Timothy Larsen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199287871
- eISBN:
- 9780191713422
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287871.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Joseph Barker was a Methodist New Connexion minister, but his evolving religious journey led him to split the denomination. He moved to America and became a leading popular freethinker and anti-Bible ...
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Joseph Barker was a Methodist New Connexion minister, but his evolving religious journey led him to split the denomination. He moved to America and became a leading popular freethinker and anti-Bible lecturer. On his return to England, he was the co-editor with Charles Bradlaugh of the atheistic paper, the National Reformer. Concerns about morality were one factor in his reconversion.Less
Joseph Barker was a Methodist New Connexion minister, but his evolving religious journey led him to split the denomination. He moved to America and became a leading popular freethinker and anti-Bible lecturer. On his return to England, he was the co-editor with Charles Bradlaugh of the atheistic paper, the National Reformer. Concerns about morality were one factor in his reconversion.
Timothy Larsen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199287871
- eISBN:
- 9780191713422
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287871.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The Victorian Secularist movement knew that it was experiencing a crisis of doubt. Freethinkers reconverted because they came to believe that Secularism was merely negative, that it offered no basis ...
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The Victorian Secularist movement knew that it was experiencing a crisis of doubt. Freethinkers reconverted because they came to believe that Secularism was merely negative, that it offered no basis for morality, and that it adhered to a procrustean system of logic. Positively, they were drawn to the Bible and to Jesus of Nazareth, to the realm of the spirit (sometimes through Spiritualism), and to Christians who modeled learning and a commitment to justice. Popular radicals were ahead of members of the social elite when it came to these intellectual trends.Less
The Victorian Secularist movement knew that it was experiencing a crisis of doubt. Freethinkers reconverted because they came to believe that Secularism was merely negative, that it offered no basis for morality, and that it adhered to a procrustean system of logic. Positively, they were drawn to the Bible and to Jesus of Nazareth, to the realm of the spirit (sometimes through Spiritualism), and to Christians who modeled learning and a commitment to justice. Popular radicals were ahead of members of the social elite when it came to these intellectual trends.
Paul Russell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195110333
- eISBN:
- 9780199872084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195110333.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Although our own contemporaries are widely agreed that Hume's Treatise was largely unconcerned with problems and issues of religion (i.e. on the general assumption that he removed all such material ...
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Although our own contemporaries are widely agreed that Hume's Treatise was largely unconcerned with problems and issues of religion (i.e. on the general assumption that he removed all such material from the Treatise) his early critics took a very different view. This way of reading Hume's Treatise is especially apparent in A Letter from a Gentleman to his friend at Edinburgh, a pamphlet composed by Hume in 1745 in reply to several accusations made against him when he applied for the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University. Among the most important and fundamental “charges” made against Hume are those of “skepticism” and “atheism.” The nature and character of these charges and Hume's replies reveal the particular relevance and role of the (dogmatic) philosophy of Samuel Clarke in this context—as well as the philosophy of Clarke's prominent Scottish disciple Andrew Baxter.Less
Although our own contemporaries are widely agreed that Hume's Treatise was largely unconcerned with problems and issues of religion (i.e. on the general assumption that he removed all such material from the Treatise) his early critics took a very different view. This way of reading Hume's Treatise is especially apparent in A Letter from a Gentleman to his friend at Edinburgh, a pamphlet composed by Hume in 1745 in reply to several accusations made against him when he applied for the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University. Among the most important and fundamental “charges” made against Hume are those of “skepticism” and “atheism.” The nature and character of these charges and Hume's replies reveal the particular relevance and role of the (dogmatic) philosophy of Samuel Clarke in this context—as well as the philosophy of Clarke's prominent Scottish disciple Andrew Baxter.
Geoffrey Cantor
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199596676
- eISBN:
- 9780191725685
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596676.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History, Religion and Society
This chapter shows how the social and political concerns of Catholics, secularists, and Jews influenced their perceptions of the Exhibition. Just as some Protestants perceived the Exhibition as a ...
