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Benjamin Ferris and the Perils of Liberal Religion

1988; Volume: 77; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/qkh.1988.0020

1934-1504

Carol E. Hoffecker,

American History and Culture

Benjamin Ferris and the Perils of Liberal Religion Carol E. Hoffecker* Few eras in American history have received more intense scrutiny than the 1820s, the decade that witnessed the triumph of Jacksonian democracy, the rapid settlement of western lands, factory towns, and commercial cities, and the apogee of an aggressive interdenominational Protestant revival known as the Second Great Awakening. In 1978 Anthony F. C. Wallace published a book that focused attention on the relationship of the Second Great Awakening to the intellectual and economic development of the 1820s. Rockdale, The Growth ofan American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution told the story of the first stages of industrialization in a small textile mill village located on the Chester Creek near Philadelphia.1 The book's lengthy, satirically anachronistic subtitle summarized the author's plot and thesis: "An account of the coming of the machines, the making of a new way of life in the mill hamlets, and the triumph of evangelical capitalists over socialists and infidels, and the transformation of the workers into Christian soldiers in a cotton manufacturing district in Pennsylvania in the years before and during the Civil War." According to Wallace, the process of industrialization in the Delaware River Valley encompassed more than new machines and social change. It also included a fierce, although gentlemanly, struggle between two ideologies that were competing for the very soul of America. Rockdale's elite factory owners and engineers were deeply divided among themselves between two rival ideological positions , Christian evangelism and secular rationalism. The evangelicals sought through earnest missionary endeavours to speed the coming of a Christian millennium. Their theology centered on Christ's atonement for the sins of mankind, and stressed the need for a personal conversion experience that would lead to commitment to the Christian cause. By contrast, the rationalists or free thinkers looked to such enlightenment figures from the previous generation as Voltaire, Paine and Jefferson for their view of reality. In place of faith and piety they exalted the human mind, empirical science, and open enquiry as the means to free mankind from superstitions and * Carol E. Hoffecker is professor of history at the University of Delaware. 1. Anthony F. C. Wallace, Rockdale, The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978). 31 32Quaker History inaugurate a new age of reason and happiness. Free thinkers read the Bible critically and their religious opinions ran the gamut from deism to agnosticism to atheism. Both free thinkers and evangelicals confidently expected the fulfillment of their respective utopias and each regarded the other as the chief obstacle to attaining their goals. The victors could look forward to nothing less than controlling the development and purpose of American society. Educated, thoughtful people of every religious denomination could not avoid being drawn into the debate. Among Christian denominations that were well represented in the Middle Atlantic States, Quakers occupied a pivotal position in this ideological struggle. They could interpret the Quaker belief in the Inner Light as either a nearly rationalistic faith in the possibility of human enlightenment or as an expression of inward spirituality. Traditional Quaker doctrine had been content to perceive the Inner Light shining within both mind and soul. But under the impact of the diverging intellectual trends of the 1820s, some Quakers chose to emphasize the mind, and others the soul. This dichotomy of opinion produced a separation in the Society in 1827 between the Orthodox Friends and the Hicksite Friends. The Orthodox Friends associated their own religious beliefs with those of evangelical protestantism and were uniformly hostile to the rationalist point of view. The Hicksites, on the other hand, insisted on the historic uniqueness of the Quaker faith. Yet beyond their opposition to the evangelicals they lacked unity of opinion. After the separation occurred, the dichotomy between spiritual religion and rationalism continued to plague the Hicksites because they were such a heterogeneous group. Elbert Russell, author of a standard work on Quaker history, wrote that the Hicksites were primarily interested in freedom of conscience and "lacked a corporate discipline or common working program."2 J. William Frost, a recent student of the schism, described the Hicksites as "traditional...