Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge -- Friday

To explain the history of Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge I decided not to untangle the interwoven stories of religious pluralism, the Disestablishment movement and the history of Unitarianism in Cambridge. I think it is in the spirit of the lengthy title of this post. If you're just interested in finally learning what the word means, head to the bottom of the full post (appearing on Friday), but the full story is more complex and richer, which is why it's here.

This is by far the longest post you ever will find at Cambridge Considered. Because of this, I am serializing it, so this week, there will be a new piece every day, but after this week, they will appear on the blog as one post. See Monday's post here, Tuesday's here, Wednesday's here, and Thursday's here.

The End of the Establishment

Those who split off from their Congregational churches and those who were a part of other religions altogether continued to grow in number and in influence. By the 1830's, those in favor of disestablishment were working together to argue that any state establishment of religion inhibited freedom of religion. While many of these groups had once accepted the establishment as long as there was no hierarchy, as stipulated in the state constitution, and as long as their taxes could go to their own church, three decades later they felt the only way to be treated as equals is to end the Standing Order. In time, their view came to dominate public opinion, and antidisestablishmentarianism faded into being the opinion of a minority.¹

In 1833, the General Court of Massachusetts proposed an amendment to the state constitution ending the practice of state-established churches. The people ratified it on November 11th, and it became the eleventh amendment to the state constitution. The amendment replaced the original Article III of the state constitution, which was the article concerning public support of religion, with a statement that every religious society had the right to contract with its members to raise money for support of the minister and the building.² Two hundred years after several dissenting English religious groups came to the are to live under their own religious laws, churches would no longer be established or maintained by the state of Massachusetts.

Disestablishment created a greater wedge between the Unitarians and Trinitarians in the remaining Congregational churches. Since their parishes were no longer defined geographically, many of them found that their theological differences were a reason to divide into separate congregations.³ Some of the churches that had once been state-supported suffered a real financial blow, and had to adjust to being supported by their congregation alone. For the recently-created churches, for Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, and others, disestablishment was the beginning of full religious freedom.

Epilogue: The Churches Continue to Evolve

In the mid-nineteenth century, most of the Congregational churches that had stayed on the Trinitarian side of the split underwent a serious of theological changes. By the turn of the century, they had rejected the harshest doctrines on sin and damnation, and embraced positive outlook on human nature. In 1957, the Congregational Christian Churches merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination. Today, the UCC is known for being socially progressive; for example, most UCC churches have been supportive of, and active in, civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights movements.⁴

The Shepard Congregational Society, the one that broke off from Cambridge's first church during the Unitarian Controversy, has continued to change over the years. They met in the Old Court House building, which where the Harvard Coop is today, until establishing a more permanent space. Since 1957 they have been known as First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, United Church of Christ, and their current building is just behind the Cambridge Common.⁵

The Unitarian church continued to change over time as well. In the 19^th century, Transcendentalist thought had a profound effect on Unitarian beliefs, although many people originally treated Transcendentalism as radical or heretical. By the turn of the 20^th century, some Unitarian churches were moving away from being explicitly Christian, preferring to value Christ's teachings without the rest of the trappings of the tradition. In 1961, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, another liberal group of Protestant origin, merged to form the Unitarian Universalist Association, a humanist religious group whose churches tend to be very liberal – in the modern, political sense of the word. The UCC and the Unitarian Universalist Association, the descendants of the two sides of the Unitarian Controversy, have much in common, and the two organizations even share many parts of their religious education curriculum.

The majority of Unitarians today would be surprised that their religious ancestors supported antidisestablishmentarianism. Like their early American ancestors, many Unitarians use their churches as a unit for organizing for social and political causes, but the great majority (perhaps all?) firmly believe in the separation of church and state in this country. The First Parish in Cambridge had been one of the first members of the Standing Order, and once wanted to keep the religious establishment that privileged their church over others. Today, First Parish Cambridge Unitarian Universalist is the home of a Jewish Culture group, a Women's Sacred Circle / Goddess spirituality group, and a Buddhist practice group, to name a few.⁶

Antidisestablishmentarianism – the word

It's considered by many to be the longest non-scientific word in the English language. According to Etymology Online, the word was coined in 1838 to describe the movement in England.⁷ Now, the term can be applied to a similar movement in any country, and even though it post-dates the controversy in Massachusetts by a few years, historians still use the word to describe what happened here. While Anglicans were on the disestablishment side in America, where they were part of the minority, in England, of course, the Anglican church remains the established church to this day.

