 Bordley J., Harvey AM. Two Centuries of American Medicine: 1776–1976. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co.; 1976. 3 Bray GA. Obesity research and medical journalism. Obes Res. 1995; 3: 65– 71. 4 Brieger GH., Fielding H. Garrison: the man and his book. In: Trans Stud Coll Physicians Phila. 1981; 3: 1– 21. 5 Chapman CB. John Shaw Billings, 1838–1913: nineteenth century giant. Bull N Y Acad Med. 1987; 63: 386– 409. 6 Eliot CW. John Gilley, Maine farmer and fisherman. True American Types. Boston: American Unitarian Association; 1899; 1. 7 Fulton JF. The Great Medical Bibliographers: A Study in Humanism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; 1951. 8 Garrison FA. An Introduction to the History of Medicine with Medical Chronology Bibliographic Data and Test Questions. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1914: 591. 9 Von Haller A. Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani. 8 vols. Lausanne, Berne: Marci-Michael Bousquet & Sociorum; 17571766. 10 Klotz O. Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777). Ann Med Hist. 1936; 8: 10– 26. 11 Major RH. A History of Medicine. 2 vols. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas; 1954. 12 Marks G., Beatty WK. The Story of Medicine in America. New York: Charles Scribner's Son; 1973. 13 Miles WD. A History of The National Library of Medicine: The Nation's Treasury of Medical Knowledge. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health; 1985. 14 Osier, W. Bibliotheca Osleriana: A Catalogue of Books Illustrating the History of Medicine and Science. Oxford: The Clarendon Press; 1929. 15 Pettlgrew TH. Biographical Memoirs of the Most Celebrateed Physicians, Surgeons, etc., who have Contributed to the Advancement of Medical Science. Vol 1, part 1. London: Fisher, Son, & Co; 1840. 16 Price deSolla DJ. Science Since Babylon. New Haven: Yale University Press; 1961. 17 Stirling W. Some Apostles of Physiology Being an Account of their Lives and Labours, Labours that have Contributed to the Advancement of the Healing Art as well as to the Prevention of Disease. London: Waterlow and Sons, Ltd.; 1902. 18 Symons J. Medical bibliographies and bibliographers. In: Ain A. Besson, ed. Thornton's Medical Books, Libraries and Collectors: A study of Bibliography and the Book Tade in Relation to the Medical Sciences. 3rd ed. London: Gower Publishing Company, Ltd; 1990: 253. Volume3, Issue4July 1995Pages 357-359 ReferencesRelatedInformation

American Unitarianism, 1805–1865. Edited by Conrad Edick Wright. Boston: The Massachusetts Historical Society and Northeastern University Press, 1989. xiii + 272 pp. $40.00.

American Unitarianism, 1805–1865. Edited by Conrad Edick Wright. Boston: The Massachusetts Historical Society and Northeastern University Press, 1989. xiii + 272 pp. $40.00.

RALPH WENDELL BURHOE: HIS LIFE AND HIS THOUGHT

Abstract. This third installment in David Breed's intellectual biography of Ralph Wendell Burhoe focuses upon the impact of his thought on the Unitarian Universalist Association and that group's role in Burhoe's career. Dana McLean Greeley, elected president of the American Unitarian Association in 1958, was a key figure in Burhoe's eventual participation in the project, “The Free Church in a Changing World.” Burhoe's emphasis on the need for doctrine that could communicate religious wisdom in terms of science stood in tension with free‐church tradition. Nevertheless, the section of the project's final report, titled “Theology and the Frontiers of Learning,” largely accepted Burhoe's program for a new natural theology based on science. This project brought Burhoe's program to the attention of the denomination and led to the invitation in 1964 from Malcolm Sutherland, on behalf of Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, of which he was president, for Burhoe to implement his program in the new curriculum of that school. Burhoe accepted.

