Moses Hull
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Moses Hull (1836 - 1907) was a prominent minister for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 19th century, who later became a Spiritualist lecturer and author. Born in Waldo, Ohio, Hull was a member of the United Brethren Church in his teens. He joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1857, and became a prominent minister and debater for that denomination. His confidence in his debating abilities sometimes led Hull to go forth without prayer, biblical study and meditation. In October 1862, Hull debated a spiritualist in Paw Paw, Michigan, against the advice of fellow ministers and Adventist co-founder Ellen G. White. She wrote the following about his character:
"His lack of consecration and vital piety left him subject to Satan's suggestions. He has relied upon his own strength instead of the strong arm of the Lord, and that mighty arm has been partially removed....Brother Hull has felt that he was too much restrained, that he could not act out his nature....While the power of the truth, in all its force, influenced him, he was comparatively safe; but break the force and power of truth upon the mind, and there is no restraint; the natural propensities take the lead, and there is no stopping place." (Testimonies for the Church, volume 1, pages 426, 427)
In September 1863, Hull preached his last sermon as an Adventist minister, and shortly thereafter, he converted to spiritualism. In August 1873, Hull promoted the doctrine of free love in a letter to a spiritualist publication, the Woodhull-Claflin Weekly. In that letter, he wrote,
"Many think they are improved physically and spiritually by a change of climate and scene, when their principal improvement is made by a change of their old sexual mate, and sometimes by the substitution of a new one. No one need tell me this is heterodoxy. I know it. If it had not been, I would not have written it.......Allow me then to say that for years I lived in 'the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity'. Especially the bond that said, 'Forsaking all others, I will cleave unto thee.' "
Soon after, he divorced his wife, Elvira, and married fellow spiritualist Mattie Brown Sawyer. Hull came to advocate Christian Spiritualism, as opposed to most spiritualists of the time, who rejected any connection with Western religious tradition. He reinterpreted the Bible to support spiritualism, arguing that the miracles mentioned therein could be best explained as spiritualistic phenomenon. He is best known among spiritualists for two debates with mainstream Christian ministers, the Hull-Covert and Jamieson-Hull Debates. In 1903, he founded the Morris Pratt Institute in Whitewater, Ohio, which he led until his death in January 1907.
[edit] External links
- http://www.geocities.com/moses_hull Biography of Moses Hull by Daniel Hull
- http://www.answers.com/topic/moses-hull Brief bio for Moses Hull
- http://www.ellengwhite.info/moses_hull
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