A small town in Missouri has an interesting history. Liberal (population under 1,000), north of Joplin and south of Kansas City, was founded in 1880 as an atheist utopia. The founder was George Walser, an anti-religionist, agnostic lawyer. He advertised for other freethinkers to join him and claimed that Liberal “is the only town of its size in the United States without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, God, Jesus, hell or devil.”
Instead of Sunday School they had Sunday Morning Instruction School, where children were taught from the “Youth Liberal Guide” and from various works on physics, chemistry, and other sciences. The local school promoted liberal education free from the bias of Christian theology. [1]
As news spread about Liberal, Christians came to convert the town. Walser tried to keep them out by posting his followers at the train station to tell passengers that if they were Christians they were not welcome, according to an 1896 article in The Kansas City Star. They came anyway. Some Christians quietly bought homes and began holding religious services. Walser would interrupt them and even put a stop to it after he proved to a court that the services were being held on properties he still partly owned. The Christians then bought land across the train tracks (and outside the town limits) and moved more than a dozen houses there from Liberal. The last building had a sign attached that said: “And the Lord said: Get thee out of Sodom.” Walser then built a barbed wire fence to keep them out of Liberal. [3]
The residents of Liberal believed that their godless town of “sober, trustworthy and industrious” individuals would thrive for years on end. But, as Bessie Thompson wrote 1895, “…like all other unworthy causes, it had its day and passed away.” The town itself did not disappear but the high-minded ideals seemed to fade away.
A Christian gadfly by the name of Clark Braden, who had converted after being a skeptic in his twenties and lectured extensively against atheism, visited the town in 1885 and tried to expose it. [4] In an article he wrote for a St. Louis newspaper he claimed that the town flowed with liquor, swearing was commonplace (even among women!) and lots of couples were shacking up. They also read a lot of trashy literature and sponsored dances with loose women. Abortion was widely practiced. He concluded by writing, “If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that its inhabitants are the devils.” [2]
The town of Liberal was outraged. A few days after the article appeared, Braden was charged with criminal libel. The jury found “no cause for action.” A civil suit brought by a local hotel owner followed. He claimed his business had suffered because of Braden’s malicious statements but “when the prosecution learned that the defense was thoroughly prepared to prove that Liberal was a den of infamy, and that its hotels were little more than houses of prostitution, the suit was dismissed on September 17, 1886 by the plaintiff at his own cost.” [2]
Later in life the town’s founder became attracted to spiritualism. George Walser spent $40,000 laying out a camp meeting ground of thirteen acres, with twenty cottages, and auditorium seating 800 people. As many as 2,000 spiritualists attended some of the conventions held there. A year before he died, Walser published a book called “The Life and Teachings of Jesus.” It is not clear this was just an extension of his spiritualism, but in the book he claimed to be a “converted infidel.” It is a remarkable document from someone who once said that Christianity and the Bible were the crude reasoning of primitive man. He had searched for hope during his life through materialism, atheism, agnosticism and spiritualism but had found none. Walser wrote in the book that he had “wandered in the desert of disbelief, waded in the river of doubt, and in the sands of desolation.” But near the end of his life he found hope. Jesus was the son of God, Walser concluded, and the Holy Ghost was the infinite spirit of our Maker. “We should study the chart which Jesus has given us,” Walser said. [1]
At present, at least seven Christian groups exist within the town that once banned Christianity and all that it represents. Numerous other churches meet in the surrounding areas. According to one of the religious leaders in the town, “a survey of Liberal recently indicated that 50% of the people are actively involved with some church” — a far cry from where Liberal began. [2]
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1. Wikipedia.org article on “Liberal, Missouri.”
2. Eric Lyons, “Atheism and Liberal, Missouri,” < http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=1447 >.
3. “JMK,” “’Failure of an Infidel Experiment’ as published in the Boston Daily Globe, May 8, 1885,” < http://evermore.imagedjinn.com/blg/6485/failure-of-an-infidel-experiment-as-published-in-the-boston-daily-glove-may-8-1885/ >. The author has several interesting articles on the history of Liberal.
4. James Gorman, “Clark Braden (1831-1915) Biography,” November 16, 2011, < https://groups.google.com/a/acu.edu/forum/#!topic/stone-campbell/GWtIlF8Vtkc >.