from the Minister & President
Was John Quincy Adams Congregationalist or Unitarian?
 By
Nancy S. Taylor
United Church News,
Massachusetts Edition, November 2003
Has Freedom Schooner Amistad provoked some dissension, when
we were trying to promote understanding and tolerance? The
dissension revolves around the question of whether John Quincy
Adams (JQA) was a Congregationalist or a Unitarian. I may
have unintentionally ignited a second "Controversy"
by having claimed in an interview with The Boston Globe ("Amistad's
story a legacy
for a faith"
10/18/03) that JQA was a Congregationalist. The Globe received
complaints from Unitarians who claim JQA as their own. While
I don't wish to fight over the old man's bones (which, admittedly,
are securely ensconced in a Unitarian graveyard), he was surely
big enough for both of us.
John Stanwich, Deputy Superintendent of the Adams National
Historic Park, assures me that I am, "on very safe ground
and no one better to support you than Samuel Bemis[1] (highly
regarded biographer of JQA) who documented everything so well."
Stanwich went on to cite references, letters, and diary entries
in which JQA never disavowed the Trinity or the divinity of
Jesus, although he certainly pondered these matters with an
inquiring mind and a searching soul until the day of his death.
Church historian, John von Rohr, further supports me in my
claim by this paragraph:
In 1843 the American and Foreign Sabbath Union was organized
to bring together an interdenominational movement to preserve
'Sabbath-keeping'. Justin Edwards, a Boston Congregational
pastor, who had been a leader of the temperance campaign,
was chosen to be its executive. The next year the National
Sabbath Convention was held, presided over by Congregationalist,
John Quincy Adams.[2]
Additionally, I could even quote directly from the Website
of the Unitarian Universalist Association to support my claim:
"In 1815, at the height of the (Unitarian) Controversy,
Adams concluded that the Calvinist Samuel Adams had bested
William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian's leader, in a debate
on the doctrine of the Trinity. Then, a year later, when in
an exchange of letters his father good-naturedly drew him
into a theological debate, the junior Adams revealed that,
while not approving their intolerance, he tended to follow
the doctrines of the Trinitarians and Calvinists; moreover,
that he wanted no part of Unitarianism."[3]
But to leave it there would be to engage in irresponsible
proof-texting, for the article goes on to present a complicated,
if earnest, religious mind in a constant state of evolution,
questioning, probing, and re-evaluation of the core religious
claims of the Bible and Christianity.
Hal Worthley, Executive Director of the Congregational Library,
reminds us that to think of the Congregationalists and Unitarians
of the mid-to-late 19th century "as polar opposites is
to miss the point. There was a spectrum of belief." Citing
an essay by Boardman W. Katham,[4] Worthley argues that JQA
can be claimed by both Congregationalists and Unitarians.
If we are earnestly fishing for the truth, however, it is
probably best to admit that JQA positioned himself as an "Independent
Congregationalist" (his phrase) and really never gave
himself, hook, line, and sinker to either tradition. Indeed,
Doug Showalter, pastor of our church in Falmouth, wisely comments
that JQA was a politician - a diplomat - and, therefore, perhaps
reluctant to commit too ardently to either one or the other
of these impassioned movements.
Edmund H. Robinson, minister of the UU Church in Wakefield,
was among those who wrote to The Globe complaining about my
assertion. Nevertheless, he ended his letter with these words:
"On the other hand, the UUA and UCC are allied on so
many good works in the present time… I applaud the efforts
of the Massachusetts UCC in bringing the Amistad replica to
Boston. May it remind us all to redouble our efforts to eliminate
the legacies of slavery from the American soul and body."[5]
So let us hope that we can use this as a further opportunity
for dialogue, inquiry and learning, rather than dissension.
May the legacy of JQA - including his commitment to the virtuous
life, belief in church attendance, pursuit of justice, moral
courage, and earnest religious inquiry - be common ground
on which the UUA and UCC can stand together to fight the good
fight. Let us fight this fight, not over an old man's bones,
but in honor of his religious and moral character and for
the sake of the common good. That is what JQA would have wished,
and it is this spirit of understanding and cooperation that
Freedom Schooner Amistad's mission seeks to establish, even
when the waters are ruffled and choppy.
[1] John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956).
by Samuel Flagg Bemis
[2] The Shaping of Congregationalism, 1620-1957(p. 312), by
John von Rohr
[3] UUA Website: http//www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/johnquincyadams.html
[4] The essay by Boardman W. Katham is printed in Prism: A
Theological Journal of the United Church of Christ, vol. 16,
#1, Spring 2001
[5] quoted from a letter to Rich Barlow, Boston Globe religion
editor, from Edmund H. Robinson, UU Church of Wakefield, October
19, 2003
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