The Trump regime has brought us to the brink of disastrous war. Facing this crisis, will we as a religious community give witness to peace? The following address is as timely and challenging today as it was when first presented by John Howard Yoder in 1984. The text is transcribed from Yoder’s James Luther Adams Lecture at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, in Columbus, Ohio. Yoder (1927-1997), held professorships at the University […]
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I have asked myself, what do I make of the story of Jesus? What does it mean, and what does he mean to me? Seeking answers, not only about Jesus but about myself, I set out several years ago to write a personal commentary on the Gospel of Mark. Why Mark? The book comes second among the four Gospels in the New Testament, but as scholars agree, it was the first written. The others Gospels […]
1998: “Civitas in Horto: Toward a Public Theology for the Chicago Region” Professor J. Ronald Engel Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, Hinsdale, Illinois, May 21 Introduction to Civitas in Horto: Toward a Public Theology for the Chicago Region Ronald Engel, James Luther Adams Forum Lecture, 1998 This lecture, sponsored by Meadville Lombard Theological School and delivered at the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, Illinois, on May 21, 1998, provided Ron with the opportunity to bring together the […]
Who was James Luther Adams and why is he important for those who care about the fate of liberalism—liberal religion and liberal democracy alike—in this age of anxiety? For an answer there is no better place to begin than Adams’s own dialogues at a gathering of the Collegium Association, at Craigville, Massachusetts, in 1986. We have selected the text of “A Time to Speak: Conversations at Collegium” to inaugurate an ongoing series of conversations on […]
“The Soul of Democracy” Dr. Sharon D. Welch, Meadville Lombard Theological School Unity Church—Unitarian, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 3 Respondent, Prof. Wilson Yates, United Theological Seminary The thought and example of James Luther Adams carries significant lessons for countering the rise of authoritarianism today. To be effective “creative builders of community” liberals need to be self-critical with respect to individualism and other biases. _____________ “The Soul of Democracy” Dr. Sharon D. Welch […]
Journalist and author Chris Hedges will deliver the twenty-first James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society on February 18, 2017, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, New Jersey, at 7:00 p.m. Hedges, who studied social ethics with James Luther Adams at Harvard Divinity School, quotes Adams at length in American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007). He is also the author of Way of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (2015) and other books. […]
The Rev. Dr. Gary Dorrien, the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University, delivered the 2015-2016 James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society on November 11, 2015, at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In his essay, “James Luther Adams and the Spirit of Liberal Theology–Then and Now,” Dorrien showed that Adams drew upon liberal thought from Kant to Henry Wieman that develops […]
The 2014–2015 James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society will be held on August 23, 2014, at Gould Farm in Monterey, Massachusetts. The program will begin with a tour at 11:00 a.m., followed by lunch at the nearby Monterey United Church of Christwith produce from the farm, followed by the Forum itself. Gould Farm is a residential therapeutic community. James Luther Adams shared in its leadership and spent his summers there. The two speakers, Virgil Stucker and […]
The eighteenth annual James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society will be given March 18, 2014, by Michael Hogue, associate professor of Theology at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. He will speak on “Towards a Deeper Democracy: James Luther Adams and the Aesthetics of Solidarity.” In the spirit of James Luther Adams, he will critically compare American philosophies of community and advance the idea of aesthetic solidarities as a model for the culturing of […]
DATE AND TIME November 10, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. at Wilson Chapel, Andover Newton Theological School, 210 Herrick Rd., Newton, Massachusetts. RESPONDENTS Prof. Michael Hogue, Rev. Thomas R. Schade ____________________ LECTURE TEXT “What’s Past Is Prologue”: James Luther Adams and the Unitarian Universalists James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society, November 10, 2011, expanded version including footnotes and an appendix on Adams’s engagements with Unitarian Universalist institutions and an appendix on the publication of […]
The James Luther Adams Foundation announces the fifteenth annual James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society. Dr. John R. Wilcox, vice president for mission at Manhattan College, will speak on the topic “Together and by Association: The Legacy of James Luther Adams and the Future of Religious Colleges and Universities.” Dr. Wilcox, a former Marist brother, joined the religious studies faculty of Manhattan College in 1974 and chaired the department for eight years. As vice […]
The James Luther Adams Foundation announces the fourteenth annual James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society. The lecture will be given this year by the well-known Christian ethicist Don S. Browning, the Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Ethics and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The title of his lecture is, “Religion and Civil Society in James Luther Adams, Reformed Theology, and Catholicism.” Professor Browning was a long-time friend of Adams […]
The 2009 James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society will be held Monday, January 12, at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J. The forum will take place at 1:15 p.m. in the Erdman Center. The speaker is Dr. Patrick D. Miller, Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, who will address Adams’s use of the Bible.
The 2007-2008 James Luther Adams Foundation Forum on Religion and Society will be held on April 6, 2008, at 7:00 p.m. at the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas. The lecture will be given by Michelle Campagnolo Bouvier, Secretary General of the Société Européenne de Culture in Venice, Italy. She will discuss her own contacts with Adams as well as his significant relationships with her father, André Bouvier, and her husband, Umberto Campagnolo. She will be setting her […]
This year’s James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society will be held on Tuesday, March 13, 2007, at 5:15 p.m. in the Sperry Lecture Hall of Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The lecture will be given this year by Dr. Harvey G. Cox, Jr., Hollis Professor of Divinity, at the Divinity School. His topic will be “James Luther Adams: Evangelical Unitarian or Unitarian Evangelical?” Professor Cox is eminently qualified to speak on this topic as a […]