William Reed Huntington lived from 1838 to 1909. His father was a doctor in Lowell, Massachusetts, the town in which Huntington was born. In 1862, he became a priest after attending Harvard University. He was a significant contributor to the House of Deputies, and he attended thirteen of the General Conventions of the Church. He fervently demanded a revision to the Book of Common Prayer, and he wrote several of the prayers in this book. William Reed Huntington undoubtedly had a tremendous influence upon the activities of the Episcopalian Church.
In Huntington’s work, Tract No. XCI: The Articles of Religion from an American Point of View, he sought to analyze the 1841 work entitled Tract XC. He referred to this work as a “meteorite . . . which had ample time to cool.” He believed that Tract XC had a tremendous impact on the beliefs of the citizens of evangelical England. In fact, he felt that Tract XC had exerted such a strong force that it was not possible to give the work a fair evaluation. Huntington stated that the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England were a complete failure. He concluded that the Articles of Religion had effectively bound the consciences of important church leaders since 1801. He expressed concern about the youth’s lack of interest in pursuing lives as ministers.
In this work, Huntington referred to Cardinal Newman, who had willingly explained his reasons for creating a Tract based upon the Articles of Religion. Cardinal Newman was the Public Tutor of his college, and he had given significant thought to the Articles of Religion. Newman insisted that the Articles of Religion were not contradictory to the Catholic views and teachings. However, many significant members of the clergy believed that the writer of the Articles of Religion had intended them as an attack upon Rome.
Official sixteenth-century documents explained the purpose of the Articles of Religion. The official purpose was to "[avoid] the diversities of opinions and [establish] consent touching true religion.” However, Huntington asserted that the Articles had accomplished neither of these goals. He believed that the Articles had attempted an impossible task, to establish a single standard of religious conviction for all people.
In Tract No. XCI, Huntington categorized the Articles of Religion into seven groups. He used the term “embryology” to describe the study of sources or beginnings. Anthropology was the group that contained two of the Articles dealing with human free will and sins. The sociological group contained Articles dealing with communism and the civil magistrates’ power. This category also discussed the concept of making oaths in courts of law. William Reed Huntington referred to Trinitarian religion, stating that it was similar to the Nicene Creed teachings. Concerning anthropology, Huntington stated that the main point is that all humans are sinners.
In 1870, William Reed Huntington wrote The Church-Idea, in which he described the fundamental aspects of the unity of the Christian religion. The first chapter of this book was entitled, “The Gospel of the Kingdom.” He described the general dissatisfaction that many Christians were feeling at the time. He stated that Christianity had reached a point at which many Christians needed to reevaluate their central beliefs. He explained the fundamental concept of the Church-Idea, that Jesus Christ came to the earth from Heaven in order to be a Savior. Huntington meticulously distinguished between individual people and the collective humanity. He explained that Jesus came and died to save the individual, scattered sheep, but also to gather the sheep to eliminate the “scattered” condition. Despite these two related concepts, Huntington emphasized that there were not two Gospels. The Gospel was singular, but it applied to individuals and to society as a whole.
Huntington described the universal human need for forgiveness and reaffirmed God’s promise to forgive. Next, he defined the Gospel as the collective blessings resulting from Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The Gospel represented good news, and a kingdom was any common form of an organized social unit. An important theme in The Church-Idea was a Divine change that was about to occur. Several transformations were to take place. People with low social status would be exalted, while people with high social status would lose their elevated positions. People with great wealth would endure a loss and a feeling of emptiness, while people in poverty would experience tremendous happiness.
William Reed Huntington made a distinction between Christ’s teachings of the Gospel with respect to individuals and with respect to society as a whole. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” He was pleading to individuals to behave in a manner in accordance with His teachings. Christ also instructed society as a whole to value the things “pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” In his analysis of these teachings, Huntington recognized that scholars made this distinction primarily after Christ died. He identified that people may assume multiple interpretations of the concept of the Kingdom of God, both objective and abstract. He differentiated between two interpretations of the Biblical Parable of the Mustard Seed. One interpretation is that God sows His truth in Christians’ hearts, and it develops into good character. Another possible view is that the Parable represents the implementation of a new social system on earth, which benefits society as a whole.
To illustrate his point, Huntington distinguished between the concepts of microcosm and macrocosm. An individual Christian was a microcosm, individually believing in God and the Kingdom of Heaven. All Christians collectively comprise the macrocosm. To explain the Kingdom of Heaven, Huntington used the metaphor of a farm where the farmer plants wheat but an enemy plants weeds. The wheat and the weeds both grow in the field. However, at the harvest, the farmer would only keep the wheat.
William Reed Huntington was a significant priest in the Episcopalian church. From 1862 to 1883, he was a parish priest in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was a parish priest from 1883 to 1909 in New York City. Huntington passed away on July 26, 1909. On September 30, 1998, the Reverend Frank T. Griswold presided over a memorial service for William Reed Huntington. The service occurred at New York City’s Grace Church. Huntington was the sixth rector of Grace Church. Rev. Griswold asked the congregation to recognize Huntington’s ecumenical vision.
References:
Huntington, William Reed. The Church-Idea; An Essay Towards Unity. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1899.
Huntington, William Reed. Tract No. XCI: The Articles of Religion from an American Point of View. New York: A. G. Sherwood and Company, 1907.
“William Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon, September 30, 1998.” The Episcopal Church, USA Added, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/6947_553_ENG_HTM.htm (October 2006).
“William Reed Huntington, Priest.” James Kiefer’s Christian Biographies http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/07/27.html 02 Jun 2000.
Written by: John H. Batchelor