Monthly Archives: October 2008

“On slipp’ry rocks I see them stand…”

Tonight I drove up to Newton to sing with one of the Boston-area shope note singings. In New England shape note singing groups, anyone can call out the number of a hymn and stand up to lead it.

“Number 183,” someone called out, adding: “This one is dedicated to all the Wall Street investment bankers.”

People started chuckling as they turned to number 183 and saw the words which had been written by Isaac Watts back in 1719:

“Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I,
To mourn, and murmur and repine,
To see the wicked placed on high,
In pride and robes of honor shine.

“But oh, their end, their dreadful end,
Thy sanctuary taught me so,
On slipp’ry rocks I see them stand,
And fiery billows roll below.”

Universalist though I am, I chuckled too. For a moment. Until I realized that those Wall Street investment bankers have placed us all on slipp’ry rocks, financially speaking….

Be that as it may, we all sang the song with great gusto.

Hooray for Connecticut.

From the BBC Web site today, a story about “US state legalises gay marriage“:

“Connecticut’s Supreme Court has overturned a ban on same-sex marriages, making it the third US state to legalise such unions….

“The governor of Connecticut, Jodi Rell, a Republican, said she did not agree with the ruling but would uphold it…. The governor said she believed any attempt to contest the decision, either legislatively or by amending the state constitution, would fail.”

Hooray for Connecticut.

Unitarianism: theological and denominational boundaries in New Bedford

Earlier, I wrote about Centre Church in New Bedford. Here’s more about links between Christian Connection and Unitarian churches in New Bedford….

Referring to Duane Hurd’s History of Bristol County, I find that there were three Christian Connection churches in New Bedford when Centre Church was organized. North Christian Church (later called First Christian Church) was founded in 1807 by a group who were originally Baptists under the care of Elder Hix from Dartmouth. Then “in December, 1826, Elder Charles Morgridge, of Boston, was settled as minister…. During the fall of 1831, Mr. Morgridge resigned his pastoral charge….” and another minister took over. Then, “on the retirement of Mr. Lovell, Rev. Mr. Morgridge again renewed his connection with the church, and remained with it until the spring of 1841.” *

In 1837, while at North Christian Church, Charles Morgridge wrote treatise supporting unitarian theology, a book titled “The True Believer’s Defence: Against charges preferred by Trinitarians, for not believing in The Divinity of Christ, The Deity of Christ, The Trinity, etc.” Publishing information is listed on the title page as “New-Bedford: William Howe, 26 North Water Street. 1837.” (That means it was published just a block or two from our house, but I digress.) Here’s a sample of the prose style (yes, all the italics are in the original):

“SECTION V.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY NOT ASSERTED IN THE BIBLE.

“No passage of Scripture asserts that God is three.

“If it be asked what I intend to qualify by the numeral three, I answer, any thing which the reader pleases. There is no scripture which asserts that God is three persons, three agents, three beings, three Gods, three spirits, three subsistences, three modes, three offices, three attributes, three divinities, three infinite minds, three somewhats, three opposites, or three in any sense whatever. The truth of this has been admitted by every Trinitarian that ever wrote or preached on the subject. No sermon has ever yet been heard or seen, founded on a passage of scripture which asserts that God is three. Dr. Barrow, whose works are published in seven vols. 8 vo., has left us one discourse on the Trinity. But, unable to find any passage of scripture that asserts the doctrine, he took for his text, Set your affection on things above. — Col. iii. 2. He considered the three persons in the Godhead incomparably the most important of all the things above, on which we are to set our affections.”

This book is available online via Google books, if you want to read it yourself. It is also available in a reprint edition from BiblicalUnitarian.com.

We have to wonder why Morgridge only lasted less than two months as the minister at Centre Church. It appears that his unitarian theology would have been agreeable to a congregation which eventually decided to call “only Unitarian ministers” — so why did he leave?** We also have to wonder what First Congregational Society of New Bedford, which was then the name of the Unitarian church in town, thought about Morgridge and his book. Did Ephraim Peabody, then minister at the Unitarian church, hang out with Morgridge? The co-existence of Centre Church and First Congregational Society poses some interesting questions about denominational boundaries vs. theological boundaries.

* The other Christian churches in New Bedford were Middle Street Christian Church in downtown New Bedford, organized in 1828; South Christian Church in the South End, organized c. 1851; and Third Christian Church, organized 1826 and known as the African Christian Church until 1840 when it changed its name, located on Middle Street not far from the Middle Street Christian Church (it later became a Freewill Baptist Church, and went out of existence in 1859).

** After leaving North, or First, Christian Church in New Bedford, Morgridge was two months at Center Church; probably at First Christian Church in Fall River from 1847 to 1848; probably in Barnstable at the Congregational Church in the 1850s.

Say what?…

The IMF has warned of a possible global “meltdown” — and they’re not referring to global warming, they’re referring to the global economy. In the midst of this tragedy — and if the global economy does “melt down,” it will be an epic tragedy, with a high human cost among the most vulnerable people — in the midst of all this, there have been moments approaching comedy. Like this:

“Late on Friday, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the US planned to invest directly in banks for the first since the 1930s, following a similar UK programme of partial bank nationalisation.” [BBC Web site, 11 October 2008]

Yes, the Republican advocates of small government are going to partially nationalize the U.S. banking industry. For years, political conservatives have joked that a conservative is a liberal who had been mugged; now the political liberals are joking that a liberal is a conservative who has money in a U.S. bank.

