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.Others associate immortality with the return of our bodies tothe earth, where we merge with other atoms in the universe and as-sume immortality in a new form.Those who still affirm a personalexistence after death often do so based on scientific evidence.Theyagree with fellow Unitarian, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said wewould enter ever more stately mansions in an after-life.We leave theshell of our bodies by life s unresting sea. The variety of view-points underscores the Unitarian Universalist belief that everyonemust answer for themselves.DEATH WITH DIGNITY.Long believing that people should have theright to choose what is morally responsible, Unitarian Universalists 148 " DE BENNEVILLE, GEORGE (1703 1793)support personal choice in relation to issues around death and dying.This means that Unitarians Universalists would support the decisionby the individual or their proxy to withdraw artificial life supports,even if death results.In 1988 the Unitarian Universalist Associa-tion (UUA) became the first religious group to explicitly support theright to die with dignity.The General Assembly (GA) passed a res-olution affirming that people have the right to self-determination indying and the release from civil or criminal penalties of those who,under proper safeguards, act to honor the right of terminally ill pa-tients to select the time of their own deaths (as quoted in Divine andRosa, ed., Resolutions and Resources Handbook, p.75).Althoughnot all Unitarian Universalists would support assisted suicide wherethere are no medical options left, many do believe that in certain cir-cumstances, it is the most humane choice for an individual whowishes to maintain some quality of life.DE BENNEVILLE, GEORGE (1703 1793).An early preacher ofUniversalism, de Benneville represents a mystical, experiential typeof the faith.He was born in London to French parents on July 26,1703.His father, George Sr., was of noble birth, but he had been ex-iled from France due to Huguenot sympathies.George was theyoungest of nine and his mother died in childbirth.The young boy re-ceived a noble upbringing when his Godmother Queen Anne broughthim into the royal family.After a fine education, he tried a brief stintin the Royal Navy.After being influenced by Prince George s chap-lain, de Benneville underwent a conversion that God s universal loveand grace meant that all souls were to be restored.He then returnedto France to preach and, although he was arrested and warned, he re-turned a second time to do more preaching.Arrested a second time,he was condemned to die.While his companion was executed deBenneville received a reprieve from Louis XV due to his noble back-ground.He then went to Germany and Holland where he found manysympathetic listeners, among them a variety of pietists and mystics.Especially important were the Waldensians, who believed thatChrist s sacrifice relieved all people of original sin.He also studiedmedicine and eventually was a practicing doctor for about 18 years.Around 1740 de Benneville became very ill with what he called a consumptive disorder. This led to a very high fever, which was so DEDHAM DECISION " 149severe de Benneville had a vision that he had died and was drawn upinto a cloud.He had two companions, one of whom told him that allcreatures would be restored to happiness without exception.His ex-tensive description of the experience was later published in The Lifeand Trance of George de Benneville.Finally, he was reunited with hisbody in a coffin, because his friends thought he was dead.They dis-covered that he was very much alive when he sat up to speak and theflabbergasted mourners helped him out of the coffin.This visionhelped lead de Benneville to believe that he was called to preach inAmerica and he went in 1741.He settled first in Germantown, wherehe assisted Christopher Sower, who was a Dunker and a Universalist,with printing.Eventually they produced a German edition Bible in1743 and Paul Siegvolck s The Everlasting Gospel in 1753, whichlater proved instrumental in Elhanan Winchester s conversion.Winchester helped make de Benneville better known by seeing thatLife and Trance was published in 1800.In the meantime de Ben-neville continued to meet a variety of other religious groups.He wasattracted to a group of followers of Casper Schwenkfelder and he alsofrequently visited the monastic community at Ephrata.He purchasedsome land in the country northwest of Philadelphia and went therewith his new bride, Esther Bertolet, who emigrated from Germany.From here de Benneville frequently went on itinerant preachingtours, which took him as far afield as Virginia and Maryland.He alsotaught among the Native Americans.The couple moved back toPhiladelphia in 1757 with their five children.Offering medical careto the wounded at the Battle of Germantown, de Benneville was ableto take advantage of the intellectual life there and continued to workas a doctor.He died in March 1793.Though he was not a settled min-ister or the founder of churches, de Benneville is often called the firstpreacher of Universalism in America and was an important early in-fluence in its development.DEDHAM DECISION.The Dedham case, Baker vs.Fales, began in1818 when a Trinitarian majority of church members (those who hadmade a confession of faith or assented to the church covenant) of thechurch in Dedham, Massachusetts, refused to agree with the parish s(all the voters of the town) choice of a liberal candidate, Alvin Lam-son, for the ministry of the church.By custom the refusal of the 150 " DEDHAM DECISION church to concur with the parish s decision would have ended theyoung man s candidacy.The Dedham parish, however, assumed thelegal right to contract Lamson, and they did so.This action was up-held by an ecclesiastical council dominated by Unitarians, and Lam-son was ordained in October 1818
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