Frederick William Betts

Frederick William Betts (1858-1932) was a Universalist minister, born in Illinois and ordained at Plymouth, New Hampshire, in 1886. He became pastor of the First Universalist Church of Syracuse, New York, and remained in that pulpit until his death. Active in the city's civic life, he served as president of the Associated Charities of Syracuse and of the Syracuse Public Library board and chaired the local Red Cross chapter; a branch library in Syracuse bears his name. His books include Philosophy and Faith of Universalism (1913).

The faith restated for the progressive era by the Syracuse pastor F. W. Betts: less proof-texting, more philosophy of religion — Universalism presented as the natural creed of an age of science, social reform, and confident democracy. A snapshot of the denomination's self-understanding on the eve of the First World War, two years before Clarence Skinner's Social Implications.

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