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Luther Elmore
August 22, 2010
READING
“PHILOSOPHICAL CREED” (Abner Kneeland – 1833)
… I believe that the whole universe is NATURE, and that the word NATURE embraces the whole universe; that GOD and NATURE, so far as we can attach any rational idea to either, are synonymous terms. Hence, I am not an Atheist, but a Pantheist; that is, instead of believing there is no God, I believe that in the abstract, all is God; and that all power that is, is in God, and that there is no power except that which proceeds from God. I believe that there can be no will or intelligence where there is no sense; and no sense where there are no organs of sense; and hence, sense, will and intelligence, is the effect, not the cause of organization. I believe in all that logically results from these premises, whether good, bad or indifferent. Hence, I believe, that God is all in all; and that it is in God we live, move, and have our being; and that the whole duty of man consists in living as long as he can, and in promoting as much happiness as he can while he lives.
SERMON
Freedom of religion is a concept that we in America claim to have achieved and practice. Is that true? Do we have freedom of religion, legally and socially, and do we as a society really believe in it?
In this country we have a long history of religious intolerance. The early colonists in Massachusetts Bay certainly did not believe in freedom of religion. Thousands came to America in the 1630s and 1640s to escape religious restrictions in England, but once they arrived in New England, they did not allow it. Religious doctrine and practices were established and non-conformists were punished.
By 1648 the colony had organized its laws into an alphabetized code called the “Lawes and Liberties.” These Lawes and Liberties specified rights and responsibilities as well as penalties. For instance, Baptists or anyone else who “openly condemn(ed) or oppose(ed) the baptizing of infants” were banished. The law also provided for the banishment of Catholic priests. If a banished priest returned, upon a second conviction he was “put to death.” You could also be banished for denying the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body, or that mankind was not justified by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
These restrictive laws continued throughout the colonial era into the early years of American independence. In 1782 – with independence not yet won – the state of Massachusetts made it illegal to “blaspheme the holy name of God… his creation, government or final judging of the world…or the Holy Ghost, or…the Holy Word of God.” Punishment could be up to one year in jail.
Of course, the first amendment to the US Constitution adopted in 1791 provided that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Early on the Supreme Court interpreted this amendment literally, that is CONGRESS shall make no law, states – if they chose – could, and regularly did.
Into this world of laws and intolerance, Abner Kneeland was born in 1774. Born in Massachusetts, at about age 21 he moved to Vermont, worked as a carpenter, taught school, and served as a Baptist lay preacher. He came across universalist writings, met Hosea Ballou, and became a universalist. At the age of 31 (1805) Kneeland was ordained as a Universalist minister and called as the settled minister in Langdon, New Hampshire. He became active in the New England Universalist General Convention, serving as its standing clerk and as its treasurer. He also served two years in the New Hampshire Legislature. Along with Hosea Ballou he compiled a universalist hymnal, with Kneeland writing 130 of the 410 songs. (Our hymnal has none of them). He subsequently served churches in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Whitestown, New York, Philadelphia (1818) and in 1825 (1825-1827) Prince Street Church in New York City.
During this time, he was as busy as a bee. He served his churches, published a second hymnal, published a new spelling book (The American Pronouncing Spelling Book) which used phonetics and removed all silent letters, edited a monthly magazine (The Philadelphia Universalist Magazine and Christian Messenger) and completed a translation of the Greek New Testament.
Kneeland’s social thought also began to change and he became in the eyes of some a radical. He met and became supportive of the utopian socialist Robert Owen. Owen was a wealthy Scottish industrialist who had made a fortune in cotton mills, but came to see problems in the newly emerging industrial society. Owen called for small socialist communities where people would combine agricultural and manufacturing enterprises, live in prosperity and harmony, and avoid the ravages of a changing world. He purchased 20,000 acres on the banks of the Wabash River in Indiana and established New Harmony. By 1825 about 800 people were living in his new community. Within 2 years New Harmony had failed, but not Owens’ idea. Across America up to 20 Owenite communities were established, including one on the Red River in Texas. But Owen had caused a stir in addressing the inequalities of wealth and the problems of the early 19th century
A friend and fellow traveler with Owen in his radicalism was Francis “Fanny” Wright. In her early 20s, she visited the United States from Scotland and eventually became a US citizen. Concerned with the situation of slavery in America, in 1825 she established an interracial communal society in Tennessee, named Nashoba, where slaves were purchased and then allowed to work off the purchase price of their freedom. As you might imagine, this interracial community in Tennessee was not well received in the South. Rumors circulated of interracial sex, marriage, and free love at Nashoba. On July 4, 1828, Wright shocked much of America when she publicly spoke at a mixed meeting at New Harmony. Like Owen, Wright backed the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, equal rights for women, public education and cooperative care for all children, and birth control. Wright also attacked capitalism, greed, and religion, becoming known as “the red harlot of infidelity.” Kneeland embraced the radical proposals of Owen and Wright and in 1828 had Fanny Wright speak from his pulpit.
