More Unitarians
Alcott, Amos Bronson Burleigh, Celia C. Channing, William Henry Cordner, John Dall, Caroline Wells Healey Furness, William Henry Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Hosmer, Frederick Lucian Johnson, Samuel Judd, Sylvester Latimer, Lewis Howard Lowell, James Russell Ripley, George Savage, Minot Judson Sears, Edmund Hamilton Sullivan, William Laurence Taft, William Howard Walker, James • Weiss, John Wendte, Charles William Wooley, Celia ParkerJohn Weiss
(1818-1879)
 John Weiss |
Born in Boston on June 28, 1818, John Weiss attended the Chauncy Hill School, and later the Framingham Academy. He graduated from Harvard College in 1837, and taught school for a few years in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts before attending Harvard Divinity School. Later on in his life he commented on the quality of learning he perceived that went on there, when he said, “Time was that when the brains was out a man would die, but now they make a Unitarian minister of him.” (Eliot, ed. Heralds, III, p. 378) During his ministerial training he spent several
months at Heidelberg University, which furthered his expertise in German philosophy. His sharp intellect was also nurtured by a Jewish background. He was ordained in Watertown, Massachusetts on October 25, 1843, where he was settled twice, 1843--47 and then 1862-69. During his first ministry in Watertown he was an outspoken advocate of anti-slavery opinions, and even resigned once from his pastorate over these views, only to be convinced to return by his parishioners. In 1847 he was called to the church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he served for 11 years. When he returned to Watertown, he was active on the school committee, and was one of the founders of the public library, being the first chairman of its founding
board of trustees.
Weiss was one of the first religious thinkers whose views were purely natural and scientific, but he had a difficult time making his views accessible to any but the most erudite, and thus never achieved great success on the lecture circuit. He was one of a group of radical theists who rejected Christian traditions, calling himself a theistic naturalist. This led him to membership in a conversation group called The Radical Club, and eventually to being one of the founders of the Free Religious Association (FRA) in 1867. Despite his unorthodox views, Weiss retained his Unitarian affiliation, and served as a director for the American Unitarian Association (AUA) when others were calling for complete withdrawal from the movement. Despite his loyalty, Weiss felt there was a tendency in Unitarianism to be altogether too slow in adopting more liberal views. His biographer Minot Savage agreed with Weiss that the old radicals had been sacrificed so that their doctrines could be safely preached, “The process of killing them off had opened the eyes and broadened the minds of the community, and so I was enjoying a freedom which their martyrdom had purchased.” (M. J. Savage in Eliot, Heralds, III, p. 378-79) During his life he published many volumes of theology and history, including a biography of Theodore Parker. Remembered for his nervous energy and wit, his classmate Octavius Brooks Frothingham said of Weiss, “This man was a flame of fire. He was genius, unalloyed by terrestrial consideration; a spirit-lamp, always burning.”
