1890: The Students of Truth

July 27, 2021

By AHNZ

The Temple Of Truth was the child of the American Arthur Bentley Worthington, a man who exploited a willing Christchurch throughout the 1890s. Today in history, 27 July, 1899, Worthington’s Temple had all come undone. Once a popular religious leader and thinker he now had to flee Christchurch under police protection.

Mainstream history pins the riot, the scandals, the suicide, the deceptions for this period on Arthur (image left) as if scapegoating one man could cleanse an entire city of its foolishness. The truth is that, during the 90s, Christchurch was spellbound by their handsome and charismatic leader. After the embarrassing hangover came the history-writing and the need to rescue the reputations of wealthy Canterbury elites and their children who had been in to ‘Worthingtonism’ up to their necks.

It’s important to remember that performers, including politicians, do not create their own ecological niche so much as fit themselves into an existing one. Adolf Hitler is blamed for National Socialist Germany yet the ashes of the Great War and the indoctrination of the Prussian education system laid the bed for a dictator to plug himself in. Rather than ask what it was about the population that allowed such exploitation it’s far easier to project all fault onto a ‘bigamist, bullshit artist, con-man, fraudster, cult-leader, criminal,’ all of which Worthington was said to be after his race was run.

Worthington and his most recent wife, Mary, and her children arrived in New Zealand in January 1890. After scouting the territory, Worthington resumed a craft he had been perfecting since the American Civil War: Religious Entreprenership. Competing with others doing the same, Worthington offered a free lecture on March 4th. His followers and their contributions swelled to the point where, by Christmas Day 1891 the foundation stone of the building The Temple of Truth was laid near Latimer Square. One, or the, best building in Christchurch with massive capacity, the Temple was constructed far more rapidly than the Anglican’s Christchurch Cathedral had been.

FREE LECTURE—Historic Religions and their Ultimate, at Oddfellows’ Hall, March 4th, 1890, at 7,30 p.m., by A. B. Worthington, LL.D. and M.A. A few seats will be reserved for those unable to go early, at the nominal sum of One Shilling each, to be had at Milner and. Thompson’s, and at the door. No Collection. A Most Important Lecture to all students of Religion, Science and Metaphysics.” – Lyttelton Times, 20 February 1890; Papers Past

“If they weren’t there we would have created them. Maybe, it’s true. But I’m resentful all the same. Someone’s got to take the blame!” – Ignoreland, REM (1992)

The sense of community, education, and charitable work contributed by Worthington’s Students of Truth is buried by the infamy of later history. We should not assume that, while it lasted, this church didn’t perform an essential sociological function in Christchurch and at the Auckland branch. The literature of regular leaflets and the book of lecture transcripts, The Worthington Lectures (1891,) certainly had a market. There was a golden age.

Why? Why in the 1890s did the people of Christchurch turn away from their founding religion of Anglicanism and Enlightenment and conservatism? As Lynley Hood (2001) pointed out, other cities ignore, insult, or assault their messionic zealots yet in Christchurch they gather a following, paying patrons, and go on to change the world! Worthington emerged from Methodism which I have elsewhere described as “Religion for people with low attention spans; For the body not the soul, in my opinion.” (Ref. AHNZ.) He added a spice of world religions, redacting the elements he thought best to leave out. He counselled celibacy but above all the power of the individual mind to think and judge and will success and even medical health.

“Worthington’s leaflet, THE COMFORTER, which came out every fortnight with its Bible interpretations, and 1891’s ‘The Worthington Lectures’, in which he paid homage to his current wife, who was also praised for being his companion, collaborator, comrade and friend…” – Hutchins (2010)

These were messages late-Victorian Christchurch was ready to heed. State education had been compulsory for as long as the generation coming of age could remember (1877.) Young people in Canterbury were long used to being told what to do so Worthington stepped into those shoes vacated by the local school teacher. The adults, too, had just been through a long spell of an era AHNZ identifies as Kate Sheppard Victimhood Culture. This entailed bossy Women’s Christian Temperance Union banging on about vice and trying hard to force prohibition upon everyone. New Zealand was flooded with prohibition tracts, novels, reciters, prayer-books. Our two main contenders for Prime Minister, Richard Seddon and Robert Stout dueled it out over who had the more popular liquor-licencing law. The oppression had become great, toxic even, and people were looking for a relief and a change.

After every Victimhood Culture comes a Slave Culture era and this one belonged to Worthington. Just as Te Kooti had become a smoothy, a Sainted old Santa (1889,) in his own part of the country, Worthington had the niche in wealthy Christchurch. Here was a mature man who was seductive and light. He was attractive to women, tall, charismatic, and offering to help you unlock the Truth power within yourself. This is the same sentiment that fired the English Reformation from which Anglican Christchurch had descended but had since become stultified; Breaking away from ‘fire and brimstone’ elitist bossy-Church to an open-minded authentic free and breezy refreshing faith. Worthington was the antidote to old crab apples.

By the late 1890s this era also ran its clock out. Seddon Slave Culture passed into Boer War Honour Culture. Worthington was not able to re-invent himself to suit the shifting times. Rather than the reformed fraud he had always purported to be he was re-branded a continuous fraud and expelled to Tasmania. After trying for a sequel on 27 July, 1899, Christchurch citizens showed him that his clock had well and truly run out. We rioted at Worthington’s attempt to reboot his franchise.

“As thousands of Cantabs swarmed about on Lichfield Street in the dimness of the early evening, their target was a parked cab that had been summoned to whisk preacher Arthur Bentley Worthington away to safety.  As the cab was unable to move, Magistrate Richard Beetham climbed onto its roof and for the first – and only – time in Christchurch history, the Riot Act was read out in the hopes of dispersing the crowd.” – THE CONTROVERSIAL PROPHET OF CHRISTCHURCH FLEES NEW ZEALAND – MAY 1899, Discover the Delights of Pealing Back History

“Mary Plunkett…was offered her old home which had been built beside the church and although she remarried and regained the custody of one of her children, she suffered from great depression.  Tragically in June 1901, she was found drowned in the ornamental pond at the church she helped found.  Her death was ruled a suicide.” – ibid

This led to one of the eight times in New Zealand history that the Riot Act was read out in order to disperse the mob. Worthington exited New Zealand forever this time, leaving behind a disillusioned and depressed Mary who didn’t long survive. The Australians must have been lagging behind New Zealand in Moral Culture because, impressively, Worthington got another bounce at doing his thing in Victoria before winding up in jail. We are told he repeated the same feat back in the States before being incarcerated there too, dying in prison (1917) though none offer a source or location.

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Image ref. The Worthington Lectures Being A Course Of Study Of Bible Interpretations As Taught By The Students Of Truth. Volume I; Abebooks (retrieved 2021)

Ref. Bad: New Zealand Crooks, Cranks, Creeps and Killers, Graham Hutchins (2010)

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