Wright and Owen organized The Association for the Protection of Industry and the Promotion of National Education, a group that sought to establish “state guardianship” of children. Here all children in the country would be fed, clothed, and educated at public expense. Abner Kneeland became president of the association.
Opposition to Kneeland within Universalist churches increased. Many passed resolutions denouncing him as one of their ministers. At the time Universalists themselves were under attack with many conservative Christians fearing their message of universal salvation. After all the thinking went, if there is no punishment in the afterlife for an immoral and licentious life, why should humankind be restrained from living the most immoral life imaginable? This mindset was so pervasive that the state of Connecticut passed a law in 1828 that testimony by Universalists in court was not to be accepted. In May of 1829, having served as a Universalist minister for over 20 years, at the age of 54 Kneeland resigned from the pulpit of his church, never to return to the Universalist fold.
He did not, however, abandon his public career. He moved to Boston and established the First Society of Free Enquiry. The Society of Free Enquiry had Sunday and Wednesday services and both soon drew about 2,000 people. One attendee described the sermons as tending to “ridicule the Christian religion to persuade the congregation that there is no God, no future life, no soul.” Instead of reading from the Bible, Kneeland often read passages from Voltaire or Thomas Paine. On one occasion he read a passage from the Biblical book of Leviticus, passages referring to women’s menstrual cycle and a women being unclean for 7 days. Kneeland screamed in response, “that is not true: women are not unclean anytime. They say this is a good book. I don’t think it is a very good book at all in its attitudes toward women.” He then hurled his Bible down the center aisle where it slammed against the back doors. The Wednesday evening services were festive occasions of singing and dancing. As you might imagine, these antics shocked much of Boston.
Almost immediately upon arriving in Boston Kneeland had also begun to print a newspaper, “The Boston Intelligencer.” He stated that the paper would support the abolition of slavery, the rights of women, public education, and the rights of the laboring classes. Soon it had 2,000 subscribers.
In the second issue Kneeland published a “Marriage Cathecism” which read in part: Q: How long is the marriage vow, covenant, or contract, binding on the parties: A: As long as it exists, let that be longer or shorter. It is morally and virtually binding so long as it is productive of the happiness of the parties immediately concerned and no longer.” A few months later Kneeland wrote that women should have equal rights, even extending to equal pay, stating that “women’s wages should be exactly, per week, per day, or per hour the same as those of men.”
He even supported interracial marriage. In August of 1831 he wrote, “The basic principle of society should be the perfect equality as to rights and privileges, totally regardless of sex, and now I will go one step further, and say, totally regardless of color…What! To marry each other: YES, to marry, if they love or fancy each other.”
In addition, to his radical social positions, in front page headlines, he offered a $1,000 reward to any clergyman who could prove to his satisfaction that Jesus had ever existed and that the four Gospels of the New Testament had truly been written by four men named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Kneeland continued to invite controversial individuals to speak from his pulpit. When William Lloyd Garrison – the polarizing abolitionist – moved to Boston to begin printing his abolitionist paper “The Liberator,” the first place he gave a lecture in Boston was from Kneeland’s lectern. Garrison would later write, “It was left for a society of avowed infidels…not by any of the Christian ministers or churches of Boston…to save the city from the shame of sealing all its doors against the slave’s advocate.”
After two years of a very successful but controversial public presence in Boston, in 1833 he published his “Philosophical Creed.” As was read earlier, he stated, “I believe that the whole universe is nature, and that the word nature embraces the whole universe; that God and nature…are synonymous terms. Hence I am not an atheist, but a Pantheist.” Thus, he clearly separated himself from Christians in Boston.
