Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860) was an American
transcendentalist and
reforming minister of the
Unitarian church. A reformer and
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
, his words and popular quotations would later inspire speeches by
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
and
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
Early life, 1810–1829
Parker was born in
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
,
the youngest child in a large farming family. His paternal grandfather was
John Parker, the leader of the Lexington militia at the
Battle of Lexington
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord ...
. Among his colonial Yankee ancestors were
Thomas Hastings, who came from the East Anglia region of England to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
in 1634, and
Deacon Thomas Parker, who came from England in 1635 and was one of the founders of
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
.
Most of Theodore's family had died by the time he was 27,
probably due to
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
. Out of eleven siblings, only five remained: three brothers, including Theodore, and two sisters. His mother, to whom he was emotionally close, died when he was eleven. He responded to these tragedies by refusing to lapse into what he called "the valley of tears", focusing instead on other events and demands, and by affirming "the immortality of the soul", later a benchmark of his theology.
Descriptions of Parker as a teenager recall him as "raw" and rough, emotional and poetic, sincere, "arch", "roguish", volatile, witty, and quick. He excelled at academics and gained an early education through country schools and personal study. He studied long and late when farm chores allowed, teaching himself math, Latin, and other subjects. At seventeen he began teaching in local schools. He continued teaching himself and private students in advanced and specialized subjects. He learned Hebrew from Joshua Seixas (son of
Gershom Mendes Seixas
Gershom Mendes Seixas (January 15, 1745 – July 2, 1816) was the first native-born Jewish religious leader in the United States. An American Patriot, he served as the hazzan of Congregation Shearith Israel, New York City's first Spanish and Por ...
and Hannah Manuel), whom he may have baptized in a covert conversion to Christianity. He also studied for a time under
Convers Francis
Convers Francis (November 9, 1795 – April 17, 1863) was an American Unitarian minister from Watertown, Massachusetts.
Life and work
He was born the son of Susannah Rand Francis and Convers Francis, and named after his father. His sister, Lyd ...
, who later preached at Parker's ordination.
College and divinity school, 1830–1836
In 1830, at age 19, Parker walked the ten miles from Lexington to Cambridge to apply to
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
. He was accepted but could not pay the tuition, so he lived and studied at home, continued to work on his father's farm, and joined his classmates only for exams. Under that program, he was able to complete three years of study in one. He then took various posts as a teacher, conducting an academy from 1831 to 1834 at
Watertown, Massachusetts
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End.
Watertown ...
, where his late mother's family lived. At Watertown, he met his future wife, Lydia Dodge Cabot. He announced their engagement to his father in October, 1833. Theodore and Lydia were married four years later on April 20, 1837.
While at Watertown, Parker produced his first significant manuscript, ''The History of the Jews'', which outlined his skepticism of biblical miracles and an otherwise liberal approach to the Bible. These were to be themes throughout his career.
Parker considered a career in law, but his strong
faith
Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion".
Religious people often ...
led him to theology. He entered the
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
in 1834. He specialized in the study of German theology and was drawn to the ideas of
Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
,
Carlyle, and
Emerson. He wrote and spoke (with varying degrees of fluency)
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and German. His journal and letters show that he was acquainted with many other languages, including
Chaldee,
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet ...
and
Ethiopic. He completed the divinity school program quickly, in 1836, in order to marry and begin preaching without delay.
Early home life and career, 1836–1842
Parker called the late 1830s a "period of…disappointment". Citing "home; children; & a good professional sphere," he wrote in his journal that "All fail me, & all equally." Increasing controversies in his career culminated in a break with orthodoxy in the early 1840s. The fallout from these events affected him deeply, and it took him a few years to land on his feet and move forward.
Marriage
Parker and Lydia Cabot married in 1837, but the union was rocky at first due to environmental stresses and incompatibilities, and both were saddened to have no children. In 1840 he sought emotional release in the company of a neighboring woman, Anna Blake Shaw, who had a similar theology and temperament to his own, but the friendship was by all accounts not sexual. This attachment naturally increased problems at home, where he may have found it difficult to meet the emotional needs of his wife.
First pastorate
Parker had spent 1836 visiting pulpits in the Boston area (G 80), but for family reasons accepted a pastorate at West Roxbury in 1837. At first, he found the location less than stimulating and work constraining. He adapted to pastoral life, however, and preached in many pulpits around Boston as a visitor. He gained a wide reputation as an earnest, effective speaker. In 1840 Harvard awarded him an honorary master's degree on the basis of his extensive learning.
Parker delivered one especially popular sermon twenty-five times between 1838 and 1841. In it, he argued against the popular notion that religion could be reduced to morality. "The principle of morality is obedience to the Law of con
cience" he wrote, while religion required more: that we "feel naturally, allegiance to a superior Being: dependence on him & accountability to him." (The theme of dependence echoes
Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional ...
, an indication of the German influence on his theology.) Morality involves right acting, while religion requires love of God and regular prayer, which Parker considered essential to human life. "No feeling is more deeply planted in human nature than the tendency to adore a superior being," he preached, "to reverence him, to bow before him, to feel his presence, to pray to him for aid in times of need" and "to bless him when the heart is full of joy."
In 1837, Parker had begun attending meetings of the group later known as the
Transcendental Club The Transcendental Club was a group of New England authors, philosophers, socialists, politicians and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism.
Overview
Frederic Henry Hedge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George R ...
.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
's Divinity School Address that year had been deeply arresting to him, and he welcomed the opportunity to associate with
Emerson,
Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott (; November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and av ...