For those of you who love words, here's a breakdown to help you remember the word's definition:

Establishment (in this context): The practice of a select set of churches being officially sanctioned by the state, and often supported by taxes.

In Massachusetts, these churches were known as the churches of the Standing Order, and they were the Congregationalist descendants of Puritan churches.

Disestablishment: Ending the practice of a select set of churches being officially sanctioned by the state, and often supported by taxes.

In Massachusetts, this officially took place in 1833, but churches outside of the Standing Order had been campaigning for it for decades.

Disestablishmentarianism: The movement for ending the practice of a select set of churches being officially sanctioned by the state, and often supported by taxes.

In Massachusetts, the participants in this movement included members of religious groups that had arrived through immigration, such as Anglicans and Baptists, and members of religious groups that had split off from establishment churches, such as conservative Congregationalists.

Antidisestablishmentarianism: The belief opposing the movement for ending the practice of a select set of churches being officially sanctioned by the state, and often supported by taxes.

In Massachusetts, supporters of antidisestablishmentarianism mostly came from the established churches, which were the original Congregationalist churches that had maintained their status in the Standing Order during the Unitarian Controversy.

1Cushing, John. “Notes on Disestablishment in Massachusetts, 1780-1833 ” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 169-190 . 190.

2http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution

3Harris, Mark. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004. Page 480.

4http://www.ucc.org/about-us/short-course/

5www.firstchurchcambridge.org/about-us/first-church-history

6www.firstparishcambridge.org

7www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=antidisestablishmentarianism

Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge -- Thursday

To explain the history of Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge I decided not to untangle the interwoven stories of religious pluralism, the Disestablishment movement and the history of Unitarianism in Cambridge. I think it is in the spirit of the lengthy title of this post. If you're just interested in finally learning what the word means, head to the bottom of the full post (appearing on Friday), but the full story is more complex and richer, which is why it's here.

This is by far the longest post you ever will find at Cambridge Considered. Because of this, I am serializing it, so this week, there will be a new piece every day, but after this week, they will appear on the blog as one post. See Monday's post here, Tuesday's here, and Wednesday's here. 

Trouble for the Standing Order

In 1785, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court saw the first test of the religious establishment in the state constitution, in the case John Murray v. Inhabitants of the First Parish in Gloucester. Murray was a Universalist, meaning a Protestant who believed in universal salvation, in which no one is damned. He was the minister of the Independent Church of Christ in Gloucester, a religious association which did not have a traditional church covenant and which did not ordain its ministers in the method laid out by the Cambridge Platform. In 1783, a church committee applied for a tax abatement so that members of the Independent Church could support their own church instead of the established one, but the assessors did not recognize them as a church.¹

Seizing the moment, the local sheriff declared that because Murray had not been ordained in the prescribed manner, he was not a real minister and he was liable for paying a fine on every marriage ceremony he had performed. Murray appealed and also sued for the right to be supported by the taxes of his congregation. He argued that since the Independent Church was not the same sect as the town-supported church, they should have the same rights as any other minority religious institution.² The court ruled in Murray's favor; a decision which affirmed the establishment of churches but also affirmed the right of minority religious groups to support their own church instead – provided they lived in the same parish as their church.³

By 1800, there were 344 Congregational churches in Massachusetts, 150 other protestant churches, and one Roman Catholic church.⁴ In the 19^th century, new waves of European immigration and new schools of thought within established churches brought considerably more diversity to the religious landscape. Additionally, in the post-Revolution economy, the ideas of competition in the marketplace and individualism had overtaken the Puritan ideal of common good coming before individual liberty, and this allowed dissenting voices to grow louder.⁵ Baptists, Universalists, and Episcopalians were among the minority groups that began to demand support for their own churches. These groups protested against paying taxes that would support a church that was not their own.⁶

