Theodore Clapp

Theodore Clapp (1792-1866) was a liberal minister in New Orleans, born in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and educated at Yale. Called to the city's First Presbyterian Church in 1822, he gradually abandoned Calvinist doctrine, was convicted of heresy by the Mississippi Presbytery in 1833, and continued preaching to an independent congregation popularly known as the Strangers' Church, making it an outpost of liberal religion in the Deep South. He was widely respected for remaining in the city through repeated epidemics, and near the end of his life summarized his preaching in Theological Views (1859). He died in Louisville, Kentucky.

Theodore Clapp came to New Orleans a Presbyterian and was tried and expelled for heresy when his preaching turned against Calvinism and endless punishment; his independent 'Strangers' Church' then became one of the city's institutions, visited by travelers from Mark Twain's river world to touring Europeans. This summing-up of thirty-five years' teaching sets out his confident universal hope — southern, independent, and outside the New England denomination, which is why it stands in this collection's wider-hope section.

(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)