Since America’s independence, the Christian church has often become less involved in delivering services for society and the government more so. Here, Daniel L. Smith discusses the Unitarian Church, the decline in the Christian church’s role in education, and the growth of the state.
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an influential 19th and 20th century Unitarian.
American culture started where it was founded. It began in the heart of the North American colonist at the run-up to the American Revolution. Of course, over time, that changed. And as with any cultural change comes a stark political and religious divide. Historian Peter S. Field mentions that the "advent of a democratic political culture in the early American republic entailed the occasion of the first debates on the relationship between intellectuals and democracy in the United States.” Such was particularly the case in the 1830s in Brahmin Boston where, as Perry Miller once observed, "there could hardly be found a group of young Americans more numb to the notion that there were any stirring implications in the word democracy.”
Unitarian Church
Miller was right too. Americans in the 1830s were, for the most part, generally neutral in the way that American culture was beginning to shape out. There were ups and downs. With a new nation typically comes unlimited options on what direction to take the country regarding politics and culture. Mr. Field clarifies for us that the Unitarian Church is misleading church. It is a secular church body, and not a true Christian church. To understand how the religious fracture opened up a ‘Trojan horse’ for American thought, you must understand that "while the Bible is an important text for some Unitarian Universalists, many seek guidance from other sacred books and religious traditions." According to the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM), "Unitarian Universalists generally agree that human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining the spiritual truth." If you join a Unitarian church, you will meet people from many different belief systems including secular humanists, agnostics, Christians, Catholics and so forth. Unitarians believe in moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity of Jesus. Their theology is thus opposed to the trinity of other Christian denominations.
The Unitarian Church is then a more secular body that was formed in the 19th century ‘vacuum’ created when God was beginning to become separated in public schools, different from traditional teaching. Unitarian Congregationalism is another name for their secular "church body." Transcendentalism is the name to those who are engaged in practicing spirituality who felt "too intellectual" and "in control" of their fate to admit their personal destiny is actually guided by a single higher power. “Transcendentalism proved to be almost a byword for an otherworldly, inchoate intellectual community that only marginally traveled beyond the parochial confines of eastern Massachusetts. Whether the logical outgrowth of Unitarian Congregationalism or its dedicated nemesis, Transcendentalism seemed altogether too intellectual, too elitist, and too apolitical to be of any great relevance to the unfolding social and political drama of the Jacksonian era.”[1]
Hairline fracture
There was a hairline fracture that split the thinking of American traditionalists and progressive intellectuals. The Unitarian Church was the catalyst, following transcendentalism in close second. Traditionalists (such as the clergy and church) began to slowly stop providing leadership in public schools and universities (prior to this it was a purely Christian education). Harvard (originally a Christian church) was taken over by Unitarians and as the quality of public education began to change (and at times decline), Horace Mann (the "father of progressive education") would convince the state of Massachusetts that the best way for education to grow would be to have the government take control, instead of non-governmental groups (like families and churches).
What followed afterwards was the move to “self-culture,” a human thought process of “me, myself, and I” which closely follows materialism. To break open a political divide for control and power, there must be a catalyst to enable this cultural shift. Thus, secular humanism was born. “By self-culture, [...] personal striving for the intellectual and spiritual complement to material pursuits... to convey their [American individual] belief in the virtually limitless human capacity for development of their spiritual faculties through the study of culture.” [2] It is this idea that begins to remove the personal importance of having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ - that is, Christianity.
As traditional American doctrines were neglected, the competing ideology of socialism took off. Karl Marx never had much influence in American society - until the country backslid from Christian principles and dabbled in greed. Thus, monopolies would form and grow. Wealth was accumulated, instead of employing the extra wealth to meet the needs of the poor and society. Self-culture (or individual interest), as Field would put it, began to replace the common good of the community.
The Trojan Horse
Marshall Foster writes that “in the loft restaurant above Peck’s restaurant at 140 Fulton Street in lower Manhattan, a group of young men met to plan the overthrow of the predominately Christian world-view that still pervaded America. At this first meeting five men were present: Upton Sinclair, 27, a writer and a socialist; Jack London, writer; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister; J.G. Phelps Stokes, husband of a socialist leader; and Clarence Darrow, a lawyer.
Their organization was called the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Their purpose was to ‘promote an intelligent interest in socialism among college men and women.’ These men were ready to become the exponents of an idea passed on to them by an obscure writer named Karl Marx—a man who was supported by a wealthy industrialist who, inexplicably, believed in his theory of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Although a small group in the beginning, these adherents of socialism more than succeeded in their task.
“By using the proven method of gradualism, taken from the Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus, these men and others who joined with them slowly infiltrated” the public schools in America. By 1912 there were chapters in 44 colleges. By 1917 there were 61 chapters of student study groups of the League of Industrial Democracy. “At that time John Dewey, the godfather of progressive education, was the vice-president of the league. By 1941 Dewey had become president and Reinhold Niebuhr, the liberal socialist theologian, was the treasurer.”[3]
Conclusion
The beginning of the end of traditional America had become entrenched. Dr. Stephen K. McDowell says that “the loss Christian tradition, character, and responsibility led to the failure of many banks in the early 1900s. To remedy this situation, power was granted to a centralized Federal Reserve Board in 1913. But this unbiblical economic structure and lack of character produced many more problems. Within 20 years, the Stock Market had crashed, and America was in the midst of the Great Depression.”[4] With the propagation of socialism, people were ready for Roosevelt's “New Deal,” such as Social Security and other welfare agencies, which ultimately set up the state as provider rather than God. The rest is history.
You can read a selection of Daniel’s past articles on: California in the US Civil War (here), Spanish Colonial Influence on Native Americans in Northern California (here), the collapse of the Spanish Armada in 1588 (here), early Christianity in Britain (here), the First Anglo-Dutch War (here), the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreak (here), and an early European expedition to America (here).
Finally, Daniel Smith writes at complexamerica.org.
References
[1] Dr. Beliles, Mark A., and Stephen K. Dr. McDowell. America's Providential History: Including Biblical Principles of Education, Government, Politics, Economics, and Family Life, 253. 1989.
[2] Field, Peter S. 2001. ""the Transformation of Genius into Practical Power": Relph Waldo Emerson and the Public Lecture." Journal of the Early Republic 21 (3) (Fall): 467-493.
[3] Foster, Marshall, and Mary-Elaine Swanson. The American Covenant: The Untold Story, xvii. Mayflower Inst, 1983.
[4] Ibid., Dr. Beliles, Mark A., and Stephen K. Dr. McDowell, 250-251.
