John Macaulay

Erskine Alumnus John Macaulay Is Published Scholar

High school study of such American thinkers as William Ellery Channing, Henry David Thoreau, and Julia Ward Howe, an Erskine professor who"pushed me more than I pushed myself " and the sight of a neglected churchyard in Charleston all added up to inspiration for Erskine College alumnus John Macaulay, an independent scholar whose book Unitarianism in the Antebellum South: The Other Invisible Institution was recently published by The University of Alabama Press.

"My interest in Unitarianism began sometime in junior and senior high school studying American history and American literature ," Macaulay said. "At Erskine, that interest continued as I took more and more courses in American history."

Macaulay majored in history at Erskine and took courses taught by Dr. William Kuykendall, Dr. James Gettys and Dr. Lowry Ware (now professor emeritus). "It would be difficult for me to name one person as a mentor. But I did take most of my coursework under Dr. Nancy Erickson. I respected her work ethic, her dedication to students and to the discipline itself, her ability to challenge and her sense of fairness."

Erickson, who left Erskine in 1998 to become Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College at Iowa Wesleyan College, played a significant role in Macaulay's growth as a scholar.

"One of the benefits of studying primarily under one faculty member is that they come to know you as both a student and person," Macaulay said. "Dr. Erickson pushed me more than I pushed myself and I believe she taught me how to study."

He tried out several graduate schools, including Erskine Theological Seminary, before settling on Duke University Divinity School. At one point he was living in the Boston area, taking half his courses at the Unitarian Harvard Divinity School and half at the evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. "Although I tried to meander an impartial course between the two schools, the theological differences between them seemed great and contradictory to me," Macaulay remembers, noting that these differences loomed large even though his interests were primarily academic.

"In the spirit of compromise, I wanted to find some quieter place of academic refuge, some middle ground, and while I was at it, some warmer ground as well," he said. "At Duke, the climate and the theology, though Arminian, seemed more tempered and welcoming."

At Duke, he narrowed his interests to two areas, the Reformation and American Puritanism. He wrote his thesis on the spiritual trials of Martin Luther, studying under Lutheran scholar David Steinmetz.

Macaulay began working toward his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in the fall of 1992. But he needed to settle on a topic for his dissertation.

"On one of many weekend excursions to Charleston, I happened to walk down Archdale Street," Macaulay recalled. "I knew the moment that I saw the beautiful Gothic tower, the overgrown and unkempt cemetery, the wrought-iron black fence, and that decaying sign on the gate – 'TheUnitarian Church of Charleston, the First Unitarian Church Founded in the South,' that I had found my dissertation topic."

In embracing the topic of Unitarianism in the South, Macaulay hit on a subject that brought together much of his previous interests and work.

"Its familial relationship to Puritanism, its location in the South, its relationship to the Harvard that I had recently left behind, its long-kept secrets, its curious monuments to New Englanders Samuel and Caroline Gilman, its beautiful architecture, its forgotten or ignored status in current scholarship, all contributed to and piqued my interest in Southern Unitarianism," Macaulay said. "Over the course of my graduate years my focus expanded to include the scope of the entire South."

Macaulay's Ph.D. is in history, not religion, bringing him back full circle to his major at Erskine. "I received my Ph.D from USC in American History and the training involved in that experience forced me to look at my subject from other perspectives, not just from those with religious'lenses'," Macaulay said.

"This meant going through property listings, city directories, personal letters, etc., which in the end gave the topic a much more three-dimensional foundation."

Several prominent scholars have endorsed Macaulay's work. "Although the book is a model study of Unitarianism, the implications of my research suggested strongly that its significance was greater than the history of the denomination itself."

Macaulay likens Unitarianism in the South to another "invisible institution," the black church – hence his book's subtitle. Unitarians formed "a nebulous network of liberal faith that represented a sustained and continued strand of Enlightenment religious rationalism alongside and within an increasingly evangelical culture," Macaulay said.

When Macaulay left graduate school, the college teaching market was "flooded with solid applicants from very good schools, all applying for fewer and fewer positions," he said.

"When I faced these prospects after graduation, I opted to avoid the vicissitudes of life as an adjunct professor," Macaulay said. "I currently work as a systems analyst for Pediatrix Medical Group in Florida but with the publication of the book, I hope to return to academia in the near future."

Macauley, son of Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister William Allen Macaulay, Jr., and Vivian Jarvis Macaulay, both Erskine alumni, has fielded a few questions about the subject of his book. "I have often been asked by those who have inquired about this project, 'Are you a Unitarian? What do your father and family think?'

"The short answer to the first question is that I am still a Presbyterian and my interest in the topic was more academic than religious, though I do have some sympathies with 19th-century Southern Unitarians and feel that many were mislabled," Macaulay said.

"And while my dad initially had doubts and seemed to want to show this project to his friends and colleagues for their thoughts, revisions or reprimands, he and the rest of my family – all Erskine alums by the way – have supported me throughout.

"It is my hope that in the process, we all learned something about our religious experiences, other faiths, about each other, and about Southern history in general. "

Macaulay dedicated the book to his parents.