Within a few weeks Universalist minister and editor Thomas Whittemore challenged Kneeland in his magazine “The Trumpet” and Kneeland responded. Kneeland’s letter to Whittemore was published on December 20, 1833, in the “Boston Intelligencer.” Kneeland wrote:
Dear Sir: You observed to me the other day, that people still consider me a Universalist, and said to me that “if you will acknowledge that you are not, I will publish it.” I told you, in substance that in some respects I am still a Universalist; but that in others, I am not… I still hold to universal philanthropy, universal benevolence, and universal charity, in these respects, I am still a Universalist. Neither do I believe in punishment after death; so in this also I agree with the Universalists. But as it respects all other of their religious notions in relation to another world, or a supposed other state of conscious existence, I do not believe in any of them; so that in this respect, I am no more a Universalist that I am an orthodox Christian. As for instance: 1. Universalists believe in a god which I do not; but believe that their god, with all his moral attributes (aside from nature itself,) is nothing more than a chimera of their own imagination. 2. Universalists believe in Christ, which I do not; but believe that whole story concerning him is as much a fable and a fiction as that of the god Promotheus… 3. Universalists believe in miracles, which I do not; but believe that every pretension to them can either be accounted for on natural principles, or else is to be attributed to mere trick and imposture. 4. Universalists believe in the resurrection of the dead, in immortality and eternal life, which I do not: but believe that all life is mortal; that death is an eternal extinction of life to the individual who possesses it, and that no individual life is, ever was or ever will be eternal. Hence, as Universalists no longer wish to consider me as belonging to their order, as it relates to a belief in things unseen, I hope the above four articles will be sufficient to distinguish me from them and them from me…
Ultimately, that statement…”Universalists believe in a God which I do not” would lead to a trial with Kneeland being convicted and sentenced to jail for 60 days for blasphemy. He would become the last man sentenced to a jail term in this country for this crime.
Between 1834 and 1838 Abner Kneeland would undergo five separate trials for various charges relating to his blasphemy. One of those charges involved articles he had reprinted in his paper what had previously appeared in the Owens – Wright journal “Free Inquiry.” The most shocking article compared beliefs among various peoples. It said, “A Parisian would be surprised to hear that the Hottentots cut out one of the testicles of every little boy; and a Hottentot would be surprised to hear that the Parisians leave every little boy with two. Neither the Parisian nor the Hottentot is astonished at the practice of the other because he finds it unreasonable, but because he finds it differs from his own. The Frenchman will ask why the Hottentots allow their boy’s but one testicle, but that same Frenchman, though he be too stupid to understand the laws of evidence, or too illiterate to apply them to history, firmly believes that Jesus Christ was begotten without any testicles at all.”
This reference to the testicles of Jesus was considered so shocking by four of the five judges that they would not let the passage even be read in court.
The second item was from Kneeland’s paper and ridiculed contemporary concepts of prayer. That article, said in part: “Think of the prayers that are offered up every Lord’s Day in this country…one is asking for one thing, another for another, one for rain, another for dry weather; one for an east wind, another for a west wind…Only think of it seriously for one minute…and then say whether you think it possible that there is such a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering god…? Superstition may answer in the affirmative; philosophy will answer in the negative.”
The most serious charge by far was his letter to Thomas Whittemore in which he proclaimed that he no longer believed in God.
His defense against these charges should make any trial lawyer proud. As far as the reprinted articles were concerned, his lawyer argued that, as a matter of fact, opponents of Kneeland had reprinted the articles themselves to help build a case against him. So, if the act of publishing the articles was the crime, how had those individuals escaped trial?
Kneeland also argued that he had been out of town when the articles were printed, that they had been printed in error, and that he obviously had nothing to do with their publication because they contained spelling errors and that he would never have allowed that.
Kneeland also defended his letter to Thomas Whittemore. In this case he argued punctuation. His statement to Whittemore was “Universalists believe in a God which I do not.” That is, he did not believe in the SAME god as the Universalists. Had he meant to deny the total existence of God, he would have placed a comma after god, making the sentence read, “Universalists believe in a God, (comma) which I do not.” He also proclaimed that not only did he not believe in the God of the Universalists, neither did the members of the jury. After all, they believed in eternal damnation and punishment and the Universalists did not. Nevertheless, Kneeland was convicted and a series of appeals followed, ending in a fifth trial before the Massachusetts Supreme Court which heard the case in 1836. The Supreme Court handed down its decision two years later. On his 64th birthday Abner Kneeland was called before the court to hear that the previous guilty verdict was upheld and that the accused was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
On June 18, 1838, gray-haired, 64 year old Abner Kneeland began his sentence for blasphemy in the Boston common jail. Released on August 17, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 300 people. Although his release caused a temporary stir, the huge crowds at his gatherings began to drift away. By the following April he announced in his paper that his free inquiry group was to be disbanded and that his supporters should “just go to some Unitarian meeting, for the sake of being in the fashion.”