Twenty-five years after Murray v. Gloucester, another Universalist minister, Thomas Barnes, filed a tax suit against the Parish of Falmouth.^† Barnes lost in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, because the court felt the constitution's requirement to support “public teachers” of religion did not apply to the leaders of private religious societies.⁷ Historian John Cushing has called the 1810 Barnes v. Falmouth case “the last significant victory for the old order.”⁸

Afterwards, many people began pushing for legislation rather than interpretations of the state constitution in their favor. In 1811, the Religious Freedoms Act declared that every person's taxes would go to their own religious society, regardless of whether that society was incorporated, regardless of how many parishes the society served, and with only the requirement that the minister be ordained in accordance with that church's practices. Previously, members of religious groups outside of the establishment had to file certificates of membership in a dissenting church, stating that their church met eligibility for the tax abatement. Certificates were still used to prove eligibility, but now they were available to anyone who was a member of any religious society.⁹

By 1820, the debate over the establishment of religion had grown so politically important that it was one of the main reasons that the state had a second constitutional convention that year. In the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1820, delegates debated proposed amendments to the state constitution. One of these amendments was essentially a version of the Religious Freedoms Act, but it failed by a large margin.¹⁰

A Schism Intensified

Most churches that were a part of the Standing Order supported continuing the establishment. They were the antidisestablishmentarians, because they did not want to disestablish their churches. From 1800 to 1830, an increasing proportion of those with political power in Massachusetts were Unitarian, and belonged to churches that stood to lose tax support with every new measure towards disestablishment. However, those who supported keeping the establishment did not feel this way solely for financial reasons; many of them strongly believed that supporting public religious institutions was a part of the government's responsibility to support institutions for the common good.

Massachusetts court Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons explained in Barnes v. Falmouth, “The object of a free civil government is the promotion and security of the happiness of the citizens. These effects cannot be produced, but by the knowledge and practice of our moral duties, which comprehend all the social and civil obligations of man to man, and of the citizen to the state.” Parsons argued that the people established religion “as a fundamental and essential part of their constitution,” because religion made each of its followers a better “parent, child, neighbor, citizen, and magistrate .”¹¹ Antidisestablishmentarians believed they were protecting an essential piece of what made society work.

One of the most prominent struggles over state-established churches was between the divided Congregationalists. Many churches experienced the schism of the Unitarian Controversy when a number of the church leaders went in the Unitarian direction. Largely because of the 1821 Dedham Decision, it was the newer liberal or Unitarian faction that stayed in the original church building, kept the original name of the church, and had the rights to claim membership in the Standing Order. The Calvinists and trinitarians who split off and founded new churches were frequently deeply insulted by losing their status, feeling that they had left in order to preserve what they considered to be the true faith. Some of these churches became among the most vocal and vehement in the struggle for disestablishment – the struggle to end the practice of tax-supported churches and the Standing Order altogether.¹²

In 1829, the Congregational church in Cambridge, which had been founded by the town's first settlers, was divided in two by the controversy. The Parish voted to dismiss the Reverend Abiel Holmes because of his orthodox views and his attempts to prevent the church from heading in a liberal direction. The church that remained in the Standing Order officially became Unitarian. Dr. Holmes and his followers split off and formed the trinitarian Shepard Congregational Society, named after one of the first church's earliest ministers.

1Cushing, John. “Notes on Disestablishment in Massachusetts, 1780-1833 ” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 169-190 .

174.

2Cushing 175.

3Cushing 176.

4Wright, Conrad, ed. A Stream of Light: a short history of American Unitarianism. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1989. Page 7.

5Brown, Richard, and Jack Tager. Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. Page 113.

6Harris, Mark. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004. Page 444.

† This was Falmouth, Maine, but Maine did not separate from Massachusetts and become its own state until 1820.

7Cushing 184.

8Cushing 185.

9Cushing 186.

10Cushing 189.

11 Barnes v. First Parish of Falmouth, 6 Mass. 400 (1810).

12Harris 480.

Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge -- Wednesday

To explain the history of Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge I decided not to untangle the interwoven stories of religious pluralism, the Disestablishment movement and the history of Unitarianism in Cambridge. I think it is in the spirit of the lengthy title of this post. If you're just interested in finally learning what the word means, head to the bottom of the full post (appearing on Friday), but the full story is more complex and richer, which is why it's here.

This is by far the longest post you ever will find at Cambridge Considered. Because of this, I am serializing it, so this week, there will be a new piece every day, but after this week, they will appear on the blog as one post. See Monday's post here, and Tuesday's here.

A Second Divide: the Unitarian Controversy

In the second half of the 18^th century, liberal religious thought was replacing Puritan thought within Massachusetts churches.^† Leading minsters were challenging Calvinist doctrines such as original sin. By the American Revolution, many clergymen in Massachusetts had made a quiet transition towards religious views that rejected the doctrine of a trinity with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being separate, equal parts.¹ At the time, this rejection was alternately called Anti-Trinitarianism, Arminianism or Unitarianism. Many in this school of thought were uninterested in getting involved in doctrinal debates, some because they felt it would distract from religious observance, and others because they did not want to be the subject of controversy. The first congregation to call an explicitly Unitarian minister to its pulpit was King's Chapel in downtown Boston, an Episcopal church that hired James Freeman in 1787.² The decision was controversial both within that church and in the larger community, but in the next few decades, several Congregational churches also called Unitarians to be their ministers.

At the beginning of the 19^th century, a change happened in Cambridge that would shape the structure of religions in New England. Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison described it this way: “In the years 1804-1806 occurred a college revolution that has influenced the University to this day: both the senior professorship and the presidency were captured by Unitarians.”³ “Captured” is a good word, because the changes at Harvard were the first major event in what became known as as the “Unitarian Controversy” within the Standing Order of Congregational churches.

In 1804, the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard College was open to a new professor. Established in 1721 by a Baptist, The Hollis Professorship of Divinity is the oldest endowed chair in America.⁴ Generally, the school's Board of Overseers laymen were interested in appointing a liberal Congregationalist, like Henry Ware.⁵ However, the University president, Joseph Willard, swore he “would sooner cut off his hand than lift it up for an Arminian professor.” One of the requirements of the Professorship was that the appointee be “of sound and orthodox principles.” Ware's opponents argued that orthodox meant Calvinist, while his supporters argued that for the professor to be considered orthodox, his views only had to be shared by many of his contemporaries.

Willard died in 1804, and now the college had two very important seats to fill.⁶ In 1805, Harvard's Board of Overseers confirmed Ware for the Hollis Professorship, causing vocal backlash from the orthodox.⁷ The same year, an Episcopalian was chosen to be the college President, but he declined, and the second choice was a Unitarian.⁸

Feeling betrayed, orthodox Calvinists and other orthodox congregationalists split off and founded several new seminaries as alternatives to Harvard, beginning with Andover Seminary^‡ in 1807.⁹ Some historians point to the founding of Andover Seminary as the defining moment in the schism among the churches of the Standing Order.¹⁰ Harvard continued on the Unitarian path. In 1810, Reverend John Thorton Kirkland, a professed Unitarian, was elected to without opposition. Kirkland was a beloved, influential president. When Harvard created a Divinity School for graduate studies in religion, Kirkland's fame helped spread the school's reputation for liberalism.¹¹

During the next 15 years, the Unitarian Controversy continued. Congregationalists continued to debate points of theology relating to belief in the trinity, how to interpret scripture, and human nature. In 1821, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that the majority of a parish had the right to choose the minister and retain the property, even if the majority of the church members disagreed. As it was spurred by a case in Dedham, Massachusetts, Baker vs. Fales, this became known as the Dedham Decision.¹² The case was one of the most important events in the schism between Unitarians and Trinitarians. Additionally, it made it clear that although deacons of a church could hold property for the church's use, a church itself did not have the right to hold property. It was the parish that owned property and existed as a legal entity. The church had no power except over its own organization.¹³

 

†The term “liberal” as applied to religion has meant a number of things over the years. In 18^th and early 19^th century Christianity, it usually referred to an emphasis on the use of reason and evidence in forming a religious understanding. Unitarians sought evidence in the Bible for their beliefs, and argued that the Bible did not provide a basis for the belief in the Holy Trinity.

