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 -- 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.

A Very Brief History of Cambridge: 1700-1800

The Early Eighteenth Century

      Cambridge in the early eighteenth century grew slowly, continuing trends established in the 1600s. Until the middle of the century, most of the residents were descendants of Puritan settlers.¹ Most of them were farmers, with some traders and artisans. Voters had not been required to be church members since 1691, which indicates that the government was beginning to depart from its religious roots, but in the first half of the 1700's, there were no major religious controversies and not much religious diversity.² During this period, Cambridge's public schooling system became more organized. Administration of the local grammar school had originally been a duty of the town selectmen, but in 1744, the town appointed a separate school board.³ The largely rural village saw some development in the first ten years of the 1700s and again in the 1750s, with larger, improved courthouses and meetinghouses built in both decades.⁴ Harvard participated in this trend, and some of the oldest Harvard buildings that still stand, were built during this period, starting with Massachusetts Hall in 1720.

Anglicans Arrive

       Beginning in the 1740s, and picking up considerably in the next few decades, there was a small but influential influx of wealthy English settlers. Some of these came directly from England, and others had previously settled on estates in the West Indies.⁵ They were Anglicans, belonging to the Church of England, which made them the de facto rivals of the original settlers. In 1761, they opened Christ Church, and the original building is still standing and still an Episcopal church. The wealthy Anglophiles were concentrated in seven elegant manors, along with their farms and gardens. The families who lived there were closely interconnected through blood, marriage, and social ties. William Brattle, a Brigadier-General in the British army, built one of those manors in 1740, and the street where the Anglicans lived is still called Brattle Street.⁶ However, put off by the Anglicans' religion, ostentatious displays of wealth, extravagant private parties, and perhaps most of all their Loyalist political alignment with the King of England, the locals viewed the street as its own miniature community, an island of Englishness in a New World village. They called the street Tory Row, Church Row, or sometimes, the King's Highway.⁷

Cambridge and the American Revolution

      You've heard of Paul Revere's ride, on April 18, 1775. Revere was in fact one of several riders who alerted the countryside that the British troops were on the move. As a part of the same journey, William Dawes rode out Massachusetts Avenue to alert Concord. The next day, the Battle of Lexington and Concord occurred. It was immediately evident that the war would be very present here in Cambridge. The Committee of Correspondence, a provisional government, confiscated many loyalist properties, especially from “Tory Row,” and many loyalists fled the area, feeling unsafe. Harvard classes were canceled on May 1. Students who didn't join the militia resumed classes that October in Concord; the Harvard campus wasn't used as a school again until June 1776.⁸ More than 20,000 militiamen from around New England camped in Cambridge in April of 1775. They took over Loyalist homes, Christ Church, and Harvard for various military uses, and the Common served as a training ground and a site where soldiers camped out. In fighting the war, Cambridge established the first state arsenal in what is now Arsenal Square, and an important magazine (a location for storing gunpowder) by what is now Magazine Street.⁹

       On July 3, 1775, George Washington formally took command of the Continental Army, as the militia was now called, in the Cambridge Common. The site is now commemorated with an archway on the side facing Mass. Ave. For nine months, in 1775 and 1776, Washington used one of the Tory Row manors as his home and headquarters, even bringing his family to stay with him.¹⁰ That manor had been inhabited by several prominent locals, but its most famous owner, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had not yet been born.

Cambridge in the Early Republic

       In 1779, Massachusetts held a convention in Cambridge in order to decide upon a new constitution for the state. John Adams presided, and had a big hand in writing the document. This constitution, adopted in 1780, is still in effect, and it is the oldest written governing constitution in the world.¹¹ Modern Cambridge residents would likely be very comfortable with most, but not all, of the original document. It included Enlightenment ideas about equality and natural rights; the first article begins, “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.” Seven years later, when the federal Constitution was created, the framers looked to the constitution of Massachusetts as one of their models. The Massachusetts constitution includes several provisions about religion, permitting citizens to worship the way they chose, but also authorizing the government to require and support Protestant churches and schools. In 1781, a Massachusetts court ruled that slavery was not permitted in the state because of Article I, and in 1783 the state supreme court agreed.

       After the war, Cambridge's resources probably looked somewhat spent. The use of so many public and private spaces for military needs took its toll.¹² However, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the city saw improvements that set a good precedent for industrialization in the years to come. In 1793, Cantabrigians created a Fire Society – a formal way of organizing their corps of volunteer firefighters. This was essential to protecting homes and other buildings, as there was not yet a professional fire department.¹³ In the same year, the West Boston Bridge was constructed, connecting Cambridge and Boston in a very convenient location, where the Longfellow Bridge is now.¹⁴ This proved to be a boon for the local economy, allowing an increased flow of trade with the Port of Boston. 
 

1 Martin, Mary L. and E. Ashley Rooney. Cambridge, Massachusetts Past and Present. (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2008), 7.

2 Seaburg, Alan. Cambridge on the Charles. (Cambridge: Anne Miniver Press, 2001),  18.

3 Seaburg 130.

4 Seaburg 19.

5 Rooney 7.

6 Douglas, Adeline. "Tory Row." Merrill, Estelle, ed. Cambridge Sketches by Cambridge Authors. Cambridge Young Women’s Christian Association. (Boston: The Pinkham Press, 1896),  26.

7 Douglas, 25.

8 Rooney 7.

9 Rooney 7.

10 Rooney 8.

11 Seaburg 22.

12 Rooney 8.

13 Seaburg 65.

14 Rooney 9.