The Prophetic Theology of James Luther Adams[1] by George Kimmich Beach April 18, 2022, Easter Sunday For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6: 12 [2] “Liberalism is dead, long live liberalism!” James Luther Adams arrested attention with this opener to a mid-life essay, playing off the ancient announcement of the monarch’s demise […]
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James Luther Adams Foundation www.jameslutheradams.org Board of Trustees: George Kimmich Beach, president (gkbeach@aol.com, 540-948-5317); Rob Packenham, secretary; Norman Faramelli, treasurer; Judith Deutsch, Robert Kraig, James Stillman, Frederick Wooden. Advisory Committee: Richard Boeke, J. Ronald Engel, William Johnson Everett, Galen Guengerich, Doris Hunter, Michael Hogue, Theodore Kraig, Scotty McLennan, Susan Ritchie, Sid Slobodkin, Jeffrey Speaks. Web and Communications Manager: Rob Packenham rpackenham@gmail.com; Web consultant: Christopher Walton February 10, 2022 The Rev. Dr. Stephen C. Mott […]
William Everett, who was James Luther Adams’s teaching assistant in his final year at Harvard and is a member of the Board of James Luther Adams Foundation, now brings a number of his essays into a volume that lifts up the many strands of covenantal thought in his work. A Covenantal Imagination brings together nineteen essays that lay out the many ways his thought is woven through and through with the rich concept of covenant, […]
Newly Republished Edition: (San Diego: Reader’s Magnet Press, 2021, 381 pages) In this book Adams’s leading editor and interpreter provides a comprehensive synthesis of his thought. The book is organized around Adams’s major themes, giving theological context to the numerous anecdotes that made his rhetoric irresistible. This new edition is available from the UUA InSpirit Bookstore, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the author (gkbeach@aol.com). Is Adams still relevant? Current controversy over the meaning of classical […]
James Luther Adams and the Transformation of Liberalism A talk at the UUA General Assembly, Fort Worth, Texas, June 24, 2005 by George Kimmich Beach I want to thank Robin Lovin and John Buehrens for agreeing to comment on Jim Adams and my treatment of his thought in my book, Transforming Liberalism: The Theology of James Luther Adams. Adams deeply influenced students for the ministry (myself and John Buehrens, among them) and countless others who […]
Response to George Kimmich Beach, Transforming Liberalism UUA General Assembly 2005, Fort Worth TX George Beach has given us a remarkable survey of the theology of James Luther Adams, but in the spirit of Jim Adams, what we have here is more than just an interesting story. It is also, as he has made very clear in his presentation, an analysis of the discontents of liberalism at the beginning of the 21st century and an […]
The 2020/2021 James Luther Adams Forum was a success! After more than a yearlong delay due to Covid-19, the Forum was held on October 29, 2021 at the University of Virginia. You can read and/or watch below Charles Mathewes’ timely and deeply probing lecture “The Future of American Christianity after the Religious Right” and the response by William J. Everett at the 2020/2021 JLAF Forum. Charles Mathewes Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies at […]
Join us for the 2021 James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society with speaker Dr. Charles Mathewes, Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia. Professor Mathewes will speak on “The Future of American Christianity after the Religious Right.” DATE, TIME, & LOCATION Friday, October 29, 2021, 3 p.m. ET, 110 Monroe Hall on the Grounds of University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. Can’t attend in person? A video recording of the Forum […]
Based on newly processed home movies by James Luther Adams, never shown before, of Germany’s most prominent Christian leaders of the 1930s. A film about the church and the Nazis. James Luther Adams, professor emeritus of Christian ethics, and George Huntston Williams, professor emeritus of church history, recount their personal remembrances of these influential leaders and discuss the dynamics of that turbulent period. No Authority but from God (28 minutes). Personal reflections of both pro-Nazi and […]
Some highlights of recent activity on the JLAF website: The JLAF 2021 Forum Date is announced; a new post from George Kimmich Beach “The Jacob’s Ladder of an Examined Faith”; John A. Buehrens writes on “How James Luther Adams Became Important to Me and Why He Still Is,” and JLA’s historic home video “No Authority But From God” is available now to view. JLAF 2021 Forum Date Announced The 2021 James Luther Adams Forum has […]
“An unexamined faith is not worth having,” said James Luther Adams. What, then, is a faith worth having? The essay below links three sermons on transcendence, a foundational element in any faith tradition and for this reason, central to theology—that is, critical and creative reflection on religion. This work had its origin in theme talks presented at The Point, a Unitarian Universalist family conference in Oklahoma in 2018. The three sermons here reproduced were presented […]
JLA and the Lure of Process Like many who attended Harvard Divinity School, I had the pleasure of visiting with James Luther Adams at his home in Cambridge. He customarily invited all the Unitarian Universalist students on an annual basis for an evening of conversation. Jim was a gracious host and renowned scholar nearing the age of eighty and I was a twenty-seven year old in search of a philosophy and vocation. I appreciate all […]