British Unitarians against American Slavery, 1833-1865 (review)

182CIVIL WAR history While the letters include short comments on such current events as the 1863 draft riots in New York, they are slim pickings for subjects other than the Whitman family and engineering matters. Although it was edited with loving care, it is not a book for the general scholar of nineteenth-century life in the United States. IronicallyJeffWhitman, who is little remembered today, gained a national reputation before his more famous brotherbecame well known. As the editors point out, the publication of these letters will very likely provide the only biography ofa man who made substantial contributions to his profession and whose closeness to our greatest poet merits recognition. Larry Gara Wilmington College British Unitarians against American Sfovery, 1833-1865. By Douglas Charles Stange. (Cranbury, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984. Pp. 259. $29.50.) British Unitarians against American Sfovery, 1833-1865 is the first significant monograph concerning the reaction of a British religious denomination toward American slavery and the Civil War. Although British Unitarians trace their beginnings from c. 1660, they numbered probably no more than sixty thousand, some two hundred years later. Generally speaking, the British Unitarians were a well-educated, affluent, articulate, and influential group. They were, as were their coreligionists in America, associated with a variety of reform activities in the first half of the nineteenth century. Among those issues which elicited their support were women's rights, education, suffrage, temperance, antislavery, and others. Stange implies that a possible motive for their interest in reform was an effort to gain "status," a motive also ascribed by some to American reformers both before and after the Civil War. One reform activity which these affluent humanitarians shunned was seeking changes that would alleviate the poverty and despair, and would improve the quality oflife for the industrial working class in Britain. They devoted their attention and energies to a problem thirty-five hundred miles from their home (the abolition ofslavery in the United States) rather than to social and economic problems in Lancashire and other nearby places, because "slavery was the crime above all crimes" (147) in western society. The response of British Unitarians to American slavery was similar to that of the abolitionists in the United States; they were divided into moderate and radical or Garrisonian factions. The focus ofattention in this study is on the British disciples ofWilliam Lloyd Garrison. Their activities included writing antislavery tracts and books, publishing sermons and editorials which denounced slavery, circulating abolitionist petitions, and book reviews183 sending antislavery resolutions to their coreligionists and others in the United States. By 1855 the antislavery activities of British Unitarians were declining. One oftheir ablest spokesmen died that year; also by this time a number of British abolitionists had given up hope ofredeeming America from the sin ofslavery. With the new Fugitive Slave Act, violence in Kansas, the defeat of Freemont, and the Dred Scott decision—it seemed to many in Britain that the slave power was firmly in control in America and would probably continue for an indefinite time. The author claims that during the Civil War most Unitarians, as well as others in Britain, were neutral; however, he notes one Unitarian clergyman who advocated that the British government recognize the Confederacy . The Emancipation Proclamation elicited a mixed reaction, but the defeat ofthe Confederacy and the addition ofthe Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution stimulated British Unitarians to undertake activities designed to help the American freedmen. Although this study is sympathetic to the British Unitarians, it is not uncritical. It offers an encapsulated history of the Unitarian movement in Britain and of their leading spokesmen, together with an account of their interaction with American Unitarians in the antebellum years. It is a welcome contribution to an understanding ofBritish church history in the nineteenth century and to the transatlantic antislavery movement. It is hoped, and expected, that Stange's monograph will stimulate similar ones pertaining to other British churches. W. Harrison Daniel University ofRichmond Grourtng Up in the 1850s: TheJournal ofAgnes Lee . Edited by Mary Custis Lee DeButts. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Pp. XX, 145. $11.95.) Eleanor Agnes Lee, the fifth child ofRobert Edward Lee and Mary Anne...

The Benevolent Deity: Ebenezer Gay and the Rise of Rational Religion in New England, 1696-1787

The years following the Great Awakening in New England saw a great theological struggle between proponents of Calvinism and the champions of Christian liberty, setting the stage for American Unitarianism. The adherents of Christian liberty, who were branded Arminians by their opponents, were contending for the liberty of the mind and the soul to pursue truth and salvation free from prior restraint. The Arminian movement took shape as a major, quasi-denominational force in New England under the guidance of particular clergymen, most notably Ebenezer Gay, minister of the First Parish in Hingham, Massachusetts, from 1718 to 1787. Despite his ubiquitous presence in the history of Arminianism, however, Gay has been a historical enigma. Robert J. Wilson's purpose in this biography is to trace Gay's long and fascinating intellectual odyssey against the evolving social, political, and economic life of eighteenth-century Hingham as well as the religious history of the coastal region between Boston and Plymouth.