,
Orestes Brownson
Orestes Augustus Brownson (September 16, 1803 – April 17, 1876) was an American intellectual and activist, preacher, labor organizer, and noted Catholic convert and writer.
Brownson was a publicist, a career which spanned his affiliation with ...
, and several others.
Transcendentalists
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
such as
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
and Parker wrote of the world as divine, and of themselves as part of this divinity. Unlike Emerson and other Transcendentalists, however, Parker believed the movement was rooted in deeply religious ideas and did not believe it should retreat from religion. All shared a conviction that slavery should be abolished and social reforms should take root.
Parker gradually introduced Transcendentalist ideas into his sermons. He tempered his radicalism with diplomacy and discretion, however. "I preach abundant heresies," he wrote to a friend, "and they all go down—for the listeners do not know how heretical they are." For years he had wrestled with the factuality of the Hebrew Scriptures, and by 1837 he was wishing "some wise man would now write a book…and show up the absurdity of…the Old Testament miracles, prophecies, dreams, miraculous births, etc.'" He was hardly alone. "'What shall we do with the Old Testament?' asked fellow
Unitarian James Walker in 1838. 'That question is of such frequent recurrence among laymen as well as clergymen, that any well-considered attempt to answer it, or supply the means of answering it, is almost sure of hearty welcome." Questions regarding biblical realism and meaning, and the answers clergy increasingly found through the German-based
higher criticism
Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of ...
, formed the basis of
liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, also known as Liberal Theology and historically as Christian Modernism (see Catholic modernism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 bill ...
as it emerged and developed throughout the nineteenth century.
In 1838 Parker published his first major article, a critical review of an orthodox work written by his former professor
John Gorham Palfrey. In it Parker broke for the first time with supernatural realism, as he also increasingly did in his sermons. To him, Christianity was natural rather than miraculous. More and more, he praised social reform movements such as those for temperance, peace, and the abolition of slavery. In 1840 he described such movements as divinely inspired, though he added that they did not fully address the spiritual and intellectual ills of society. Controversy mounted regarding these and other Transcendentalist elements in his work. So did criticism, which often saddened and distressed him.
Break with Orthodoxy
In 1841, Parker laid bare his radical theological position in a sermon titled ''A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity'', in which he espoused his belief that the traditions of historic Christianity did not reflect the truth. In so doing, he made an open break with orthodox theology. He instead argued for a type of Christian belief and worship in which the essence of Jesus's teachings remained permanent but the words, traditions, and other forms of their conveyance did not. He stressed the immediacy of God and saw the Church as a communion, looking upon Christ as the supreme expression of God. Ultimately, he rejected all miracles and revelation and saw the Bible as full of contradictions and mistakes. He retained his faith in God but suggested that people experience God intuitively and personally, and that they should center their religious beliefs on individual experience.
[
Parker's West Roxbury church remained loyal. Sermons and media attacked him, however, when he denied Biblical miracles and the literal authority of the Bible and Jesus. Many questioned his Christianity. Nearly all the pulpits in the Boston area were closed to him,] and he lost friends. Parker reacted with grief and defiance. He remained unwilling to concede that his views placed him beyond the outer bounds of Unitarian liberalism. After this unwilling break with the Unitarian establishment, he spent two years (1841–1843) adjusting to the reality of his newly controversial and independent career and increasing his social activism on religious grounds. He began to see himself as a prophetic religious reformer.
Mature home life and career, 1843–1859
Parker's family life, temperament, and work steadied during the 1840s. The second half of his career revolved around antislavery, democracy, and religious social activism.
Travel to Europe
In 1843 and 1844, Theodore and Lydia traveled in Europe. While there his theology, career, and personal life matured and steadied. He was no longer as sensitive to criticism and bore difficulties more easily. Away from extended family problems in West Roxbury, his marriage seems to have improved and become more steadily affectionate. Despite complex issues that occasionally resurfaced, he and Lydia were happier. "My wife is kind as an angel," he would write in his journal during denominational trials in 1845. His travels also seemed to stimulate a growing interest in political and social issues.
Independent Boston pastorate
Returning to the United States, Parker found Unitarianism on the cusp of a division over his right to fellowship as a minister. His controversial 1841 sermon had created a stir that ballooned into an all-out storm in 1844 at the Church of the Disciples. The debate over the nature and degree of Parker's "infidelity" caused Unitarians to adopt a liberal creed, which they had formerly declined to do based on an inclusive principle. Their position proved too orthodox to include Parker.
In January, 1845, a sizeable group of supporters gathered at Marlboro Chapel in Boston and resolved to provide Parker "a chance to be heard in Boston." Calling themselves "Friends of Theodore Parker," they hired a hall and invited him to preach there on Sunday mornings. Despite misgivings, Parker accepted and preached his first sermon at the Melodeon (Boston, Massachusetts) The Melodeon (1839 - ca.1870) was a concert hall and performance space in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts, located on Washington Street, near West Street. Musical concerts, lectures, sermons, conferences, visual displays, and popular entertainme ...
Theater in February. Although the arrangement was temporary at first, he resigned his West Roxbury pastorate in early 1846 (to the dismay of his faithful parishioners there). He elected to call his new congregation the 28th Congregational Society of Boston; after the Melodeon, Parker's congregation met in the Boston Music Hall
The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts, with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place.
One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the ...
on Winter Street, Boston.
Parker's congregation grew to 2,000—then three percent of Boston's population—and included influential figures such as Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (; November 29, 1832March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel ''Little Women'' (1868) and its sequels ''Little Men'' (1871) and ''Jo's Boys'' (1886). Raised in ...