Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou (born April 23, 1803 in Cumberland , Rhode Island , † August 5, 1890 in Hopedale , Massachusetts ) was an American preacher and founder of the Christian-pacifist community Hopedale Community . Ballou was one of the leading exponents of Christian pacifism in the 19th century.
Live and act
Ballou was born in 1803 in Cumberland in the American state of Rhode Island . His parents, Ariel and Elida Ballou, ran a farm and were members of a Baptist church. According to his father's wishes, Adin Ballo would later inherit his parents' court, but Ballou became increasingly interested in the pastor's profession instead. In 1822 he married Abigail Sayles. Through his wife's parents, Ballou came into contact with the well-known universalist Hosea Ballou and converted to universalism in the same year , whereupon his parents disinherited him. Just two years later, Ballou was ordained a universalist pastor and worked from 1824 to 1831 as a parish pastor in Milford and, for a short time, in New York . At times he also ran a universalistic trade journal. In 1829, his wife Abigail died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Abbie. Ballou himself fell ill with a life-threatening illness that same year and was cared for by Lucy Hunt, whom he married a short time later. In the theological conflict simmering in the universalistic church around 1830 over the possibility of a divine punishment for sins in the hereafter, Ballou allied himself with the universalistic restorationists. As a result, Ballou finally converted to Unitarianism in 1831 and worked from 1831 to 1842 as pastor of the Unitarian parish in the neighboring town of Mendon . During this time he was particularly associated with Bernard Whitman, a well-known Unitarian pastor in Waltham . The two shared the idea of being able to merge Unitarians and the restoration party of the universalists. After the early death of his friend Whitman in 1835, Ballou became increasingly socio-political. In 1837 he publicly supported the abolition of slavery ( abolitionism ) for the first time , and a year later he openly turned to Christian pacifism . In 1841 Ballou and supporters bought land west of Milford and founded the Christian-Socialist Hopedale Community there . Ballou now propagated a Christian socialism. He and other residents of Hopedale showed themselves to be z. B. open to spiritism . In the following years he mainly appeared as a speaker for the Hopedale community. In 1843 he became president of the New England Non-Resistance Society . The Hopedale Community itself disbanded as a municipality as early as 1857 after the brothers Ebenezer and George Draper withdrew their assets from the community as previous sponsors. From 1867 the community continued to operate in a religious form as the Unitarian community, with Ballou still being active as their preacher until 1880. In the last years of his life Ballou corresponded with the writer Leo Tolstoy , with whom he felt connected through the common pacifist convictions, although Ballou disapproved of Tolstoy's passivity on this question.
Adin Ballou died in Hopedale in 1890. A year later, his second wife, Lucy Ballou, also died. The Adin Street in Hopedale is named after him.
literature
- Edward K. Spann: Hopedale: From Commune to Company Town, 1840-1920 , Columbus (Ohio) 1992
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Astrid Steinmetz: Communitarian Experiments in the USA in the 19th Century , Karl-Marx-Haus, 1977, page 12
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ballou, Adin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American universalist, Unitarian preacher, religious socialist, pacifist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 23, 1803 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cumberland |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 5, 1890 |
| Place of death | Hopedale |