Unitarianism and
Transcendentalism
Religion in America
Rise of Unitarianism
Effect of Enlightenment on urban New England churches
The “Unitarian controversy,” 1805, splits Congregationalism
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Appointment of Henry Ware to faculty of Harvard Divinity School
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Calvinists to Andover & Yale
William Ellery Channing
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Unitarianism’s publicizer
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Teaches a loving, immanent God
Transcendentalism
German “higher criticism”: Bible in doubt
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unitarian minister
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Resigns, 1832; “corpse-cold Unitarianism”
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“Transcendental Club”
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Nature, 1836
Unitarian split heals in late 19th century
Western Unitarians grow more humanistic
Emerson, Nature,
1836
Through nature to God
Poetry
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William Cullen Bryant
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“Thanatopsis,” 1817
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Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings
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“A Forest Hymn,” 1824
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The groves were God’s first temples.
Through nature to God
Art
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Hudson River School
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Thomas Cole
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Frederic Church
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Albert Bierstadt