Andrews Norton

Andrews Norton (December 31, 1786 – September 18, 1853) was an American preacher and theologian. Along with William Ellery Channing, he was the leader of mainstream Unitarianism of the early and middle 19th century, and was known as the "Unitarian Pope". He was named Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Criticism in 1813, and in 1819, Harvard made him the first Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature, a position he held until 1830; he also served as Harvard College Librarian from 1813 to 1821.

Norton engaged in vigorous debates with George Ripley in 1836 and Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1838 (over Emerson's Divinity School Address). He opposed himself to the rise of Transcendentalism and insisted on the truth of some of the Biblical miracles, while rejecting "most of those in the Old Testament, and a few in the new", including rejecting the virgin birth. In rejecting the virgin birth he went beyond William Ellery Channing.

He died in 1853 in Newport, Rhode Island.