1Wright, Conrad, ed. A Stream of Light: a short history of American Unitarianism. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1989. Page 3.

2Wright 6.

3Morison, Samuel Eliot. Three Centuries of Harvard. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936. Page 187.

4Wright 8.

5Morison 187.

6Morison 190.

7Morison 190.

8Morison 190.

‡The school still operates as Andover Newton Theological in Newton, MA, having merged with Newton Theological Institution in 1965.

9Wright 10.

10For example, Bumbaugh, David. Unitarian Universalism: a narrative history. Chicago: Meadville Lombard Press, 2000. Page 108.

11Morison 196-197.

12Harris, Mark. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004. Page 480.

13Harris 150.

Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge -- Tuesday

To explain the history of Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge I decided not to untangle the interwoven stories of religious pluralism, the Disestablishment movement and the history of Unitarianism in Cambridge. I think it is in the spirit of the lengthy title of this post. If you're just interested in finally learning what the word means, head to the bottom of the full post (appearing on Friday), but the full story is more complex and richer, which is why it's here.

This is by far the longest post you ever will find at Cambridge Considered. Because of this, I am serializing it, so this week, there will be a new piece every day, but after this week, they will appear on the blog as one post. See Monday's post here.

The Establishment of Religion in the Massachusetts Constitution

By the time of the American Revolution, there was significantly more religious diversity in Cambridge. A contingent of Anglicans settled in Cambridge on what's now called Tory Row and founded Christ Church in 1759. Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers had grown in number since the Great Awakening.¹

The new state constitution reaffirmed principles of religious establishment that had been in place to one degree or another since the area was settled. Towns in Massachusetts were legally required to support public religious worship. Most did this through a property tax that all inhabitants paid towards building and maintaining church buildings and paying the ministers' salaries.² Technically, individuals were allowed to choose which church would receive their support, if they attended a local church. If a person did not attend a local church, the share of their taxes that was alloted for church support would go to the majority church in the town.³ The Congregationalist churches that were a part of the group receiving support and fulfilling the towns' legal requirement to have a church were known as the churches of the Standing Order.

Minority groups were pleased with the system in which they were able to elect which church to support, and considered it a large step forward for individual rights of conscience and towards disestablishment.⁴ Still, both the Congregational clergy and Harvard, which was lead by Congregationalists, were receiving public support.

The main problem for religious minorities was that many religious groups did not have enough members in each town to support their own church, so they attended a church in a neighboring town. For example, the Catholics in Cambridge attended church in Boston; a group began raising funds to build a Catholic church in 1831, but it did not open until 1842.⁵ People who attended a minority church outside of their own parish had no control over where their church-supporting taxes went. The money went to the local church that was part of the Establishment, meaning that their own church would lose money and they would be forced to contribute to a church they did not attend or believe in. Slowly, non-established groups began founding their own churches. In Cambridge, the first Baptist church opened in 1817, the first Methodist church opened in 1818, and the first Universalist church opened in 1822; other groups continued to be forced to pay taxes to the First Parish Church.⁶

To modern ears, state establishment of churches may sound downright unconstitutional. In fact, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, prohibiting the establishment of religion, only applied to the federal government at the time. The original legal precedent for applying the First Amendment to the states was in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868.

1Brown 95.

2Harris, Mark. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004. Page 444.

3Brown 95.

4Brown 95.

5Sutton, S.B. Cambridge Reconsidered: 3 1/2 Centuries on the Charles. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1976), 57.

6Seaburg, Alan. Cambridge on the Charles. (Cambridge: Anne Miniver Press, 2001), 196.

Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge -- Monday

To explain the history of Antidisestablishmentarianism in Cambridge I decided not to untangle the interwoven stories of religious pluralism, the Disestablishment movement and the history of Unitarianism in Cambridge. I think it is in the spirit of the lengthy title of this post. If you're just interested in finally learning what the word means, head to the bottom of the full post (appearing on Friday), but the full story is more complex and richer, which is why it's here.

