The Church, As It Was, As It Is, As It Ought To Be

The Church, As It Was, As It Is, As It Ought To Be is a discourse by James Freeman Clarke on the historical development of the Christian church and on what an ideal Christian congregation might look like in nineteenth-century America. Clarke delivered the piece at his Church of the Disciples in Boston and published it for the wider Unitarian audience that his work reached.

Clarke founded the Church of the Disciples in 1841 as a working experiment in a different kind of congregation. The church refused to rent pews, supporting itself on voluntary contributions rather than the standard New England system that effectively reserved better seating for richer families. It required no creed beyond a general profession of Christian discipleship. The congregation participated in worship rather than sitting passively while the minister performed. The whole arrangement aimed at a community of working Christians rather than a formal institution serving paying customers.

The discourse sets out the theory behind the practice. The first section traces church development from the early Christian community through the medieval Catholic establishment, the Reformation, and the American denominational scene. The second section criticizes what Clarke saw as the failures of contemporary American church life, particularly the formalism, the wealth-driven pew rental system, and the gap between clerical authority and lay engagement. The third section presents his alternative vision.

The argument belongs to a wider nineteenth-century American Protestant tradition of church reform thinking. Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, and other leading American ministers produced related work. Clarke’s particular contribution combines his pastoral experience with the broader Transcendentalist intellectual background he shared with Emerson and Margaret Fuller.

The discourse is short. For readers of mid-nineteenth-century American Protestant church reform writing, it is essential. It pairs with Clarke’s other writings on church and ministry and with Bushnell’s Christian Nurture.