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This chapter shows how the social and political concerns of Catholics, secularists, and Jews influenced their perceptions of the Exhibition. Just as some Protestants perceived the Exhibition as a plot by the Papacy, Catholics were prone to criticize the Exhibition as part of an avowed strategy by Protestants to undermine Catholicism. The Exhibition was similarly criticized by the more radical freethinkers and secularists as a capitalist enterprise that perpetuated the oppression of the working classes. However, the Owenites welcomed it as an opportunity to spread their own socialist philosophy. By contrast, the Anglo‐Jewish community evoked the success of Jewish exhibitors in order to refute the view held by many Christians that Jews were inferior.Less
This chapter shows how the social and political concerns of Catholics, secularists, and Jews influenced their perceptions of the Exhibition. Just as some Protestants perceived the Exhibition as a plot by the Papacy, Catholics were prone to criticize the Exhibition as part of an avowed strategy by Protestants to undermine Catholicism. The Exhibition was similarly criticized by the more radical freethinkers and secularists as a capitalist enterprise that perpetuated the oppression of the working classes. However, the Owenites welcomed it as an opportunity to spread their own socialist philosophy. By contrast, the Anglo‐Jewish community evoked the success of Jewish exhibitors in order to refute the view held by many Christians that Jews were inferior.
DAVID WOMERSLEY
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198187332
- eISBN:
- 9780191718861
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187332.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
The third instalment of The Decline and Fall (1788) required Gibbon to narrate the rise, growth, and decline of Islam, a subject in which he had been interested since his early youth, and which had ...
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The third instalment of The Decline and Fall (1788) required Gibbon to narrate the rise, growth, and decline of Islam, a subject in which he had been interested since his early youth, and which had also, since the late seventeenth century, been a battleground between the forces of religious orthodoxy and heterodoxy in both England and Europe. This chapter contextualises Gibbon's account in that complex tradition, and shows how he picks his way between the simplified versions both of his critics and of those freethinkers with whom his critics attempted to confuse him. Gibbon's attainment of the desired character of a consummate historian was to some degree facilitated by his clerical opponents.Less
The third instalment of The Decline and Fall (1788) required Gibbon to narrate the rise, growth, and decline of Islam, a subject in which he had been interested since his early youth, and which had also, since the late seventeenth century, been a battleground between the forces of religious orthodoxy and heterodoxy in both England and Europe. This chapter contextualises Gibbon's account in that complex tradition, and shows how he picks his way between the simplified versions both of his critics and of those freethinkers with whom his critics attempted to confuse him. Gibbon's attainment of the desired character of a consummate historian was to some degree facilitated by his clerical opponents.
Leslie Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199295845
- eISBN:
- 9780191700729
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199295845.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Cecil Maurice Bowra learnt, at an early age, that the gods toy with humankind, juggling their fates and destinies with unblinking callousness. When he later discovered that some Greeks held the same ...
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Cecil Maurice Bowra learnt, at an early age, that the gods toy with humankind, juggling their fates and destinies with unblinking callousness. When he later discovered that some Greeks held the same view, he could hardly have been surprised. The mystery could never be sorted out. Ambiguity was everywhere. Bowra's father had been a freethinker, proudly proclaiming himself a pupil of T. H. Huxley and his friends, who had given the late Victorian Church such a drubbing. Yet the diary of Edward Bowra records a regular pattern of family churchgoing. Similarly, no issue divided Maurice's friends more. Some, like John Betjeman, always insisted that the Warden had had a lively belief in an afterlife; others were adamant that he had none whatever. It was a confusion that almost certainly reflected the true state of Bowra's mind.Less
Cecil Maurice Bowra learnt, at an early age, that the gods toy with humankind, juggling their fates and destinies with unblinking callousness. When he later discovered that some Greeks held the same view, he could hardly have been surprised. The mystery could never be sorted out. Ambiguity was everywhere. Bowra's father had been a freethinker, proudly proclaiming himself a pupil of T. H. Huxley and his friends, who had given the late Victorian Church such a drubbing. Yet the diary of Edward Bowra records a regular pattern of family churchgoing. Similarly, no issue divided Maurice's friends more. Some, like John Betjeman, always insisted that the Warden had had a lively belief in an afterlife; others were adamant that he had none whatever. It was a confusion that almost certainly reflected the true state of Bowra's mind.
