American Gandhi. Leilah Danielson

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СКАЧАТЬ their ‘‘quest for religious perfectionism.’’⁵¹ The Social Gospel similarly shaped the evolving political identities of the next generation of Protestant reformers, such as Norman Thomas and his brother Evan, Kirby Page, Paul Kellogg, Mary Van Kleeck, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others. As Muste and other Calvinists groped toward a new, more authentic Christian faith, they drew upon powerful cultural narratives popularized by figures like William James and the Quaker mystic Rufus Jones, who celebrated spiritual inwardness and ecstatic experience as offering a path out of the dislocating and alienating effects of modernity. The mystical tradition that they helped invent was a cosmopolitan one in which the solitude of mystical experience gave way to a sense of oneness with all peoples, to ideals of ‘‘universal brotherhood, and sympathetic appreciation of all religions.’’⁵² It was also a reformist one; James and Jones believed that mysticism unleashed energy for the hard work of social transformation. For James, for example, the measure of religious experience was ‘‘its fruits, its production of saintliness and active habits.’’ It was a ‘‘way to unleash energy, to find the hot place of human initiative and endeavor, and to encourage the heroic, the strenuous, the vital, and the socially transformative.’’⁵³

      Still, there were important differences between these two generations of Protestant reformers. The latter, coming of age during the era of modernist revolt, would prove itself more laborite and more libertarian than the former, which had a deep affinity for top-down, Fabian-style reform. Muste’s generation was also more cosmopolitan, decidedly rejecting notions of Anglo-Saxon cultural superiority and embracing cross-ethnic exchange and experiences (Muste was, of course, an immigrant himself). They were, in other words, Protestant modernists; the emphasis is on the adjective, for they largely remained conventional in matters related to morality, sexuality, and gender in contrast to their more secular comrades like Floyd Dell, Margaret Sanger, Edmund Wilson, Max Eastman, and Louise Bryant. In this vein, most Christian modernists supported Prohibition; Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes bragged that he would ‘‘never under any circumstances allow a drop of alcohol to pass my lips.’’⁵⁴ Muste was somewhat unusual in his opposition to Prohibition and his refusal to moralize on the evils of alcohol, as well as in his enjoyment of popular culture. But he shared the moral uprightness of his fellow Protestants, noting later in life that ‘‘he had never been drunk.’’⁵⁵

      How Muste related to his wife during this period of spiritual crisis offers another example of the cultural conservatism of Protestant modernists. Though Anne was aware of Muste’s estrangement from Reformed doctrine, he did not engage in philosophical or intellectual discussions with her. More to the point, he apparently decided to break with the church without consulting her, setting a pattern that would persist throughout their lives together. Indeed, even as Muste developed close working relationships with powerful women and often worked with them on terms of mutual respect and equality, within his personal life, there was a strict sexual division of labor, with his wife clearly subordinate to him. In this instance, Anne does not appear to have been much disturbed; according to Muste, she was not a particularly ‘‘rigid’’ sort of person, and her own horizons had been broadened by the move to New York. It was several years later, in 1917, when Muste broke with the ministry altogether over his pacifism, that clear differences emerged. Yet there was no question but that Anne would support her husband, even as his choices made her deeply anxious and perhaps even ill.⁵⁶

      Gender expectations alone do not explain Anne’s support for her husband during this period. Like Muste, she was the product of a deeply religious environment in which her husband’s apparent communion with God was culturally acceptable and, indeed, a cause for rejoicing. There is no reason to doubt Muste’s recollection that both of them shared ‘‘a deep sense of. . . the ultimate rightness of things’’ when he had another mystical event soon after leaving Fort Washington. While walking along the corridor of a hotel, he suddenly experienced ‘‘a great light flooding in upon the world making things stand forth ‘in sunny outline brave and clear’ and of God being truly present and all-sufficient.’’ It was in this spirit of ‘‘having arrived’’ that the Mustes moved to Newtonville, one of five villages that made up the city of Newton, Massachusetts, to assume the pastorate of the Central Congregational Church.⁵⁷

