Theodore Parker

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For other individuals named Theodore Parker, see Theodore Parker (disambiguation).
Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker

Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810–May 10, 1860) was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church.

In 1850, Parker was the first[1] to use the phrase, "of all the people, by all the people, for all the people" which later influenced Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

In words made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr. a century later, Parker predicted the success of the abolitionist cause: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."[2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, the youngest child in a large farming family. Most of his family had died[3] by the time he was 27, probably due to tuberculosis, and he grew to hold a faith that the soul was immortal, and came to believe in a God who would not allow lasting harm to any of his flock. His belief in God's mercy made him reject Calvinist theology as cruel and unreasonable.

He considered a career in law but his strong faith led him to theology. In 1834, despite having no college degree, Harvard Divinity School gave Parker advanced standing and patrons helped with tuition.[4] He spoke Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and German. His journal and letters show that he was acquainted with many other languages, including Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic and Ethiopic.

[edit] Church and social mission

While he started with a strong faith, with time he began to ask questions. He learned of the new field of historical higher criticism of the Bible, then growing in Germany, and he came to deny traditional views. Ultimately, he rejected all miracles, and saw the Bible as full of contradictions and mistakes. He retained his faith in God.

Parker was attacked when he denied Biblical miracles and the authority of the Bible and Jesus. Some felt he was not a Christian, nearly all the pulpits in the Boston area were closed to him,[4] and he lost friends.

Parker's statue in front of the Theodore Parker Church, a Unitarian parish in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Parker's statue in front of the Theodore Parker Church,[5] a Unitarian parish in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Parker accepted an invitation from supporters to preach in Boston in January 1845. He preached his first sermon there in February. His supporters organized the 28th Congregational Society of Boston in December and installed Parker as minister in January 1846.[3]

His congregation, which included Louisa May Alcott, William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, grew to 7000.[6] Parker was a homeopathic patient of William Wesselhoeft and he spoke the oration at his funeral [7] He also supported Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's Foreign Library where many intellectuals gathered.[8]

Supporting the temperance movement and prison reform, Parker's most controversial stance was to become an abolitionist at a time when the American union was beginning to split over slavery.[9] He wrote the scathing To a Southern Slaveholder in 1848, as the abolition crisis was heating up.

Parker defied slavery[10] and advocated violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, a controversial part of the Compromise of 1850 which required the return of escaped slaves to their owners. Parker worked with many fugitive slaves, some of whom were among Parker's congregation. As in the case of William and Ellen Craft,[11] he hid them in his home and, although he was indicted, he was never convicted.[4]

During the undeclared war in Kansas (see Bleeding Kansas and Origins of the American Civil War) prior to the actual outbreak of the American Civil War, Parker supplied money for weapons for free state militias. As a member of the Secret Six, he supported the abolitionist John Brown, whom many considered a terrorist, and wrote a public letter, "John Brown's Expedition Reviewed," defending John Brown's actions after his arrest, defending the right of slaves to kill their masters.

Boston's Unitarian leadership opposed him to the end, but younger ministers admired him for his attacks on traditional ideas, his fight for a free faith and pulpit, and his very public stances on social issues such as slavery. The Unitarian Universalists now refer to him as "a canonical figure—the model of a prophetic minister in the American Unitarian tradition."[3]

Theodore Parker's first headstone.
Theodore Parker's first headstone.

Parker's ill health forced his retirement in 1859.[6] He developed tuberculosis and departed for Florence, Italy where he died on May 10, 1860, less than one year before the Union split.

His grave is in the English Cemetery, Florence[12] where a headstone by Joel Tanner Hart later replaced the original. Other Unitarians buried in this cemetery include Thomas Southwood Smith and Richard Hildreth. Fanny Trollope, who is also buried here, wrote the first anti-slave novel and Hildreth wrote the second. Both were used by Harriet Beecher Stowe for Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Frederick Douglass came straight from the railroad station to visit Parker's tomb.[citation needed] After Parker's death, his ministry continued until 1889.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Theodore Parker (29 May 1850). "The American Idea:" speech at N.E. Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston (html). Bartleby.com. “A democracy,—that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness’ sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.”
  2. ^ Manker-Seale, Susan (2006-01-15). The Moral Arc of the Universe: Bending Toward Justice. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
  3. ^ a b c Dean Grodzins. Theodore Parker (html). Unitarian Universalist Historical Society.
  4. ^ a b c Theodore Parker (html). Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.
  5. ^ History of the Theodore Parker Church (html). “Established as a Calvinist Protestant church, the congregation adopted a conservative Unitarian theology in the 1830s and followed its minister, Theodore Parker, to a more liberal position in the 1840s. When the First Parish of West Roxbury merged with the Unitarian Church of Roslindale in 1962, the congregation decided to name their new community in memory of Theodore Parker.”
  6. ^ a b Parker, Theodore (html). Columbia Encyclopedia.
  7. ^ William Wesselhoeft (1794-1858) - Pioneers of homeopathy by T. L. Bradford
  8. ^ Elizabeth Peabody's Foreign Library
  9. ^ Paul E. Teed. " A Brave Man's Child": Theodore Parker and the memory of the American Revolution (html). Historical Journal of Massachusetts Summer 2001 issue. “Theodore Parker's 1845 pilgrimage to Lexington was a defining moment in the career of one of New England's most influential antislavery activists. Occurring as it did in the very midst of the national crisis over Texas annexation, Parker's mystical connection with the memory of his illustrious revolutionary ancestor emerged as the bedrock of his identity as an abolitionist.
    “While other abolitionists frequently claimed the revolutionary tradition for their cause, Parker's antislavery vision also rested upon a deep sense of filial obligation to the revolutionaries themselves.”
  10. ^ The Slave Power (html). EServer.org. Digitized in XHTML, PDF and Microsoft Office Word by the Antislavery Literature Project. “First collected edition of the antislavery writings and speeches of abolitionist Theodore Parker. (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1910.) Editor: James Kendall Hosmer (1837-1927), professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, president of the American Library Association.”
  11. ^ Charles Stephen (25 August 2002). Theodore Parker, Slavery, and the Troubled Conscience of the Unitarians (html).
  12. ^ Official guidebook written by Pastore Luigi Santini, published by the Administration of the Cimitero agli Allori in 1981. American Tombs in Florence's English Cemetery (html). “THEODORE PARKER (1810-1860): Born of a modest family in Lexington, Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard Divinity School, specializing in a study of German theology. He was drawn to the ideas of Coleridge, Carlyle and Emerson. In 1842 his doubts led him to an open break with orthodox theology: he stressed the immediacy of God and saw the Church as a communion looking upon Christ as the supreme expression of God. He organized the first congregations, called Unitarian, in Boston, and participated in the fight for the abolition of slavery. Seriously ill, he sought refuge in Florence because of his friendship with the Brownings [Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning], Isa Blagden and F.P. Cobbe, but died scarcely a month following his arrival. Frances P. Cobbe collected and published his writings in 14 volumes; his compatriot John Hart sculpted the bas-relief for his tombstone.”

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • Parker review (1840) of D. F. Strauss's Life of Jesus on UNL digital commons. Published originally in the Christian Examiner for April, 1840. Reprinted from Crit. and Misc. Writings pp. 248–308.


Persondata
NAME Parker, Theodore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION abolitionist
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Lexington, Massachusetts, United States
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1860
PLACE OF DEATH Florence, Italy
Languages