biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1802–76)
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| biography:
| Congregational minister and theologian, born in Bantam, Connecticut, USA. He studied at Yale (1827), and was teaching and reading for the bar when (1831) he felt called to the ministry and entered Yale's Divinity School. The rationalistic ‘new divinity’ of Calvinism then in vogue offended his more intuitive spirit, but he accepted ordination in 1833, and although not truly a popular preacher, gained a reputation for his fine sermons. Owing to poor health, he went to Europe (1845–6) and returned to publish one of his most influential works, Christian Nurture (1847). In 1849 he experienced a mystical vision of God and the Gospel; when he revealed this he was attacked by the more traditional Congregationalists, but he continued to preach and write. His weak lungs led him to move to California (1856), where he helped to establish the first University of California at Berkeley, but declining the presidency he returned to Connecticut (1858). His poor health forced him to resign from a pastorate in 1861 but he continued to publish his sermons and religious speculations. By the time of his death he had carved out a place as one of the most influential of American Protestant theologians with his emphasis on bringing religion into harmony with human experience and nature. |
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