Benjamin Fish Austin - Expulsion From The Methodist Church

Expulsion From The Methodist Church

From 1897 to 1899 Dr. Austin lived in Toronto and devoted himself to his literary works. He also became more and more interested in the growing Spiritualist movement. Spiritualists were a large group who believed in the scientific validity of many 'supernatural' phenomena (such as communication with the deceased) and who called for Christianity to be reformed and re-examined to remove what they saw as many archaic and illiberal. As he continued this period of philosophical re-examination Dr. Austin began giving sermons that deviated more and more from accepted teachings.

In June 1899 Benjamin Fish Austin was tried and expelled from the Methodist Church that he had served all his life. Only three years earlier he had been given a doctorate of divinity from Victoria University in recognition of his services to the Church .

On May 27, 1899 one of B. F. Austin's more heterodox sermons was reprinted in the Manitoba Morning Free Press. The speech had originally been given at the Parkdale Methodist Church of Toronto on January 8 of that year. The speech was a fiery and impassioned call for people to seek Truth for themselves. It was critical of church policy and praised independent thought and inquiry. It equated Truth with God and said it was all good Christians' duty to seek out truth, even if the Truth conflicts with official dogma. Dr. Austin also criticized the churchmen of his time for being to closed-minded in their view of now theories, such as Spiritualism . (Many excerpts from this sermon are available on wikiquote)

The Methodist hierarchy was not pleased, and asked Dr. Austin to withdraw his comments. He refused.

The Rev. A. H. Goring of Port Stanley argued that the sermon constituted heresy on four counts

1) It denied the doctrine of eternal punishment 2) It questioned the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth 3) It denied that Jesus was God's last revelation to man 4) It upheld a fraudulent system of spiritualism

Austin said that he was unable to attend a trial, and he submitted a written defence. In his defence he denied the first 3 charges categorically and defended his comments on spiritualism to be relating only to "a true spiritualism" ii. He took particular affront to the third charge, writing that;

"I have never heard of this doctrine. I am convinced it is a discovery of the complainant. Fearing my theological teachers may have sadly failed in regard to one important dogma and that I might still be in profound ignorance of some well known scriptural doctrine of Methodism I consulted an eminent authority -whose name would be recognised throughout America- and he does not know of any such dogma in our church or any Christian church" ii.

It was also alleged that Dr. Austin had attended a séance with a clairvoyant in Detroit ii. Dr. Austin made no attempt to deny this

He was found guilty of the later three charges, but appealed the decision to the Methodist annual convention, held that year in June in Windsor, Ontario. At the conference it was widely believed that Dr. Austin's reputation alone would acquit him if he distanced himself from his earlier comments and did not make a speech or any sort of commotion. Ignoring this, Dr. Austin decided to speak in support of his earlier comments ii.

He gave a rousing defence of the sermon for three and a half hours. He implored the churchmen he had earlier denounced as closed to new thoughts to recognise the validity of many new beliefs. The age was, "a period of transitions. Old interpretations of the scripture are giving way to new ones. Old conceptions of the method of creation are no longer popular" vi Rather than surrendering to a "rush" towards atheism and agnosticism Dr Austin wanted the church to slightly modify its interpretation of the scriptures so as to be more modern ii. He reminded his audience that this would not be the first time the scriptures had been re-examined and asked that if past generations had been able to interpret the scriptures to fit their times then, "Have we not the right to our own views, and own interpretations, and own creeds, and own Truths equal to those that proceeded us? Must we forever wear the cast-off garments of past ages?" v.

Dr. Austin claimed that "Every man has an inherent right to know all that can be known about Humanity" ii and said that, since the faculty of reason is a gift from God, to silence a man's thoughts is to question the wisdom of the Creator who endowed him with that reason. We are, he argued, made to question and challenge what we hear. This time of questioning, furthermore, would not weaken the Church but strengthen it. "It is time for everything that can be shaken to be removed", he said, "that the things that cannot be shaken remain". This process would leave a wiser and truer Methodist Church which held to its firm beliefs will rejecting it's the weaker parts of the faith ii. This fits with Dr. Austin's long-term belief that all religions had beneficial aspects that should be encouraged and negative traits that should be removed. In a later Spiritualist work he would say that in a Spiritualist world each religion should lend and borrow the choice parts of the others.

The most controversial portion of his speech was when Dr. Austin called on the church to accept the 'scientific proof of Spiritualism'. The recognition of a scientific basis for such 'supernatural' events, Dr. Austin argued, would make the events of the bible seem more plausible; drawing many sceptics back into the flock. Dr. Austin related how he had himself experienced a variety of Spiritualist phenomena including: sounds produced in metals and woods, the independent movement of chairs, the production of an independent voice, and the de-materialisation of matter (so as to allow the passage of matter through matter) ii.

Dr. Austin mentioned in his defence the renowned British inventor Sir William Crookes. Sir William was described as the inventor of the radiometer and the vacuum tube, the discoverer of thallium, a member of the Royal Society, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and (according to Dr. Austin) Britain's 3rd most important scientific mind (Lord Kelvin and Wallace taking the first two spots by narrow margins). Sir William had conducted a series of experiments with noted Spiritualists and Spiritual Mediums and had also experienced many of the phenomena that Dr. Austin described, admitting them to be beyond any known natural law. These experiences had occurred during a series of highly controlled tests in Sir William's own house and in other places which could not have been tampered with ii.

In defending against the claims by many Christians that Spiritualism (and especially the communication with the spirits of the dead) was an act of devil worship Dr. Austin related a short anecdote. When visiting a prison in Winnipeg, Dr. Austin explained, he had once met a prisoner who was incarcerated for shooting a man on a bicycle. The man, "an Indian of low intellect" had never seen a bicycle before and had interpreted the strange and unknown form of a bicycler as a diabolical combination of man and beast, shooting it immediately. Dr. Austin compared this unthinking action to the ignorant conclusion by many Christians unacquainted with Spiritualism that Spiritual communication was some sort of demonic ritual. He concluded the argument by saying that "Let no one then… think for a moment to satisfy the intelligence of this age by the flippant statement of ignorant bigotry 'it's all the devil'" ii.

Near the end of his address Dr Austin asked the conference to consider the implications if they were wrong in their decisions. If Dr. Austin himself were wrong in promoting Spiritualism he was after all only be one man who easily could be ignored, but if the Methodist Church was wrong in suppressing a valid philosophy the entire organisation would have committed a grave error. Since the risk of one man being wrong was less grave than the risk of an entire organisation using its power unjustly Dr. Austin asked the conference to show restraint ii.

Finally he threatened the conference by reminding them that he had many supporters and that "this conference is before the bar of public opinion and if it pronounces a judgement out of harmony with the individual liberty and liberal sentiment of the age… then the conference will not, cannot escape public condemnation". While the public's reaction to the trial is hard to measure, the issue was quite controversial. The Sermon Publishing Company or Toronto published, for the price of 25¢, a pamphlet entitled "The heresy trial of rev. B. F. Austin MA DD ex-principal of Alma College, giving a sketch of Dr. Austin's life, story of his heresy trial, copy of the charges, the heresy sermon, the scene at the conference, Dr. Austin's full address defending his views on spiritualism at the London annual Conference at Windsor, June First 1899" ii.

In any event Dr Austin's call for a more scientific view of spiritualism and the bible was not received well. Only one vote kept his expulsion from being unanimous v.