Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Sermons and Reconstruction of Sacred Literary History

Caroline Woidat's archival excavation of the sermons Elizabeth Oakes Smith reveals the extent to which Oakes Smith fused diverse religious teachings and argued for the compatibility of Christianity with both non-Western... [ view full abstract ]

Caroline Woidat's archival excavation of the sermons Elizabeth Oakes Smith reveals the extent to which Oakes Smith fused diverse religious teachings and argued for the compatibility of Christianity with both non-Western traditions and American social movements for women’s rights and racial justice. Known for challenging Calvinist dogma and envisioning alternative spiritual practices in her homiletic novel Bertha and Lily (1854), Oakes Smith is also a preacher who complicates dominant narratives of U.S. literary history. In both her manuscript sermons and publications in religious newspapers such as The Universalist, Oakes Smith combines biblical scholarship and comparative studies of world religions and sacred texts—examining Persian and Hindu scriptures, for example, such as those collected in Moncure Conway’s popular Sacred Anthology (1873)—as a means of contributing to larger debates about American values and identity. In the rare position of a woman speaking both from the pulpit and as literary author and critic, Oakes Smith anticipates intersectional feminism by embracing syncretism and rejecting dogmatic defenses of racial and gender hierarchies. Her sketches resist white supremacist interpretations of scripture and history. Oakes Smith’s religious writings and reclamation of Jane Schoolcraft’s legacy affirm as “sacred” the very ideals rejected by white supremacists—transculturation and multiculturalism, gender and racial equality.