Reading from Hosea Ballou: The Challenge to Orthodoxy: A Biography (p. 70)
by Ernest Cassara (Cambridge Cornerstone Press, 1961-2003)

         Hosea Ballou, born in 1871 in Richmond, New Hampshire, is regarded as the father of Universalism. While many men were clever and sophisticated theologians, Hosea was a poorly educated but brilliant original thinker of his day. Here is a paragraph from his most famous document, “A Treatise on Atonement.” He said and wrote,

         “There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away with sin, but love; and we have reason to be eternally thankful that love is stronger than death, that many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it; that it hath power to remove the moral maladies of mankind….O Love, thou great Physician of souls, what a work has thou undertaken! All souls are thy patients; prosperous be thy labors…”

         Through his conception of the power of love, Ballou was able to break away from an exclusive Christian outlook. In his awareness, that the power of love is not exclusively Christian, lay the seeds of modern Universalism.

Sermon

         “Universalists think that God is too good to send them to hell. Unitarians think that they are too good for God to send them to hell.” This is a classical UU joke that has its roots in the history of both denominations.

         The history of Christianity has at its core the question not so much “How do we live?” but “What do we do about the problem of punishment after we die?” Many modern day Unitarian Universalists say that they do not believe in existence after death. Those who say they do believe in an afterlife say they do not believe in heaven or hell. And you can believe what you like for we are not going to prove it one way or the other!

         Orthodox religion still believes in hell. The Universalist religion was established in response to the Calvinist belief that all humankind, except the chosen few (called the Elect) are condemned to punishment for all eternity. One man, a Universalist called Hosea Ballou, spent his entire life trying to persuade as many people as possible that they would not go to hell, that everyone would be saved. By the end of his life, the Universalists referred to him as “Father Ballou” and he is known as the Father of Universalism.

         Let me briefly tell you the story of Hosea Ballou’s life. “Nestled among the hills of the little town of Richmond, New Hampshire, near the Massachusetts border, is the beautiful valley still known to some as Ballou’s Dell….Hosea Ballou was born on April 30, 1771, the last of eleven children.” (pp 4-6, Cassara) The Ballous tried to eak a living out of the poor soil and Father Maturin Ballou was a Baptist minister. There was no school and Hosea learned to read from his father.

         The Ballou children were deeply indoctrinated in the hell-fire and brimstone beliefs of the day. Even as a boy, Hosea questioned his father regarding God’s nature. He asked whether a God who was good would actually make creatures for the purpose of punishment forever and wouldn’t this make God evil? Also, why would a good God be partial only to some and not others? His father could not give an answer.

         Hosea became a preacher like his father and almost immediately began preaching a gospel of universal salvation. This was the great heresy of the day when most protestant groups preached that humankind was hopelessly depraved. Now that the nation was freed from British domination, new ideas about hope and possibility were more acceptable.

         The idea of universalism—that all men will be saved, and not only the elect—was not new in the history of Christianity. (p. 9, Cassara) It would appear briefly from time to time but was always submerged as heresy. The orthodox were convinced that the devil himself was behind the growth of universalist ideas. As Hosea began preaching in his area, his friends and neighbors became concerned for his soul. But this was the age when blind belief was not enough. Belief had to be supported by reason. A God partial to some and not others was not reasonable. A God who would harm his creatures in punishment forever was not reasonable. And later Hosea found that the doctrine of the trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit making up a triune God) was also not reasonable and not supported in scripture. Hosea searched the Bible for proof of universal salvation and he preached it enthusiastically in his rough way.

         Ballou became the pastor of three churches in Vermont and he became a Mason, attracted by its profession of brotherly love. He was also one of the many famous “circuit riders”, which means that he rode far and wide preaching the gospel of universalism. As more churches became universalist in their theology, there was a need for a new hymnbook that expressed the new idea. When denominations change, their hymnbooks become outdated. I wonder whether you have looked closely at our hymnbook—the words of its hymns and the readings in the back. If you want to know what a church believes, look through its hymnbook carefully! Hosea helped to create a new hymnbook for the growing number of Universalist churches. But this was ahead of its time and would take another decade to be accepted.

         Hosea accepted a call to the church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. While Hosea stuck to preaching theology from the pulpit, he was loved and admired. On the one occasion when he, in an uncharacteristic display of patriotism, preached to support the 1812 war and President Madison’s call for a day of prayer, he incurred the wrath of wealthy Federalists in his congregation who had lost a lot of money as a result of the war. Hosea eventually accepted a call to the Second Universalist Society on School Street in Boston and there he remained for 35 years, preaching to packed houses, sometimes three times on a Sunday and many of Boston’s clergy came to hear him. Some were converted to universalism. Wherever Hosea had settled he sought to engage local ministers in theological dialog. He loved the controversy and was very good at debate, whether written or spoken. Other ministers feared for his soul.

