Emerson's position on the accessibility of God to all people without the established Church acting as an intermediary caused considerable discomfort for Calvinists, but Emerson used the Church's rigidity to his own advantage. In "The Over-Soul," he questions not only the authority of the Church, but its faith: "The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul." The more the Calvinists claimed sole authority for religious instruction, the more Emerson and his contemporaries thought them selfish and interested only in their own — rather than their congregations'well-being.
Emerson wished for salvation, but not within a church that still held Calvinist beliefs. After he resigned his pastorate at the Second Unitarian Church of Boston, he wrote in his journal, "The highest revelation is that God is in every man." There is not only a unity of souls in the Over-Soul, but also only one source, God. Emerson discovered a religious power within himself, a direct intuition of a spiritual God potent in the soul of every person. We do not need to seek the source of authentic religious experience outside ourselves; we can discover salvation by the revelation of the God within.
Because one of the principal tenets of Unitarianism is the equality of all, nineteenth-century Unitarians took a keen interest in affairs far beyond the walls of their churches. Politically, Unitarians were among the most liberal groups in the nation. Highly articulate, they voiced their resistance to any inequality in any part of society, which meant that they were often involved in the country's principal social and political issues, including antiwar and antislavery movements. Emerson, a product of this spiritual American democracy, discovered the voice of God in every individual — not just in the elect — and realized that salvation was available to everyone.
