Noyes' Doctrine That Conversion Ends Sin

Before founding the Oneida Community, John Humphrey Noyes developed a theological position known as Perfectionism, holding that a genuinely converted believer could, in this life and not only after death, achieve complete freedom from sin through a decisive act of faith rather than through the gradual lifelong process of sanctification most American Protestant churches of his era taught. Noyes reached this conclusion while a divinity student in the 1830s and announced it publicly in 1834, a declaration that cost him his license to preach from the New Haven Congregational Association, whose ministers regarded a claim of present sinlessness as both doctrinally reckless and spiritually presumptuous, effectively ending Noyes's prospects within mainstream Congregationalism. Bible Communism presents perfect holiness as the theological foundation the entire Oneida experiment was built on: because members were understood to have already achieved a converted, sinless standing rather than being engaged in an ongoing struggle against sin, the community felt free to reconsider social arrangements, ordinary marriage and private property among them, that Noyes argued had been shaped by a fallen state believers were no longer living in.