         Hosea cut a dashing and imposing figure in the pulpit and he had a sense of the dramatic about him. He never used notes when he preached and yet he was always well prepared, even though his sermons were an hour to 1-1/2 hours long. I only dream of not using notes myself! Although, I might, perhaps, adopt a few of his habits. He sat behind the pulpit a half hour before the sermon deep in thought and some described him as miserable. (Your Minster waxed dramatic and indulged in a little pantomime at this point.)

         “But there was a dramatic change when Ballou stood up to deliver his sermon. His face was suddenly alive with happiness. With his spectacles on, he would read through his [Bible] text [of the day] and then read it a second time for emphasis. Next he would remove his glasses and carefully ease them into their case. He would take out his handkerchief, fold it and lay it across the open Bible in front of him. This ritual held the attention of the congregation, which waited with increasing eagerness for his first words. Then, very slowly and deliberately, in a low voice, he would introduce his subject….His thoughts and words became sharper and hit his hearers with driving force. His voice rose; his right arm extended; his face shone; and as he reached the height of his discourse, ‘his words came in an impetuous flow’. There was no escaping the power of his words: ‘You felt as if his hand were on your shoulder, and he were speaking directly to you.’”

         So in 1820, what did people listen to so raptly that thousands came to hear this gentle soul? Why, they came to hear of the universal love of a loving God, a God who was love itself. Oh, it was a new and novel and welcome reality, a new reality for a new country filled with hope. Let us ask ourselves a series of questions so that we know what most people believed then, what Hosea Ballou’s new hope was for them, and what you believe now.

         First, what happens to us when we die? Hosea would say that you will leave behind your body—the thing that held you back from righteousness for that was your carnal mind, or earthly mind that was burdened with passions. Once free of the body, you became aware of your likeness to God and realized all of the sin you had committed, were sorry and were then enfolded in love, every single person, Christian or not. This was universal salvation. It was later described as ultra universalism.

         While Hosea was alive to persuade them to it, many believed it. But after he died, the universalists, including most of their clergy believed in some kind of purifying correction period. So what do you believe? If someone asks you Are You Saved? I hope you, like me, will say, “Oh, Yes.” By the mid-nineteenth century, Unitarians were saying “Salvation by character!” Ultra-Universalists would say, “Salvation irrespective of character”!

         The second question might be, are people sinners? Hosea would say that of course we are but by following the teachings of Jesus and keeping the mind on God, we lead a better life and are happy. Whereas those who do not live a religious life are miserable because they sin and sin makes them miserable. What do you think? Are sinners or wrong-doers truly miserable? Or isn’t it that simple?

         The third question would be: What is Jesus’ relationship to God and to you? Ballou’s view of Jesus is that he was created by God and sent to teach those who would listen. He cites Jesus’ prayers to “The Father” as evidence that he is not himself God and that scripture does not support that Jesus is God. Ballou believed that though Jesus was human, he was nevertheless chosen or anointed by God to do his earthly work and he does call him the Mediator for he believed he was created before the world. (p.68, Cassara) (For Unitarians, this would be the Arian view in 325 CE at the Council of Nicea when the Christian creed was established.) Who is Jesus for you? You can see that when this church was built, Jesus was more than just a man for Unitarians at the turn of the century. [Dear Reader, our sanctuary has two magnificent stained glass windows. The west window is a huge and glorious nativity scene. The east one, equally huge, represents a larger than life Jesus delivering his Sermon on the Mount.]

         Hosea Ballou always believed that the Bible was the actual Word of God but that we needed to struggle with it to discover its real, and sometimes hidden, truths.

         By 1846, Ballou’s Boston congregation was growing restless for a new voice with a new perspective in the pulpit and it called a reform-minded rising star, Rev. Edwin Chapin, who began preaching sermons on the topics of the day with only references to the Bible, like I do! Hosea Ballou did not like it at all and he spent the rest of his days traveling all over New England preaching his understanding of universalism until he was 81 years of age.

         On June 7, 1852, Hosea Ballou died after a short illness. Hundreds of clergy from many denominations and parishioners attended his funeral. Although he was at first buried in the graveyard on Boston Common. He was later buried with his wife, Ruth, in the “beautiful Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. The soaring monument, with the figure of Hosea in preaching posture was the tribute of grateful Universalists to their “Father Ballou.” His life was a great gift to humankind. The following has inspired and informed this sermon:

References

This sermon was primarily inspired by the following:

Cassara, Ernest. Hosea Ballou: The challenge to Orthodoxy, A Biography, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Cornerstone Press, 2003, 1982, 1961.