John Murray (theologian, 1741)

John Murray

John Murray (born December 10, 1741 in Alton , United Kingdom , † September 3, 1815 in Boston , United States ) is now regarded as the founder of the universalist denomination in the United States .

Life

Murray was born in Alton in the south of England in 1741 . His father was Anglican and his mother Presbyterian (≈ reformed ). In 1751 the family relocated to the Cork area in southern Ireland . Nine years later Murray returned to England to join the congregation of preacher George Whitefield , a co-founder of Methodism . Later he came across the Welsh preacher James Relly, who had broken with Methodism and moved towards a universalist position. In 1770 Murray finally emigrated to North America and began to give his first sermons there in the spirit of universalism. For the first four years he lived with his friend and patron Thomas Potter in the state of New Jersey . In 1774 he moved to Gloucester in Massachusetts , where he also founded the first universalist community in North America. Here he also met his future wife Judith Sargent Murray. Although he was suspected of working as a British spy, Murray was at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 for military chaplains of the American Rhode Iceland Brigade of General George Washington. However, other military pastors demanded his recall because, as a universalist, he did not believe in the existence of hell . In September 1785, Murray attended the first Universalist Convention in Oxford, Massachusetts. In 1793 he became a permanent pastor of the Universalist Society of Boston , where he worked until October 1809 until he was paralyzed . Murray finally died on September 3, 1815 in Boston .

In his theological thinking, Murray was completely caught up in the universalistic idea of ​​all- conciliation . He did not, however, question the idea of ​​a Trinity of God, which was later rejected by the Unitarians who were later connected to the universalists . Murray also worked as a composer and author of numerous sacred songs .

Web links

• John Murray's CV on the Unitarian Universalist Association website