The Free Religious Association (FRA) was formed in 1867 in part by David Atwood Wasson

David Atwood Wasson

David Atwood Wasson was an American minister and Transcendentalist author, an essayist and poet. He was early influenced by Thomas Carlyle, an influence he would shed; he is usually regarded as a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson.-Life:...

 and Reverend William J. Potter. to be, in Potter's words, a "spiritual anti-slavery society" to "emancipate religion from the dogmatic traditions it had been previously bound to." It was opposed not only to organized religion, but also to any supernaturalism in an attempt to affirm the supremacy of individual conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...

 and individual reason

Reason

Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...

. The FRA carried a message of the perfectibility of humanity, democratic faith in the worth of each individual, the importance of natural rights and the affirmation of the efficacy of reason.

The Early Spread of the FRA

The first public assembly was held in 1867 representing something akin to a spiritual town meeting with an audience ranging from Progressive Quakers, liberal Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, radical Unitarians

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

, Universalists, agnostics, Spiritualists, and scientific theists. The first person to join the association at the original meeting was the famed American individualist Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

. It caught on and many FRA members helped to lead communes based on their values on equality and self organizing organizations.

The Future of the FRA

Today while it is hard to find an FRA meeting, let alone anything remotely akin to the kind of town meetings of the early Americas, many of their beliefs are alive and well and some could say even growing at an exponential way. Thanks to the force of the internet people today are now completely free and able to join together with almost anyone anywhere in the world that may share the same intentions, ideals, goals, beliefs, and even the most petty of personal preferences in a massive way unprecedented in all of human history.