Adin Ballou

Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou
Born	(1803-04-23)April 23, 1803 Cumberland, Rhode Island, U.S.
Known for	Christian nonresistance Christian anarchism Christian socialism abolitionist
Spouse	Abigail Sayles (m. 1822) Lucy Hunter (after 1829)
Children	Abbie Ballou Heywood

Adin Ballou (April 23, 1803 – August 5, 1890) was an American proponent of Christian nonresistance, Christian anarchism, and Christian socialism. He was also an abolitionist and the founder of the Hopedale Community.

Through his long career as a Universalist and Unitarian minister, he tirelessly advocated for the immediate abolition of slavery and the principles of Christian anarcho-socialism, and promoted the nonviolent theory of praxis (or moral suasion) in his prolific writings.

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Life and works

Ballou was born on a small farm in Cumberland, Rhode Island.^[1] Ballou's father was a farmer, and while Ballou craved a school and college education, his father didn't have the means to send him. At the time of the Christian 'reformation' sweeping through northern Rhode Island, his father became a deacon within the community.^[2]

In early 1822 Adin Ballou married Abigail Sayles.^[3] Abigail Ballou died in early 1829, soon after the birth of a daughter, Abbie Ballou Heywood.^[4] Of Ballou’s four children only Abbie Ballou lived to adulthood. After his first wife Abigail had deceased, Ballou became very unwell. Lucy Hunter nursed him back to health, and after his sickness had passed, Lucy and Ballou married and remained married for the rest of his life.

Ballou became a lifelong advocate of Christian pacifism by 1838. Standard of Practical Christianity was composed in 1839 by Ballou and a few ministerial colleagues and laymen. The signatories announced their withdrawal from "the governments of the world." They believed the dependence on force to maintain order was unjust and vowed to not participate in such government. While they did not acknowledge the earthly rule of man, they also did not rebel or "resist any of their ordinances by physical force." "We cannot employ carnal weapons nor any physical violence whatsoever," they proclaimed, "not even for the preservation of our lives. We cannot render evil for evil... nor do otherwise than 'love our enemies.'"^[5]

In 1843, he began to serve as president of the New England Non-Resistance Society.^[5]

Ballou was a prominent local historian for Milford and wrote one of the earliest complete histories of the town in 1882, "History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881".^[6]

Hopedale, Massachusetts remains true to what Ballou stood for, in keeping of the street names - “Peace,” “Hope,” “Freedom,” and “Union.” A statue of Ballou is located in Adin Ballou Park in Hopedale, Massachusetts. The park also contains a small weathered front doorstep and a boot-scraper, the only surviving remains of the original farmhouse the first Hopedale Settlers built.^[7]^[8]

Influence

Ballou's writings drew the admiration of Leo Tolstoy,^[9] who frequently cited Ballou as a major influence on his theological and political ideology in his nonfiction texts like The Kingdom of God is Within You, along with sponsoring Russian translations of some of Ballou's works.

Ballou's Christian anarchist and nonresistance ideals in texts like Practical Christianity were passed down from Tolstoy to Mahatma Gandhi, contributing not only to the nonviolent resistance movement in the Russian Revolution led by the Tolstoyans but also Gandhi's early thinkings on the nonviolent theory of praxis and the development of his first ashram, the Tolstoy Farm.

In a recent publication, the American philosopher and anarchist Crispin Sartwell wrote that the works by Ballou and his other Christian anarchist contemporaries like William Lloyd Garrison directly influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.^[10]

References

^ Pawtucket, Mailing Address: 67 Roosevelt Ave; Us, RI 02860 Phone: 401-725-8638 Contact. "adinBallou - Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved October 30, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ Mace, Emily. "Ballou, Adin (1803-1890) | Harvard Square Library". Retrieved October 30, 2023.
^ Master, Web (December 13, 2000). "Ballou, Adin". Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Retrieved October 30, 2023.
^ Pawtucket, Mailing Address: 67 Roosevelt Ave; Us, RI 02860 Phone: 401-725-8638 Contact. "adinBallou - Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved October 30, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ ^a ^b Weinberg, Arthur; Weinberg, Lila Shaffer (1963). Instead of violence. New York: Grossman Publishers. p. 375.
^ Ballou, Adin (1882). History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881. Boston: Rand, Avery, & co. (2 vols)
^ "Adin Ballou Park". National Park Service. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
^ "Adin Ballou Memorial Historical Marker". www.hmdb.org. Retrieved October 30, 2023.
^ Tolstoy, Leo (1894). "The Kingdom of God is Within You": Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life . Cassell Publishing Company. pp. 8–21.
^ Sartwell, Crispin (January 1, 2018). "Anarchism and Nineteenth-Century American Political Thought". Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy: 454–483. doi:10.1163/9789004356894_018. ISBN 9789004356887.