I've been reading some material on the Western Unitarian controversy of the 1880s. This was an earlier reprise of the questions "what is the center of our movement?" and "what falls outside our movement?". I've read a handful of papers and tracts from the period, most of them dry, almost legal briefs, ponderously rationally laying out arguments. I expected the same of Gannett's writing, only more so, as he was part of the radical element, the sort of proto-humanists who were leaving behind much of the Christian aspects of Unitarianism. I was wrong. I could read him with my heart.
Gannett speaks of religion as the "inner central fact of the soul's life -- the sense of aspiration for unfulfillable ideals, the lightning flash of indignation against strong-handed wrong, and the white glow of reverence for the martyr... and that mystic working of spiritual elements in us which gives cheer in trial, quiet in sorrow, patience in strain...." Then this, which seems to anticipate process theology: "God-becoming within atom-limits is the imperious and blessed condition of God-realizing". Wow. "Is this Power working thus within us, Love or is it Lover?" I'm going to be pondering this for a while.
Gannett served Unity Church from 1877 to 1883. This was before the congregation moved to its present building, so his ghost is not in the physical structure. But I'm sure he lives on in the interior spiritual life of the congregation that is Unity Church.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment