Leader of the Unitarians, William Ellery Channing rejected the doctrine of the Trinity

A graduate of Harvard College, Channing was the pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, which he led from Congregationalism to Unitarianism. Channing published sermons and lectures which helped fuel a conflict known as "the Unitarian controversy." His 1819 work Unitarian Christianity marked him as the spokesman for a New England version of liberal theology, over against Puritanism. Unitarianism rejected the doctrine of the Trinity in favor of a one-person God whose key attribute was benevolence. Unitarianism rejected a high view of the authority of Scripture, in favor of historicism and rationalism as modes of interpretation. Unitarianism rejected original sin and affirmed the divine potential of each individual to grow in God's likeness. The bard of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, popularized such views.