A Sermon by the Reverend Ellen Rowse Spero
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church,
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
October 2, 2005
Ancient Reading: Paul’s Letter to Titus, 2:3
Modern Reading: Excerpt from American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante
Copyright 2005, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
I am the second woman to serve as minister to this congregation, founded by Puritan settlers 350 years ago. That I can serve as a minister, in what has been for so long a male-only vocation, without causing an uproar because of my gender, is a gift handed down to me by those women through the generations who refused to deny their own vocation and their own voice despite very real and severe consequences. Anne Hutchinson was one such woman, in a Puritan congregation that began like our own. In this anniversary year, she seems a worthy life to learn and preach about. She was more influential than I thought. As LaPlante noted, Anne’s story reveals in a microcosm the religious, moral, and political forces that influenced the development of our nation. Hutchinson’s defiance of the male Puritan theocracy would be felt generations later, especially in our Unitarian tradition. As LaPlante writes, "Hutchinson’s desire to look within for guidance is characteristic of the distinctively American faith in the power of the individual conscience. In this confidence in the power of her own views, she presaged not only the early Quakers but also the nineteenth century Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the ’oppositional quality’ in such classic literature of the American Renaissance as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe" (pp. 196-97). The questions she threw out to the clerical and political leaders of her time fueled the same debate that split the church into the Congregational and Unitarian denominations in the early 1800’s. It is no accident that the church which excommunicated Anne as a heretic in 1638, First Church of Boston, is now a Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Anne Marbury Hutchinson was an unusual woman for her time, well-educated by her clergyman father, who taught her to read with the Bible and his own tract condemning certain practices in the Church of England. She was a skilled nurse and midwife. She was bright, fiery, and charismatic, a study in opposites to her marriage partner of thirty years, Will Hutchinson, a textile merchant, who was quiet and reserved. Anne gave birth to fifteen children, twelve of whom survived. Through all Anne would endure, Will stood by his wife. He was, in his own quiet way, a remarkable partner for the woman he loved.
Anne and Will were staunch Puritans. According to LaPlante, "English Puritanism, which began in the late 1550’s, was a Reformed sect aimed at further ridding the English church of Catholic tendencies and practices. The name Puritan comes from the sect’s stated aim of purifying the church--creating a ’true’ church, like the early church in the years following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ…" (p. 20). For the Puritans, the relationship with God, discerned through study of the Bible, was the center of their faith. They believed in Calvin’s doctrine of the elect: that humanity was so depraved that there was nothing we could do to work for our own salvation. God, in God’s grace, predetermined a few, the elect, to be saved. Thus, for the Puritans, the sacraments of the Catholic and the even the Anglican church were heresy because they assumed that by saying certain words or participating in certain rituals, priests, not God, could assure the salvation of believers. They called this heresy the covenant of works.
The Puritans saw themselves as the new Israelites, the new chosen people with whom God wished to be in covenant. It was in this spirit that the first groups of Puritans came to Boston to establish their New Jerusalem in what they saw as their Promised Land. Here, as God’s elect, they believed that "… they had to prove their worthiness by displaying faith and performing good works, such as good deeds and socially appropriate behavior… a constant striving to cleanse one’s soul and lead a righteous life, visible and apparent to others. They called this striving ’sanctification’--literally being a saint…’Sanctification is evidence of justification,’ the orthodox ministers told their congregations. In other words, if you followed the rules and laws of the church and state, then you can have assurance that you are of the elect and thus saved. This causal link between sanctification (doing good works) and justification (being saved) was not consistent with the writings of Luther and Calvin--they would have considered it heretical in light of their doctrine that people can do nothing to earn their own salvation--but it was for the leadership of Massachusetts an appealing theological conceit. To create their new society, the founders were naturally drawn to a theology that enforced obedience" (pp.51-52). While the Puritans’ church and state governance did have earmarks of democracy, it was a theocracy. Only those who were male and members of the church could vote in the political or religious sphere. Laws regarding social, familial, and religious behavior were grounded in strict interpretations of the Bible. Maintaining order was paramount to the leadership in Massachusetts, especially the governor John Winthrop. He knew their royal charter could be revoked should any civil unrest draw attention of King Charles and lose them the home they had struggled so hard to establish.