David Bebbington
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199575480
- eISBN:
- 9780191741449
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199575480.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
A revival took place at Washington-on-the-Brazos in the newly independent state of Texas in 1841. Nearly all the inhabitants of the small town attended, a high proportion became converts and the ...
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A revival took place at Washington-on-the-Brazos in the newly independent state of Texas in 1841. Nearly all the inhabitants of the small town attended, a high proportion became converts and the revival spread to adjacent places. The Baptists who promoted the awakening were successful in vanquishing the rough culture of the town. They brought the leading freethinkers of Washington to Christian allegiance. By accepting much of the thought of the Enlightenment, the moderate Baptists identified with the revival overcame their more traditional co-religionists who wanted nothing to do with organised missions or colleges. Yet the participants in the event resisted more extreme version of the Enlightenment embodied in the views of the Campbellites. The revival reveals much of the ideological struggle of the times to shape the future of Texas.Less
A revival took place at Washington-on-the-Brazos in the newly independent state of Texas in 1841. Nearly all the inhabitants of the small town attended, a high proportion became converts and the revival spread to adjacent places. The Baptists who promoted the awakening were successful in vanquishing the rough culture of the town. They brought the leading freethinkers of Washington to Christian allegiance. By accepting much of the thought of the Enlightenment, the moderate Baptists identified with the revival overcame their more traditional co-religionists who wanted nothing to do with organised missions or colleges. Yet the participants in the event resisted more extreme version of the Enlightenment embodied in the views of the Campbellites. The revival reveals much of the ideological struggle of the times to shape the future of Texas.
April R. Haynes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226284590
- eISBN:
- 9780226284767
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226284767.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
“The Gender of Solitary Vice” argues that the solitary vice became an issue of major concern in the United States only after Sylvester Graham began offering identical sexual advice to women and men. ...
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“The Gender of Solitary Vice” argues that the solitary vice became an issue of major concern in the United States only after Sylvester Graham began offering identical sexual advice to women and men. The eighteenth-century British text Onania, aimed primarily at men, had drawn little attention in North America. But violent reaction to Graham’s “Lecture to Mothers” in 1833 introduced large numbers of Americans to the idea that masturbation caused disease, insanity, and death. Graham contended that the same physiological laws governed male and female passion and exhorted each woman to take control of her own sexual life. Unlike contemporary freethinkers who made similar arguments, he advised women to abstain from the solitary vice and marital excess. The chapter recounts Graham’s early career and alliance with moral like John R. McDowall. It also identifies self-avowed libertines among mob leaders. Reform women responded to the riots by asserting their right to learn about physiology, defining virtue as the conquest of passion in obedience to the laws of health, and arguing that virtue rather than gender should define citizenship. Adapting solitary vice discourse to express their own sexual subjectivity, female moral reformers initiated the first national crusade against masturbation.Less
“The Gender of Solitary Vice” argues that the solitary vice became an issue of major concern in the United States only after Sylvester Graham began offering identical sexual advice to women and men. The eighteenth-century British text Onania, aimed primarily at men, had drawn little attention in North America. But violent reaction to Graham’s “Lecture to Mothers” in 1833 introduced large numbers of Americans to the idea that masturbation caused disease, insanity, and death. Graham contended that the same physiological laws governed male and female passion and exhorted each woman to take control of her own sexual life. Unlike contemporary freethinkers who made similar arguments, he advised women to abstain from the solitary vice and marital excess. The chapter recounts Graham’s early career and alliance with moral like John R. McDowall. It also identifies self-avowed libertines among mob leaders. Reform women responded to the riots by asserting their right to learn about physiology, defining virtue as the conquest of passion in obedience to the laws of health, and arguing that virtue rather than gender should define citizenship. Adapting solitary vice discourse to express their own sexual subjectivity, female moral reformers initiated the first national crusade against masturbation.