      THE Congregational Church was an ideal theological home for Muste following his break with the Reformed Church. Congregationalism shared the Puritan and Calvinist heritage of the Reformed Church, yet had a more liberal style of church organization in which local churches were autonomous in matters pertaining to faith, worship, and congregational life. It had also decisively broken with Calvinism, with Congregationalists playing a leading role in the development of the ‘‘New Theology,’’ a more optimistic, ethical creed that posited Christ as a moral exemplar.⁵⁸ Founded in 1868, Central Congregational Church in Newtonville reflected this history of liberalism; as early as 1877, the church did not require that members provide an unqualified assent to the Apostles’ Creed. It was also younger and less wealthy than some of the older, more established Congregational churches in New England; it was not one of the ‘‘top churches,’’ as Fort Washington Collegiate Church had been. Still, as with Fort Washington, Muste’s parishioners were largely progressively oriented professionals, with faculty from local preparatory schools and universities, editors, and people active in philanthropy.⁵⁹

      Muste’s new pastorate placed him at the center of the Anglo-American tradition of nonconformity. Nearby Concord was the place where Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes to support the U.S.-Mexican War, and Muste’s parishioners and larger community felt a deep sense of identification and connection with the tradition of nonresistance and abolitionism that had played such a prominent role in the region. Soon after Muste arrived, he was accepted into a discussion club run by leading Congregational and Unitarian preachers and theologians of the area—and indeed of the United States. George A. Gordon of the Old South Church, who had been a central figure in the Congregational revolt against Calvinism, was a member of this group, as was the Reverend James Brown of King’s Chapel Church; the Reverend Ambrose Vernon of the Harvard Church in Brookline; the Reverend J. Edgar Parke, future president of Wheaton College; Willard Sperry, dean of Harvard Theological Seminary; and Bliss Perry, a specialist in the Transcendentalists, who lectured at Harvard and served as editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Perry was especially important in bringing Muste ‘‘closer to, deeper into Emerson, Thoreau, [and] Channing.’’⁶⁰ As a result of these discussions, ‘‘spiritually, as well as physically, I felt myself seeing the places that Thoreau and Emerson had looked upon, breathing the air they had breathed.’’⁶¹ The link between nonconformity and Americanism was complete: ‘‘the mere sight of Boston Common, the State House, Concord and Lexington’’ came to mean ‘‘a great deal’’ to Muste.⁶²

      With the spiritualist culture of New England affirming his mystical tendencies, his sense of connection to God and his sureness of God’s love deepened. As he wrote a recently widowed parishioner, ‘‘I believe with all my being that our lives are in the hands of a God who loves each of us much more than we ever love our dearest ones.’’⁶³ In turn, his parishioners adored him, viewing him as ‘‘a man of a rarely sweet and sincere nature, a preacher of deep spiritual power,’’ and increasing their benevolent contributions more than four times from 1915 to 1917.⁶⁴ It was in this context, early in January 1916, that Muste’s first child, Anne Dorothy (called ‘‘Nancy’’), was born. ‘‘She was, naturally, a lovely baby. At heaven’s gate the lark sang; the snail was on the thorn, the bird on the wing, God in his heaven, and all was right in the world,’’ Muste recalled.⁶⁵

      Muste was indeed ‘‘a liberated man’’ in Newtonville.⁶⁶ Feeling ‘‘freer in expression’’ than he had in the Reformed Church, his sermons matured and sounded themes that would be at the center of his political vision throughout his activist career.⁶⁷ A 1915 sermon, ‘‘Of What Shall We Be Afraid?’’ began, typically enough, with Jesus Christ and specifically his admonition in Matthew 10:28: ‘‘Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Fear him rather who is able to destroy both soul and СКАЧАТЬ