This is by far the longest post you ever will find at Cambridge Considered. Because of this, I am serializing it, so this week, there will be a new piece every day, but after this week, they will appear on the blog as one post.

Church and State Before the Revolution

Longtime readers will already know that it's nearly impossible to look at the early history of Cambridge or anywhere in New England without looking at the role of religion in social and political affairs. (See my posts on the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century, and three posts on Anne Hutchinson). Religion and government were tightly intertwined for the Puritan settlers – they had different leaders, but the church was supported by taxes, and the qualification for voting in the government was being a member in good standing of the church. In 1648, the New England churches broke away from the Christian reform movement the settlers had been a part of in Europe. The New England Puritans created the Cambridge Platform, which outlined the congregational model in which individual congregations are autonomous and have no higher church hierarchy to answer to. The churches following this model were called Congregationalist.

In 1690, the General Court of Massachusetts extended voter eligibility to all adult men who met financial criteria and “possessed good character.” Previously, only men who owned a very large amount of land or who were full church members could vote. This change gave new rights to those were not a part of the established church.¹ The religious establishment in New England was taking a different form from that in Europe, but Massachusetts was still incorporated by the English crown. In 1692, a royal charter made Massachusetts into a British colony rather than a corporation, making the residents subject to British rule. One effect of this change was that while the system in which Congregationalist churches were supported by taxes was maintained, the Charter also required a policy of tolerance for minority religions, mostly Baptists, Anglicans, and Catholics.²

The difference between the parish and the church is key to understanding the politics of religion in early New England. The parish consisted of every resident of a specific geographic area. In Cambridge, the distinction between the town government and the parish as an incorporated legal entity in the town was made formal in 1733.³ For legal purposes, it was assumed that you attended your parish's church. There was one church per parish, a Congregational church, that satisfied the legal requirement for towns to support religion. This church was the established church.

Church membership was more complicated, and up to the clergy or governing body of the church itself. The process of achieving membership in full communion, and the implications of church membership, changed over time. What was unchanging was that this was a small, elect group of people who were practicing members of the established faith and who had received confirmation of this by the church itself. If you were a dissenter, a practicer of a different religion, or someone who had not met the requirements your church set, you were a part of the parish but not a member of the church.

The Great Awakening -- and a Great Divide

In the first several decades of the 18^th century, public involvement in religion in Massachusetts was waning. A minority of people were full members of their churches. Puritanism's strict codes for a moral life were no longer socially enforced. For example, more than a third of first children in the 1730s were conceived out of wedlock.⁴

In the 1730s, a movement came along to counteract this waning interest in religion. A few ministers began preaching that having a conversion experience, in which the individual feels powerfully connected to God, was essential for salvation. The idea would have been familiar to their Puritan ancestors. Then, beginning in Northampton in 1734, the idea of conversions suddenly caught on and began spreading like wildfire.⁵ By 1740, religious revival was all over Massachusetts, and in that decade the movement, called the Great Awakening, spread over the English colonies. The people whose religious views were transformed as part of the revival, sometimes called New Lights, supported an emotional connection with religion. Like in many religious revivals, they advocated worship that was was fervent, passionate, and emphasized emotion over reason.⁶ This group revitalized belief in Calvinist doctrines.

However, the movement did not spark change everywhere. The Old Lights, those who were more conservative during the Great Awakening, emphasized order and reason. Later on, some of the Congregationalists who emphasized reason became the most radical and liberal in the church.⁷ In many places in New England, churches began to split along pro-revival and anti-revival lines. It fractured the unity of the church that had once been so closely connected with the state. While the divided churches all called themselves Congregationalists, never again would religion in Massachusetts be as monolithic as it had originally been.⁸

1Breen, T.H. Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Page 95.

2Brown, Richard, and Jack Tager. Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. Page 49.

3http://www.firstparishcambridge.org/FirstParishHistory

4Brown 53.

5Brown 53.

6Brown 54.

7Harris, Mark. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004. Page 222.

8Brown 55.