Since his
retirement, he has read widely in Christian religious literature
and has gained the conviction that the Christian Church must
reform or die. He believes strongly in the value of the
churches. This is not surprising in view of his many religious
ancestors such as the Rev. Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe
and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.
Some of
these ancestors also rebelled against archaic doctrine. In the
early 1800s his great great-grandfather, the Rev. Lyman Beecher,
was tried for heresy by the Presbyterian Church because he did
not believe in preordination nor in the damnation of infants who
died before they were baptized. Happily, he was unjustly
acquitted. Henry Ward Beecher also held reformist ideas.