William Ellery Channing

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) was an American Unitarian minister and writer whose sermons and essays shaped liberal Christianity and influenced Transcendentalism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: An American essayist, poet, and former Unitarian minister central to Transcendentalism. Emerson’s 1838 Divinity School Address extended debates about religious authority that Channing had helped open.
Unitarianism: A Christian theological tradition that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Channing became the most influential American spokesman for this developing religious tradition.
Baltimore Sermon: William Ellery Channing’s 1819 sermon defending Unitarian Christianity and religious freedom. Its publication made Channing’s theological position a public statement of American Unitarianism.
Transcendentalism: A nineteenth-century American intellectual movement emphasizing intuition, individual conscience, and spiritual insight. Channing’s confidence in moral intuition and human development helped prepare its religious ground.
Theodore Parker: An American Unitarian minister and abolitionist who became a leading Transcendentalist theologian. Parker carried liberal theology toward more radical biblical criticism and antislavery activism.
Trinity: The Christian doctrine that God is one being in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Channing rejected the orthodox formulation that Unitarians understood as incompatible with divine unity.
Unitarian Christianity: A Christian tradition emphasizing God’s unity and often understanding Jesus as distinct from God. Channing’s 1819 sermon gave this American movement one of its defining arguments.
American Unitarian Association: A national organization founded in 1825 to coordinate and support American Unitarian congregations. Channing’s prominence helped give the emerging association a widely recognized theological voice.
Andrews Norton: An American biblical scholar and Unitarian theologian who defended traditional Christian doctrine against Transcendentalism. Norton’s rationalist orthodoxy opposed the more expansive religious independence associated with Channing’s legacy.
Arianism: An early Christian teaching that the Son is subordinate to, and not co-eternal with, the Father. Channing’s account of Christ’s subordinate divinity resembled positions historically associated with Arianism.

Linked from 2 pages

Dorothea DixRelated: Dix worked as a governess for Channing’s family, and his intellectual circle influenced her early life.