Anne and Will Hutchinson came to Boston as followers the Rev. John Cotton, their minister in England who had taken an invitation to serve as the associate at First Church in Boston. Cotton took Puritanism to its furthest edge preaching about the covenant of grace. He denied the link between sanctification (doing good works) and justification (being saved), claiming that "…only God’s grace can be justification" because "…a hypocrite can go through the motions of good works while lacking true grace, which comes freely--without human effort or intervention--as a gift from the Holy Spirit" (p. 52). This was a direct challenge to what was being taught and preached in Winthrop’s Boston. Anne was attracted to this theology because she had had many experiences, especially while reading Scripture, of communion with the Holy Spirit and direct revelations from God. She felt certain that she was among the elect, not because of any thing she had done, but because God had chosen her. She found a soul friend and teacher in Rev. Cotton: "In [his] theology, women and men held the same troubled states as inferiors in the hands of a higher being. All power came from God, without respect to gender, rather from male authority figures interpreting God’s word. While John Cotton’s doctrine excluded some, it gave Anne Hutchinson a voice" (p. 87). While still in England, she began holding Bible studies and discussions of Cotton’s sermons in her home for other women. Anne’s talks became so popular that she began to draw men as well. Even Rev. Cotton attended.
The Hutchinsons came to Boston in 1634, a year after Rev. Cotton had established himself. He vouched for them in the church so that they became members soon after they settled. Anne served as a midwife and nurse, establishing a deep bond with many families in the colony. She also continued her practice of holding Bible studies and discussions on the various ministers’ sermons. As in England, only women came initially. In the Puritan view, women were to follow the strictures of Paul, obeying their husbands, staying home with the children, and remaining silent in public, especially in church. In their eyes, women had no public role, no public voice, and no public power. Thus, Anne’s sessions were considered private. In her teaching sessions, she preached about the covenant of grace and challenged the orthodox religious and political leaders in Boston who she felt preached a covenant of works. But as her popularity grew, and men began to attend these sessions, John Winthrop and Boston area clergy realized they had a problem on their hands. Her challenge that the orthodox teaching was really a covenant of works, caused questioning and dissent between parishioners and clergy. Initially, all those who had arrived in the colony were one in establishing this New Jerusalem. But by the time of Anne’s arrival, many of the new immigrants were more interested in establishing trade than a theocracy. Anne’s message of freedom of conscience and belief that did not require mediation of the clergy to discern God’s will, was as attractive to these newcomers as it was threatening to orthodox leaders.
In November of 1637, Anne was called to appear before the General Court in Cambridge. Winthrop planned this very carefully, moving the trial out of Boston, where most of Anne’s supporters were, and made sure only those who he knew were on his side were appointed to the panel. They ran into trouble early though when they realized there was nothing they could actually charge Anne with. As a woman, Anne had no public standing. Therefore, she could not be charged with causing a public disturbance or anything that seemed within the civil court’s jurisdiction. They used the opportunity to publicly chastise her and diminish her teachings but they could make no charges stick. They called up Rev. Cotton to testify. One of Rev. Cotton’s gifts was his ability to make everyone think he agreed with them. He managed to support Anne without denying the charges the Court made against her. At his behest, the trial was ended without Anne being charged. And then Anne made her fatal mistake, or took her big opportunity, depending on how you look at it, and began to lecture her judges.
After having spent two days being questioned and cross-examined, made to stand for the whole trial, despite her pregnant state, unable to call witnesses on her account, and having essentially won by out-quoting them in Scripture and showing they had no case, Anne spoke her truth. She not only expounded on her belief in a covenant of grace but shared revelations that she had received from God that told her that she would be called to stand one day in front of this court and face the tyranny of these men gathered here, who would try to destroy her for preaching God’s truth. She believed herself a prophetess, called by God as surely as Jeremiah and Daniel, whose words she quoted. She ended her long speech with this warning to the shocked assembly: "Therefore, take heed how you proceed against me, for you have no power over my body. Neither can you do me any harm, for I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah my Savior. I am at his appointment. The bounds of my habitation are cast in Heaven. No further do I esteem of any mortal man than creatures in his hand. I fear none but the great Jehovah, which hath foretold me of these things. I do verily believe that he will deliver me out of your hands. I know that for this you go about to do to me, God will ruin you and your posterity and this whole state!" (pp. 120-21).
Winthrop and his fellow judges didn’t know whether to be enraged by this woman’s unmitigated gall or to celebrate that she had just given them all the evidence they needed to show she was a heretic and an enemy of the state. In that moment, Rev. Cotton , realizing his career was at stake, quickly switched sides, condemning Anne thoroughly, even though all her ideas were supported and encouraged by him. Anne was put on three months house arrest at the home of one of the judges, 11 miles from her family.
