GORDON, GEORGE ANGIER
(2 January 1853, Oyne, Scotland-25 October 1929, Brookline, MA). Education: B.D., Bangor Seminary, 1877; B.A., Harvard College, 1881. Career: Minister, Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, CT, 1881-84; minister, Old South Congregational Church, Boston, 1884-1929.
George Angier Gordon once described himself as "the only Trinitarian left in New England." This comment indicates how the erosion of traditional Congregational ideas continued through the nineteenth century. It also suggests Gordon's sense of humor. He was more of a theological moderate than a conservative, and on certain points he was so progressive that he was suspected of heresy.
Gordon took an unusual path to enter one of the leading pulpits of Congregationalism-Old South Church in Boston. He was born on a farm in Aberdeenshire,
Scotland, and migrated to the United States when he was eighteen. He worked for three years as a manual laborer and might have remained a laborer all of his life without the support of his minister, Luther Angier, whose name he added to his own in appreciation. With Angier's help, Gordon gained admission to Harvard College; he graduated with honors in 1881.
After three years as a clergyman in Connecticut Gordon was called to the pulpit of Old South Church. Following a Puritan tradition of marital links among the clergy, he chose as bride Susan Huntington Manning, daughter of his predecessor at Old South.
In important respects Gordon was a theological liberal. He rejected the doctrines of arbitrary election, limited atonement, and universal depravity. He credited man with free moral agency in accepting or rejecting atonement. And he emphasized Christ's moral example more than his sacrificial death. These views worried his parishioners, but he won them over with his good humor and theological moderation.
He soon proved to be less of a radical than some feared. Like other liberals he narrowed the distance between God and man, stressing the humanity of Christ, and the spiritual attributes of man. But he also asserted that Christ was uniquely divine, the preexistent son of God. In The Christ of To-day (1895), his first and most important work, he upheld the doctrine of the Trinity.
George Gordon's ministry was characterized by an emphasis on he fatherliness of God, individual freedom, and ethical progress optimistic positions that suited well his own affable humor and the optimistic temper of America at the dawn of the modern age.
Bibliography
A: The Christ of To-Day (Boston, 1895); Immortality and the New Theodicy (Boston, 1897); The New Epoch for Faith (Boston, 1901); Ultimate Conceptions of Faith (Boston, 1903); Through Man to God (Boston, 1906); Religion and Miracle (Boston, 1909); Humanism in New England Theology (Boston, 1920); My Education and Religion: An Autobiography (Boston, 1925).
B: DAB 7, 419-21; NCAB 22, 307-8; NIT 26 October 1929, 17; SH 5, 24.
George Angier Gordon once described himself as "the only Trinitarian left in New England." This comment indicates how the erosion of traditional Congregational ideas continued through the nineteenth century. It also suggests Gordon's sense of humor. He was more of a theological moderate than a conservative, and on certain points he was so progressive that he was suspected of heresy.
Gordon took an unusual path to enter one of the leading pulpits of Congregationalism-Old South Church in Boston. He was born on a farm in Aberdeenshire,
Scotland, and migrated to the United States when he was eighteen. He worked for three years as a manual laborer and might have remained a laborer all of his life without the support of his minister, Luther Angier, whose name he added to his own in appreciation. With Angier's help, Gordon gained admission to Harvard College; he graduated with honors in 1881.
After three years as a clergyman in Connecticut Gordon was called to the pulpit of Old South Church. Following a Puritan tradition of marital links among the clergy, he chose as bride Susan Huntington Manning, daughter of his predecessor at Old South.
In important respects Gordon was a theological liberal. He rejected the doctrines of arbitrary election, limited atonement, and universal depravity. He credited man with free moral agency in accepting or rejecting atonement. And he emphasized Christ's moral example more than his sacrificial death. These views worried his parishioners, but he won them over with his good humor and theological moderation.
He soon proved to be less of a radical than some feared. Like other liberals he narrowed the distance between God and man, stressing the humanity of Christ, and the spiritual attributes of man. But he also asserted that Christ was uniquely divine, the preexistent son of God. In The Christ of To-day (1895), his first and most important work, he upheld the doctrine of the Trinity.
George Gordon's ministry was characterized by an emphasis on he fatherliness of God, individual freedom, and ethical progress optimistic positions that suited well his own affable humor and the optimistic temper of America at the dawn of the modern age.
Bibliography
A: The Christ of To-Day (Boston, 1895); Immortality and the New Theodicy (Boston, 1897); The New Epoch for Faith (Boston, 1901); Ultimate Conceptions of Faith (Boston, 1903); Through Man to God (Boston, 1906); Religion and Miracle (Boston, 1909); Humanism in New England Theology (Boston, 1920); My Education and Religion: An Autobiography (Boston, 1925).
B: DAB 7, 419-21; NCAB 22, 307-8; NIT 26 October 1929, 17; SH 5, 24.