Judaism Triumphant: Isaac Mayer Wise on Unitarianism and Liberal Christianity

Against the background of the dramatic upsurge of liberalism, radicalism, and freethought in religion within the United States in the last third of the nineteenth century, American Reform Judaism and Unitarianism made impressive strides. By the 1880s, Reform Judaism had become the preeminent form of Judaism in both institutional growth and organizational cohesiveness; it remained the favored religious pattern of the elite leadership of American Jewry well into the twentieth century. For its part, Unitarianism by the 1880s had spread beyond the confines of New England, featured a revitalized Western branch, the Western Unitarian Conference, and was experiencing an articulate denominational consciousness.

Slave and Freeman: The Autobiography of George L. Knox (review)

BOOK REVIEWS185 courts is too brief and fails to describe their day-to-day operations, and his treatment of the black codes and the contract system is neither original nor insightful. The author does contribute a useful account of the Bureau's attempts to protect the freedmen from the discriminatory practices of Southern law enforcement and judicial officers. Although the labor policy of the Bureau is analyzed at length, the book would have benefited from more careful attention to the recent literature on postbellum Southern agriculture. Nieman has more thoroughly examined the Bureau's headquarters and local records than any other historian. Yet his use of other sources is sketchy. For example, Nieman cited several collections at the Alabama Department of Archives and History but did not consult the important group of Wager Swayne papers which contains significant material on the Bureau in Alabama. It also seems strange that the author does not list a single Southern newspaper in his bibliography. The book is competently, though not well, written. Each chapter seemingly plods from state to state with little sense of organization. The overall contribution of this book to our knowledge of the Freedmen's Bureau is slim, and the author might have been better advised to have published his important findings from Chapters IV and V in a couple of journal articles. Reading this volume once again brings to mind that there is still a crying need for a modern and comprehensive treatment of the Bureau. George Rable Anderson College Sfove and Freeman: The Autobiography of George L. Knox. Edited by Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1979. Pp. 247. $15.50.) In 1894-95 at the age of fifty-five, George L. Knox published his autobiography in weekly installments in the Indianapolis Freeman, the newspaper of which he was owner and publisher. Knox lived until 1927 and left no similar account ofhis later years, but the 1890's were the years when his prestige was at its height. In the autobiography, which was never published in book form, Knox, who was bom a slave in Tennessee, recounts how he "joined" the Union Army and came to Indianapolis in 1864 as thè servant of a Union officer. There he learned the barber's trade and opened his own shop in a small town nearby. In 1884 he moved to Indianapolis, where he became proprietor of barbershops which drew the color line, serving only a white clientele, but which gave employment to black barbers. In a few years he was the wealthiestbiar businessman in the city. In his shops he became acquainted with leadint white citizens, and, helped by these associations, he became the most influential black politician in the state. In 1888 he bought the Freeman and turned it into a Republican organ. Although he never held public 186CIVIL WAR HISTORY office, Knox was the only black named to the Republican state central committee. He functioned as an intermediary between the white power structure and the black community. His autobiography and the editorials in his newspaper reflect a racial and economic philosophy similar to that of Booker T. Washington, a philosophy which Knox developed and articulated before Washington's rise to power. Not surprisingly, the owner of the Indianapolis Freeman and the Tuskegee Wizard later became friends. The autobiography reveals Knox as a shrewd but vain man, impressed with his own rectitude and importance, who saw his life as a success story and himself as a kind of black Horatio Alger, but italso illuminates a variety of aspects of the black community and aspects of black-white relationships. The chief merit of this volume is found in the work of the editor. Gatewood's introduction and footnotes are the products of painstaking and meticulous research and perceptive scholarship. The introduction places Knox in the context of the times in which he lived and gives details of his life not depicted in the autobiography, including an account of the last three decades of his life. Emma Lou Thornbrough Butler University Patterns of Antishvery among American Unitarians, 1831-1860. By Douglas C. Stange. (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1977. Pp. 308. $15.50.) In proportion to their numbers, Unitarians...