As Anne served her sentence, she was visited constantly by members of the Puritan clergy who tried to get her to retract her religious views and her claim of direct revelation and prophecy. She would not budge. And so they decided to try in the church for heresy. In March 1638, Anne was called to appear before the congregation of the First Church of Boston. In the months between the two trials, Winthrop and his supporters disenfranchised, disarmed and even banished many of Anne’s key supporters. Witnessing the failure to condemn Anne on civil grounds, the clergy pulled out all the stops, intimating that Anne’s beliefs and revelations led directly to licentiousness, adultery, and even witchcraft. They refused to accept her attempts to reconcile herself to her church. In one telling and chilling exchange, Anne protested, "I did not hold diverse of these things I am accused of, but only did ask questions." To which the Rev. Shepherd answered, "The vilest of errors that ever were brought into the church were brought by the way of questions!" And her beloved Rev. Cotton added, "Brother, we consent with you." (p. 174).
Anne was as a woman who claimed her own moral authority. She threatened the orthodox Puritan theocracy at its core, theologically and politically. To allow her to stay was to give women a voice. It was to give laity a voice. It was even to give the Indians a voice. She decried the logic by which the Puritans made the Indians enemies of God because it was in the best interest of the settlers to make them so. She was excommunicated from the First Church of Boston and banished to the colony of Rhode Island, where she and Will would once again try to start a new life for their family.
The Hutchinsons joined the Providence Plantation, which had been founded by Roger Williams, "…a pioneer in the concepts of freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state, [who] had a theological mind not unlike Hutchinson’s…" (pp. 210). But Winthrop continued to keep tabs on her, sending representatives down to harass her and spy on her. When she had miscarriage that resulted in the delivery of a mass of lifeless tissue, Winthrop and Cotton both hailed it as a sign of her evil words giving birth to a monster. After Will died in 1642, Anne decided to remove herself from English control and moved to the Dutch colony in Pelham Bay, New York. The Dutch relations with the Siwanoy Indians of that area were very heavy-handed. In 1643, Anne and six of her children were mistaken for Dutch settlers and were killed by the Sinoway in retaliation for a deadly attack on their own tribe. In Boston, John Winthrop hailed her death as a victory: "Thus it had pleased the Lord to have compassion for his poor churches here, and to discover this great imposter, this instrument of Satan so fitted and trained for his service for interrupting the passage of [his] kingdom in this part of the world and poisoning the churches here--as no story records the like of such a woman since that mentioned in [the Book of] Revelation" (p. 244).
I confess that as I read LaPlante’s account of Anne’s life, particularly her heresy trial, my outrage grew at these men, who used their power to manipulate the fears of their parishioners to excommunicate this woman from her community of faith, to deny her voice and her call to ministry. My own call to ministry is one of the most powerful experiences of my life. To be called by the Holy to serve in ministry is integral to who I am. If I could not, some part of me would be silenced and die inside. I understand her compulsion to speak, despite the risks. That her story even survived to be told speaks to both the power of her call and the fear it provoked in the men who wanted to make an example of her.
Certainly, when Anne Hutchinson died, the Boston orthodoxy thought they had silenced her voice. But in many ways, history has proved them wrong. First of all, Anne and Will’s descendents were so prolific in New England that they held public power for generations, even up to today, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her sixth generation great grandson, and the two President Bushes, her ninth and tenth generation grandsons, respectively. In 1987, Governor Michael Dukakis formally pardoned Anne Hutchinson. And this year, the First Church of Boston, in celebration of its 375th anniversary, formally apologized for Anne’s excommunication. More importantly perhaps, the right of religious freedom is enshrined in our constitution, there is (still) a separation of church and state, and women not only have the right vote (although only since the last century), but serve at almost all levels (with some notable exceptions) in the public spheres of religion and politics alike. That said, the tensions of Anne’s day are still part of our country’s religious and political landscape. We live in a time when the relationship between church and state is growing more complicated, when asking questions is viewed by some political and religious leaders and talk show hosts to be unpatriotic, when the role and rights of women are up for debate yet again. It is easy for us to side with Anne and cast John Winthrop and his clergymen as the bad guys. But they were acting as much out of their faith and their conscience as Anne. Both sides believed they were acting in the best interests of their community. Both sides had their own interests to forward. Both sides believed they were on God’s side. Anne’s story speaks to "…the dilemma of maintaining the law in a country that simultaneously celebrates and fears the authority of the individual…" (p. 243). Do we support the individual to the detriment and even destruction of the community? Do we support the community to detriment and even the destruction of the individual? How do we know where to draw the boundary?
The key is to this lies in discerning whether we are motivated by the power of fear or the spirit of love. And sometimes, what is so clear in hindsight, is hard to discern in the moment, because we human beings are not so simple creatures as to be motivated only by one or the other. We can only keep trying. After all, it only took 375 years to ask Anne for her forgiveness.
Source: Eve LaPlante. American Jezebel. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004.