Excommunicated Three Times: The Bizarre Life of Hutcheson

Religious disputes in 18th-century Scotland were notoriously intense, but few individuals experienced the full weight of theological rejection as dramatically as Hutcheson. While excommunication was not uncommon in that era, Hutcheson holds the rare distinction of being cast out three separate times—each time by a different religious faction. His "crime" was not immorality or heresy in the conventional sense, but rather an insistence on independent thinking, a refusal to conform to rigid doctrines, and a commitment to religious tolerance far ahead of his time.

This is the story of a man who could not fit in—not because he lacked faith, but because his faith was too broad, too questioning, and too unwilling to submit to religious authority. His repeated excommunications reveal not only his unbreakable intellectual spirit but also the deep divisions within 18th-century Scottish Presbyterianism.