M. M. Mangasarian
From Philosopedia
Mangasarian, M(angasar) M(ugurdital) (29 December 1859 - 26 June 1943)
Mangasarian was born in Mashger, Turkey, and attended Robert College in Constantinople, where he was ordained into the Congregationalist ministry in 1878. He was the minister of the Congregational Church in Marsovan, Turkey, from 1878 to 1880. In 1879 he married Akabie Altunian of Amasia, Asia Minor, and from that union came four children, Zabelle (Mrs. Raymond Hitchcock), Armen Parker, Christine (Mrs. Earl Benham), and George Paul Mangasarian. His wife died in 1910.
He studied for the Presbyterian ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton University) but he became the minister of the Spring Garden Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1882 and remained there until 1885.
Notice of his resignation from that church found its way into the oldest "freethought" weekly paper in the United States, The Truth Seeker, which dutifully reported in its November 7, 1885, issue as follows:
- The Rev. Mangasar M. Mangasarian, who has been pastor of the Spring Garden Presbyterian church, in Philadelphia, for three years, has publicly renounced the doctrines of Presbyterianism, and tendered his resignation to his congregation, who had but a few hours intimation of his intention. In his sermon he said: "I have ceased to be a Calvinist. I have decided to renounce the doctrines of orthodox Presbyterianism. If Calvin, 1 Wesley 2 and Edwards 3 had the right to make articles of faith and differ with good and holy men who went before them, have I not the same right to make articles of faith and differ with Calvin, Wesley, and Edwards? I have outgrown the creed of Calvin. I love the Presbyterian people for what they are and what they believe — their character and not their creed. I shall have no creed save the words of Christ. My sympathies are with all sects having liberal views. My future church shall be a church governed by the people, a people's church, a congregational church essentially, where no authority comes between the minister and his flock. By my act I subscribe myself to the Congregational doctrines. Your creed says that mankind is born and lives under the curse of God; that in Adam's sin all mankind fell, and for his transgression God sentenced his children to unending sorrow. Your creed shows me a heaven thinly settled, a hell peopled; few saints, many sinners. Your creed tell me that under the eternal law of predestination nothing can change the number of souls ransomed. This is fatalism. What need, then, of preaching the gospel?"
In Chicago, Mangasarian edited Liberal Review and Rationalist.
He was the author of A New Catechism (1902) and Humanism, A Religion for Americans (1925).
He founded the Chicago Society of Ethical Culture, later the (Rationalist) Independent Religious Society.
Mangasarian wrote at least two dozen pamphlets. In The Rationalist (15 May 1915), he wrote,
- Christianity . . . made, for nearly 1,500 years, persecution, religious wars, massacres, theological feuds and bloodshed, heresy huntings and heretic burnings, prisons, dungeons, anathemas, curses, opposition to science, hatred of liberty, spiritual bondage, the life without love or laughter.
(See a biography and bibliography.)