David Burns
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199929504
- eISBN:
- 9780199315963
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199929504.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book contends that the influence of biblical criticism in America was more widespread than previously thought. It proves this point by uncovering the hidden history of the radical historical ...
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This book contends that the influence of biblical criticism in America was more widespread than previously thought. It proves this point by uncovering the hidden history of the radical historical Jesus, a construct created and sustained by freethinkers, feminists, socialists, and anarchists during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. This exploration provides a new narrative revealing that Cyrenus Osborne Ward, Caroline Bartlett, George Herron, Bouck White, and other radical religionists had an impact on the history of religion in America rivaling that of recognized religious intellectuals such as Shailer Mathews, Charles Briggs, Francis Peabody, and Walter Rauschenbusch. The methods and approaches utilized by radical religionists were different than those employed by elite liberal divines, however, and part of a larger struggle over the relationship between religion and civilization. There were numerous reasons for this conflict, but the primary one was that radicals used Ernest Renan’s The Life of Jesus to create an imaginative brand of biblical criticism that struck a balance between the demands of reason and the doctrines of religion. Thus, while radical religionists like Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Eugene Debs were secular-minded thinkers who sought to purge Christianity of its supernatural dimensions, they believed the religious imagination that enabled modern-day radicals to make common cause with an ancient peasant from Galilee was something wonderful.Less
This book contends that the influence of biblical criticism in America was more widespread than previously thought. It proves this point by uncovering the hidden history of the radical historical Jesus, a construct created and sustained by freethinkers, feminists, socialists, and anarchists during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. This exploration provides a new narrative revealing that Cyrenus Osborne Ward, Caroline Bartlett, George Herron, Bouck White, and other radical religionists had an impact on the history of religion in America rivaling that of recognized religious intellectuals such as Shailer Mathews, Charles Briggs, Francis Peabody, and Walter Rauschenbusch. The methods and approaches utilized by radical religionists were different than those employed by elite liberal divines, however, and part of a larger struggle over the relationship between religion and civilization. There were numerous reasons for this conflict, but the primary one was that radicals used Ernest Renan’s The Life of Jesus to create an imaginative brand of biblical criticism that struck a balance between the demands of reason and the doctrines of religion. Thus, while radical religionists like Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Eugene Debs were secular-minded thinkers who sought to purge Christianity of its supernatural dimensions, they believed the religious imagination that enabled modern-day radicals to make common cause with an ancient peasant from Galilee was something wonderful.
Nigel Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300112214
- eISBN:
- 9780300168396
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300112214.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) is one of the most intriguing figures in English literature. A noted civil servant under Cromwell's Protectorate, he has been variously ...
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The seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) is one of the most intriguing figures in English literature. A noted civil servant under Cromwell's Protectorate, he has been variously identified as a patriot, spy, conspirator, concealed homosexual, father to the liberal tradition, and incendiary satirical pamphleteer and freethinker. But while Marvell's poetry and prose have attracted a wide modern following, his prose is known only to specialists, and much of his personal life remains shrouded in mystery. This biography provides a look into Marvell's life, from his early employment as a tutor and gentleman's companion to his suspicious death, reputedly a politically fueled poisoning. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, the voluminous corpus of Marvell's previously little-known writing, and recent scholarship across several disciplines, the author's portrait becomes the definitive account of this elusive life.Less
The seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) is one of the most intriguing figures in English literature. A noted civil servant under Cromwell's Protectorate, he has been variously identified as a patriot, spy, conspirator, concealed homosexual, father to the liberal tradition, and incendiary satirical pamphleteer and freethinker. But while Marvell's poetry and prose have attracted a wide modern following, his prose is known only to specialists, and much of his personal life remains shrouded in mystery. This biography provides a look into Marvell's life, from his early employment as a tutor and gentleman's companion to his suspicious death, reputedly a politically fueled poisoning. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, the voluminous corpus of Marvell's previously little-known writing, and recent scholarship across several disciplines, the author's portrait becomes the definitive account of this elusive life.
