By Pastor Brian Phillips
From the mid-1800s, Transcendentalism has been an influential force in the formation of American culture, particularly in the realm of literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and several others not only lived in close community in Concord, Massachusetts, they largely shared a Transcendentalist perspective.
What is Transcendentalism? Hillsdale College professor and historian William McClay describes it as “a romantic outlook that stressed the glories of Nature while placing the ideal of the majestic Self at the center of its thought, and at the center of Nature also. It had no respect for tradition or other older sources of authority and wisdom.”
And, as McClay goes on to note, though Transcendentalism had no formal connection with the American church at the time, “it resembled evangelicalism in one important way. It sought to overthrow the established authority…and to ground religion in the authority of individual experience.”
Of particular interest is the fact that the ministry of Charles Finney overlapped with the careers of the Transcendentalist writers. And, while it is difficult to tell if there was any direct interaction or influence between Finney and/or evangelicals with the Transcendentalists, they were (at least in some ways) preaching the same message. The Self was at the center, and we continue to see the same emphasis in both American art and the American evangelicalism.