Kneeland was headed west. By May he was in Iowa, trying to establish a new free thought community he named Salubria. He purchased 230 acres, built a home, and advertised for like-minded thinkers. Only about 10 other families would move to Salubria and the community did not grow as he had hoped. They were accepted in the surrounding area, with one neighbor merely saying that the inhabitants at the community just read a lot of books. Kneeland taught school briefly, became chair of the Van Buren County Democrats, and ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature. In August of 1844 at the age of 70 Abner Kneeland died.
So, where do we stand 166 years after the death of this Universalist minister and social critic? Have we left behind the mindset and statutes that in 1838 would send a man to jail for 60 days due to his beliefs and statements? In 1961 (Torcaso v Watkins) the US Supreme Court ruled that there can be no religious test for any office. Although I know of no one who has been tried for blasphemy recently, several states still have statutes on their books -although they have no legal standing- that allow discrimination in religious beliefs and practices. These states include Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas. The North Carolina law is especially of interest to us UUs. It provides “The following persons shall be disqualified for office. First, any person who shall DENY the being of Almighty God.” In Asheville, North Carolina, journalist Cecil Bothwell, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville, was elected to the city council. He was sworn into office using an affirmation that did not include an oath to God or a Bible. Some local citizens tried unsuccessfully to have him removed from office due to the religious clause in the state constitution. The local newspaper in a satirical cartoon referred to Bothwell as our “Village Atheist.” With this unexpected notoriety, Mr. Bothwell now often travels to UU churches throughout the Southeast telling his story.
Even our own state of Texas has an exclusionary clause in the state constitution that has never been removed. It states, “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this state; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, PROVIDED he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.” Anyone who denies the existence of a supreme being, therefore, cannot hold public office in Texas. However – and this is purely conjectural – if there were a move to amend the Texas Constitution and remove this phrase, what do you think would happen? What type of opposition and rhetoric would emerge? Would a majority of Texas voters remove the requirement to believe in a Supreme Being or would they vote to retain it?
Aside from the legal technicalities of freedom of religion, what about our personal actions? This summer (2010) a Muslim congregation in New York City and a developer plan to build a worship center about two blocks from the Twin Towers where the 9-11 attacks took place. Due to this being an Islamic center, a firestorm of protest has erupted. One has called this proposed building a “sacrilege.” Another has proclaimed that the center is meant to “celebrate” the 9-11 murders. According to syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts (7-22-10), Sarah Palin has called upon moderate Muslims to “refudiate” the idea, although she presumably meant that they should “repudiate” it. When President Obama defended the right of this religious community to built the center, he was attacked. Today, (August 22, 2010) there is a planned public protest in New York City to oppose this center. Some construction workers have announced that they will not work on the job.
Freedom of religion is only one part of a life of tolerance and respect for others. Freedom of religion begins with each of us, in our own hearts, with a lack of arrogance in our own beliefs, and a respect for the beliefs of others. We UUs include that concept in our Seven Principles when we affirm “the right of conscience…in society at large.” That concept is central to who we are.
Today we will have a church-wide discussion of Greg Mortensen’s fine book, Three Cups of Tea. I hope you can attend this discussion which will be led by Religious Education. Toward to end of the book, Mortensen explains why he has spent almost 20 years building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He says, “What motivates me to do this? The answer is simple: When I look into the eyes of the children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I see my own children’s eyes full of wonder-and I hope that we will each do our part to leave them all a legacy of peace instead of the perpetual cycle of violence, war, terrorism, racism, and bigotry that we adults have yet to conquer.” Freedom of religion, if truly felt in our hearts and applied to our lives, allows more than the right to believe and worship as we choose without being thrown in jail. It also helps combat religious hatred, violence, and bigotry.
Abner Kneeland was a man ahead of his times. He was a bold, but divisive, figure. During his first trial the judge asked his attorney that if the defendant was not an atheist, then what God did he believe in? The attorney retorted, “That is an affair between him and God, and not between him and your honor.” That is the way it should be. Abner Kneeland’s stand for freedom of religion in the 1830s is a message that the world still needs to hear today.
Thank you, Abner Kneeland for your beliefs and for the courage to stand your ground. Thank you for a message that the world needed to hear then and needs to hear today. Thank you for seeing more clearly than most of those about you. Thank you for standing for freedom of religion. May we do the same. Thus, let it be.
PARTING WORDS
We are taught (Matt 5:16) that no one lights a candle and hides it under a basket, but rather places it on a candlestick so that all may see. Let your light so shine that it may show the pathway to those around you. Go in love. Go in peace. Amen
