UNIVERSALISM

From Philosopedia

UNIVERSALISM

• Universalist, n. One who foregoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Universalism, according to Clarence Prouty Shedd of the Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut,

• centers about the belief that all men will finally be saved. This doctrine is of ancient origin and has existed among many of the schools of Christianity. There are Biblical passages in both the Old and New Testaments which are interpreted as furnishing Scriptural authority for the belief. Such men as Alexandrinus, Origen (who in 225 CE advocated universal salvation—in 553, Emperor Justinian got the Council of Constantinople to declare Origen’s universalism a heresy), Diodorus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and others laid the foundation for the system. They taught that punishment was remedial, that the nature of God was love, and that the Divine mercy could not be satisfied with partial salvation or everlasting punishment.”

In the 6th century, the universalist doctrine was considered heretical and was neglected during the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, an English reform movement, the Lollards, maintained a belief in universal salvation. Samuel Gorton, a pioneer of Christian Universalism, was driven out of Massachusetts in 1637 for his political and religious radicalism. In 1684, Joseph Gatchell had his tongue pierced with a hot iron for stating that “All men should be saved.” In the 18th century, John Relly of London preached universalism, and John Murray brought it to America in 1770. Christopher Sower, a Universalist Quaker, with George de Benneville printed the first Bible in America translated into German—it produced in heavier type those passages which supported the universal character of religion. The earliest systematic account of Universalism was Hosea Ballou’s Treatise of the Atonement (1805). Whereas Murray had espoused a Universalism of the Calvinistic type, Ballou was a powerful force in moving the denomination in a different direction. Ballou’s doctrine of “Christ’s subordination to the Father” gave the group a position similar to that of Unitarianism.

Universalists in 1935 in a Washington Avowal of Faith affirmed

• the universal fatherhood of God; the spiritual authority and leadership of Jesus Christ, His son; the trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God; the certainty of just retribution for sin; and the final harmony of all souls with God.

In 1961, however, the Universalist Church of America at 16 Beacon Street in Boston merged with the American Unitarian Association at 25 Beacon Street in Boston, and the new church is known as the Unitarian Universalist.

Individual Universalists started the California Institute of Technology and Bradley University. But the Universalist denomination founded five institutions of higher institution: Tufts in Medford, Massachusetts, and St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, were founded in the 1850s and still retain their original names. Also founded in the 1850s was Lombard University (now the Meadville/Lombard Theological School). The two others, both founded in 1872, no longer exist: Smithson College of Muncie, Indiana, was in operation only two years; and Buchtel College of Akron, Ohio, is now the liberal arts branch of the state-supported University of Akron. Universalists, celebrating their 200 years in America in 1993, pointed to the following:

• • The largest church of Universalist heritage is the 900-member Universalist Church in Minneapolis. In West Hartford, Connecticut, a 500-member church exists.
• • The first book published in America which proposed a unitarian theology was Hosea Ballou’s A Treatise on Atonement (1805). • The first African American Universalist was Gloster Dalton, a charter member of the Independent Christian Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, the first Universalist congregation in North America.
• • The first national women’s organization of an American denomination was The Universalist Women’s Centenary Association, founded in 1869.
• • The site of Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech, delivered in 1851, was the First Universalist Church of Akron, Ohio.
• • The first woman to preach from a Universalist pulpit was Maria Cook, in 1811. • The first woman fully licensed as a minister was Universalist Lydia A. Jenkins.
• • The first woman in Canada to be officially recognized as a preacher was Mary Ann Church, who, though not ordained, was listed in The Universalist Register (1838).
• • The first Native North American ordained as a Universalist minister was Native Canadian George Moses, in 1871.
• • The first prison reform newspaper was The Prisoner’s Friend, edited by Universalist minister Charles Spear.
• • The oldest surviving Universalist church in Canada is at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

• • The only Universalist cathedral ever built, the Fourth Universalist Society in New York City, was designed by William Stuart Potter. In the mid-19th century, the Rev. Edwin Chapin preached to as many as 2,000 people here on Sundays. (In 1997, the membership was down to around 100.) The altar is Tiffany, Henry Steinway personally designed the piano, and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, a member of the congregation, donated the organ. Circus magnate Phineas Taylor Barnum was a member here and also of his home church in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

• • Some suggest that the New York City "cathedral" is not the only Universalist cathedral. They point to the possibility of including First Universalist in Cincinnati (now the Unity Temple); the Universalist National Memorial in Washington, D.C.; and possibly the Frank Lloyd Wright structure in Oak Park, Illinois. At issue is whether, from an architectural viewpoint, the structure has a cruciform groundplan with a nave crossed by a transept, in other words built in the form of a cross.

“Universalism is misconstrued as some sort of sponge that welcomes everything,” Scott Alexander has said. But actually it is a faith of “high expectations,” he added, drawing upon ethical values and spiritual expressions shared among other faiths: “Universalism embraces these different perspectives and instinctively looks for the common good.”

A large number of present Unitarian Universalists consider themselves religious, agnostic, atheist, or secular humanists. Many, however, call themselves theists, and some of the services incorporate Buddhist as well as neo-pagan Celtic or Wiccan elements.

(See entries for

Anna Flemming, typical of an early female Universalist minister in the Midwest;

Lewis Latimer;

[Winifred Latimer Norman]; and

Charles Francis Potter].

For Robert G. Ingersoll’s view of Universalists, see entry for Unitarians and Robert G. Ingersoll.)

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