Unitarian clergyman and reformer, born in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA. He overcame a background of poverty to graduate from Harvard Divinity School in 1836. Serving as Unitarian minister in West Roxbury, he was an associate of William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other Transcendentalists, and became a leader of liberal theological thought. His progressive views forced him to resign his first pastorate (1845) and he became a minister at a new church in Boston. He was also active in social movements, including school and prison reforms, temperance, and the abolition of slavery, but gradually withdrew from public life after his health began to fail in 1857.
Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 - May 10, 1860) was a reforming American minister of the Unitarian church, and a Transcendentalist.
Early life
Most of his family had died by the time he was 27, probably to tuberculosis, and he grew into faith that the soul was immortal, and in a God who would not allow lasting harm to any of his flock.
He thought of a legal career, but his strong faith led him to theology.
In 1834, despite no college degree, Harvard Divinity School gave him advanced standing.
Theological questions
While he started with a strong faith, with time he began to ask questions.
According to the Unitarians (below, references),
Controversy and his split with the church
As he denied Biblical miracles, and the authority of the Bible and Jesus, he was attacked.
In January 1845, Parker accepted an invitation from supporters to preach in Boston.
His church and social mission
His church was called a "free church," and he lost more Unitarian support.
He came to support not only temperance, but prison reform.
He defied slavery, advocated violating the Fugitive Slave Act (a controversial part of the Compromise of 1850 which required returning escaped slaves to their masters), and began working with fugitive slaves.
It is well known that he had fugitive slaves in his congregation, and would hide them in his home.
In 1850, there was a wanted fugitive slave in his congregation, one Ellen Craft. During the undeclared war in Kansas (see Bleeding Kansas and Origins of the American Civil War) prior to the actual outbreak of the American Civil War, he supplied money for arms for free state militias.
As a member of the Secret Six, he supported the abolitionist John Brown, whom many considered a terrorist, and whose provocations worsened the growing conflict and helped make the Civil War inevitable. He wrote a public letter defending John Brown's actions after his arrest, defending the right of slaves to kill their masters (John Brown's Expedition Reviewed).
His last days
In 1859 his bad health forced his retirement.
He developed tuberculosis, and left for the warm climate of Italy, where he died in Florence on May 10, 1860, less than a year before the Union split.
Final words
He was the first to use the phrase, "of all the people, by all the people, for all the people," which later influenced the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln.
To the end, the Boston Unitarian leadership opposed him, but younger ministers admired him for his attacks on traditional ideas, his fight for a free faith and pupit, and his very public stances in social issues such as slavery. The Unitarian Universalists now refer to him as
While some thought his ministry a "one man show," it continued after his death, until 1889.
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