The ABCs of UU: N is for Andrews Norton
In the liberal religious tradition, we have inherited, there is no longer much thought given to theological debate. Even less to biblical interpretation and scholarship. However, looking at our history, we would do well to remember that our Unitarian roots are firmly grounded in the soil of dissent, and it was only the emergence of Transcendentalist thought in the mid-18th century which would move us past both external and internal debate about the nature of God.
The narrative of history is often unkind to those it deems the losers, and Unitarian history is not immune to this tendency. Andrews Norton, one of the most influential Unitarian theologians and leaders in the 19th century is often overlooked today. Derided as the “hard-headed Unitarian Pope” by those whose more liberal interpretations followed in the wake of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Divinity School Address of 1838, Norton was the foremost Unitarian Biblical scholar of our long history. He exemplifies the transitional nature of our faith during the period.
Born on December 31, 1786 in Hingham Massachusetts, Norton graduated from Harvard College in 1804. After a brief period preaching in Augusta, Maine, Norton became a teacher at Bowdoin College. In 1811 he was made a tutor at Cambridge, then in 1813 accepted a position as the librarian at Harvard College and lecturer on the Bible. During this first phase of his career, like his Unitarian contemporary William Ellery Channing, Norton was a strident opponent of the conservative Calvinism of the day, and used Biblical scholarship to refute Trinitarian beliefs publishing A statement of Reasons for not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians in 1833.
Norton became Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature at Harvard Divinity School 1819, a position he held until 1830. His resignation was predicated on his desire to finish his magnum opus on the evidences for Christianity. In 1837 the first volume of The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels was published. As the Transcendentalist movement gained influence under the leadership of Emerson, Norton opposed the movement on the basis that it decentralized the biblical foundations of Christianity and refuted the miracles of Jesus. Following the Divinity School Address Emerson delivered at Harvard in 1838, Norton published a rebuttal “The Latest Form of Infidelity” in 1839. In the article Norton posited: “To deny that a miracle is capable of proof, or to deny that it may be proved by the evidence of the same nature as establishes the truth of other events, is in effect, as I have said, to deny the existence of God.” The central battle between Transcendentalists and Unitarians (which had been brewing since 1836 when George Ripley and William Furness first published letters from the Transcendentalist side of the debate) became known as the Miracles Controversy. Rather predictably, given his life’s work, Norton called for the exclusion of Transcendentalists from the Unitarian community based on what he considered to be their atheist tendencies. Most Unitarians did not share Norton’s exclusionary views and by 1840 Norton abandoned the public debate. The foundation for the inclusionary theology of modern Unitarian Universalism had been created by Emerson and his allies.
Norton continued his work of Biblical scholarship in Cambridge and collected many of his essays in Tracts on Christianity published in 1852. He died on September 18, 1853 at the age of 67.
The Story Behind the Hymn: “Where Ancient Forests Widely Spread”
In addition to his biblical scholarship and feud with the Transcendentalists, Andrews Norton is also remembered for writing several faith-based poems and hymns. The website hymnary.org lists 11 hymns by Norton, “Where Ancient Forests Widely Spread” is among them. Though our current hymnbook no longer includes any words by Norton, I’ve included the words to this hymn here:
Where ancient forests widely spread,
Where bends the cataract’s ocean-fall;
On the lone mountain’s silent head,
There are Thy temples, God of all!
The tombs Thine altars are; for there,
When earthly loves and hopes have fled,
To Thee ascends the spirit’s prayer,
Thou God of the immortal dead!
All space is holy, for all space
Is filled by Thee;—but human thought
Burns clearer in some chosen place,
Where Thine own words of love are taught.
Here be they taught; and may we know
That faith Thy servants knew of old,
Which onward bears, through weal or woe,
Till death the gates of heaven unfold.
Nor we alone; may those whose brow
Shows yet no trace of human cares
Hereafter stand where we do now,
And raise to Thee still holier prayers.