An extinct Unitarian church of New Bedford

Extinct churches fascinate me that way some people are fascinated by ghost towns. Today I discovered that there was a second Unitarian church here in New Bedford for a short time in the mid-19th C. This account of the church comes from History of Bristol County, Massachusetts: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men [Duane Hamilton Hurd (J. W. Lewis & Co., 1883), p. 94]:

“THE CENTRE CHURCH was organized Feb. 12, 1845. The following were some of the original members: James H. Collins, William H. Stowell, Isaac Bly, David Ilsley, Prentiss W. Cobb, Benjamin G. Wilson, Robert Luscomb, William Bly, Rutli Bly, Deborah Simmons, and Eliza Tubbs. It was at first attempted to form a church of the Christian denomination, but the clergymen invited to do this declining, invitations were extended to Rev. Messrs. Ephraim Peabody, Davis, and E. B. Hall, of Providence, by whom the society was organized. Rev. Charles Morgridge was the first pastor; he preached until March, 1845. The next was Rev. Jonathan Brown, of Naples, N. Y., who officiated about three years without much success. The church then voted not to employ any but Unitarian ministers. In October, 1848, Rev. Moses G. Thomas was installed. His pastorship continued until 1854, when the financial affairs of the church became so full of embarrassment that it was voted to disband.”

Notice how the author makes the distinction between a “church of the Christian denomination,” and Unitarianism. Also notice that the congregation invited Ephraim Peabody, formerly minister at First Unitarian, then minister of King’s Chapel, to help them organize their new congregation.

After the dissolution of Centre Church, Thomas became a minister-at-large under the auspices of First Unitarian Church in New Bedford (note that what we now call First Unitarian Church of New Bedford was then called First Congregational Society). Here’s a brief account of the first community ministry here in New Bedford, from The First Congregational Society in New Bedford, Massachusetts: Its History as Illustrative of Ecclesiastical Evolution [William J. Potter (First Congregational Society, 1889), p. 150]:

“It is proper too, to recall that, within the time of Mr. [John] Weiss’s pastorate, a ministry-at-large was sustained for several years for service among the poor, Rev. Moses G. Thomas being the minister. After the severance of his relationship to the Society, he was continued for many years by the beneficence of those honored members, James and Sarah Rotch Arnold, of whose charities he became to a large degree the trusted bearer.”

Moses Thomas sounded like a fascinating person in his own right, so with the help of Google Books, I did a little more research on him…. Continue reading →

Can we talk about the issues? Please? Pretty please?…

Rolling Stone magazine is not known for the depth of their political insight, but they are pretty good on cultural commentary. In an October 2, 2008, article, Stone writer Matt Taibbi has this insight about the cultural implications of choosing presidential and vice-presidential candidates:

“The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. [Link]”

U.S. national political discourse now has essentially no relation to issues. It’s all about manipulating the polls. It’s like TV shows which get put on the air, not because they’re good, but because they’ll get good Neilsen ratings and sell ads. It’s like the “recording artists” who get Grammy awards for musically-poor recordings that get aggressively marketed.

The sorry state of U.S. politics goes hand-in-hand with what’s going on in our larger culture. Consumerist greed has combined with anti-intellectualism in the U.S., which is why the presidential race has been degraded to nothing more than a crummy TV show, another episode of “Survivor.” For someone like me whose religious convictions condemn greed and honor the use of reason, all this consumerist greed and anti-intellectualism is, well, sinful. I wish my man Isaiah (you know, the prophet Isaiah) were alive today…

  “Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
   Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: they all loveth lobbyists’ gifts, and followeth after rewards: they defend not the orphan, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
   Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
   And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:
   And I will restore thy honest judges as at the first, and thy true statesmen as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.
   Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her people with righteousness.
   And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that sin shall be consumed.”

[Isaiah 1.22-28, KJV, slightly modified]

Gotta love those old prophets.

Autumn watch

The fruit flies came in with some batch of fruit we got, probably the slightly damaged half-price fruit from the supermarket. They quickly multiplied. We had some apples from the farmers market sitting on the kitchen counter, but once they started swarming around that we had to put the apples in the refrigerator. They swarm around the bowl full of scraps destined for the compost pile, which means we have to put the compost out immediately, instead of waiting until the end of the day.

Finally I thought we had everything under control. Except now I notice that they’re swarming the pumpkins we have for decoration. Pumpkins! I thought to myself, why would fruit flies swarm around a vegetable, they’re fruit flies! But I quickly realized that pumpkins have seeds in them, which means they’re fruit. Fruit flies do not pay attention to the culinary distinctions that human beings make about certain kinds of food; they just look for fruit.

Finances

After a church committee meeting today, Jorge and I were talking about the current financial crisis.

“…then I felt really bad when I looked at my pension plan,” Jorge said.

“You know what the solution to that problem is,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Jorge. “Don’t look at your pension plan.”

At this point, that’s about all we can do.

The only good news is that people who work on Wall Street are no longer considered folk heroes.

Oh, and Richard fuld, the former president of Lehman Brothers who got over three hundred million dollars over the past eight years (yes, that’s over thirty seven million a year), told Congress today, “I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me.” No, we don’t feel sorry for you, we just think you’re greedy and morally despicable.