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Lyman Beecher and Connecticut Orthodoxy's Campaign against the Unitarians, 1819–1826
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
In 1819 the orthodox Congregationalists of Connecticut suddenly turned from almost complete absorption in the internal affairs of their own little state of “sober habits,” and launched a determined offensive against the Unitarians of Boston and vicinity. This campaign they carried on with vigor through the following seven years. Then they dropped it almost as suddenly as they had taken it up, and became involved in dissension within their own ranks, climaxed by the controversy between Nathaniel W. Taylor of Yale and Bennet Tyler of East Windsor and Hartford. This study sketches the background and some of the events of the campaign against the Unitarians in an attempt to indicate why the Connecticut group were not involved before 1819, why they conducted the campaign as they did, and why they suddenly lost interest in 1826. Since Lyman Beecher, minister at Litchfield, Connecticut, was the outstanding leader of the orthodox during this period, the answers to these questions are to be found largely in a study of his work.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1940
References
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