In his mid-life autobiographical essay, “Taking Time Seriously,” James Luther Adams notes the profound effect that singing in the chorus for a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor had on him. Recounting the experience a decade later, he speaks of being emotionally overwhelmed—at once both humbled and exalted: “In the language of Kierkegaard, I was forced out of the spectator into the existential attitude.”[1] Here follows the Preface and Table of Contents to the […]
“We Unitarian Universalists have been living off the intellectual capital of James Luther Adams for half a century now.” It was in the 1980s. The speaker was a respected older UU minister. His assertion surprised me at first, since he was a self-declared religious humanist, while JLA was clearly a UU Christian. After serving for forty years as both UUA President and as an historian, my sense of the depth of our indebtedness to JLA […]
The 2021 James Luther Adams Forum has been scheduled for October 29, 2021. Date and Location: Friday, October 29, 2021, 2-5 p.m. ET, Wilson Hall 301, on the Grounds of University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. The Forum will also be broadcast online (details TBD). See the 2021 Forum announcement for speaker and details. The Forum was postponed from the previously announced dates in November, 2020 and April 2021. The above date is the new date, […]
Fathers’ Day, June 21, 2020 With deep sadness we mark the death of the Reverend Dr. David Boynton Parke, on June 6, 2020. He fell while walking to the nearby home of his daughter, Robin, in Boston, Massachusetts, and died from his head injury a few days later. David had a long career in parish and interim ministry for Unitarian Universalist churches. During his retirement he became a member of the Board of Trustees and, […]
Peter Iver Kaufman: IF MEMORY SERVES “David doesn’t email,” Kim Beach emailed me. I had hoped to offer David Parke a partnership: he would respond to the Dialog prompt about JLA, and I would append my getting to know him through David’s admiration many years ago. That won’t be possible–at least the first part–but i suspect the Dialog series has room for a revised second part. If memory serves, Kim and I were waiting for […]
by the Reverend Judith Deutsch Professor Farley, in his excellent address, has told us many things about Adams’ approach to religion. but Id like you to know that Adams, a Christian and a theist, said: “… If we discover what persons really…will cling to as the principle or reality without which life would lose its meaning, we shall have discovered their religion, their god.” And I want you to know that James Luther Adams was […]
How James Luther Adams Became Important to Me and Why He Still Is by Judith Deutsch I first met JLA in 1975 in the home of Max Stackhouse (a theologian and social ethicist who was then a professor at Andover Newton Theological School) when Max invited some of his students to meet and talk with Jim. Other than Jim, I was the only Unitarian Universalist present. Max was my adviser and professor and, when […]
Jared A. Farley, Ph.D. New Mexico Military Institute Presented at the University of New Mexico, November 10, 2019 Respondents: The Reverend Angela Herrera and the Reverend Judith Deutsch The Political Life, Influence and Philosophy of James Luther Adams Read the response by Angela Herrera. Read the response by Judith Deutsch. Introduction Scholars regard James Luther Adams as the most influential Unitarian theologian of the 20th century (Adams, Not Without Dust & Heat 1995, 2). […]
James Luther Adams—Luther to his family, JLA to his colleagues and students, Jim to his friends—profoundly influenced countless others. How and why this was so can best be known by what they say about him—his stories, his intellectual probes and moral passions. Here’s the first in an occasional series—statements by those who may or may not have known him personally– on his importance to them. We look forward to more installments in the series. […]
This is one of two responses to Professor Jared Aaron Farley’s 2019 James Luther Adams Forum on Religion and Society, presented at the University of New Mexico. —GKB Response to the James Luther Adams Forum Lecture The Rev. Angela Herrera, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque November 10, 2019 University of New Mexico Thank you so much to Dr. Farley for his thoughtful presentation. I’m honored to be invited as a respondent this […]
James Luther Adams noted that “the quality of Jesus’ words was matched only by the quality of his life. Indeed, if he had not possessed his power with words, we would not now know about the power of his life.” The Gospels of the New Testament are the primary source of what we know of Jesus’ life and words. My personal commentary on the Gospel of Mark, The Seminal Gospel: Forty Days with Mark, was […]
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 […]
The liberal Christian outlook is directed to a Power that is living, that is active in love seeking concrete manifestation, and that finds decisive response in the living posture and gesture of Jesus of Nazareth.” — James Luther Adams 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 […]
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. […]
James Luther Adams and Unitarian Universalist History Professor Dan McKanan, Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts “Adams’s role as historical actor—someone who directly shaped the evolution of institutions and the unfolding of events—has been widely acknowledged but not deeply examined. I propose to undertake such an examination. . . .” Click to read 2017 McKanan Forum lecture.
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 […]
What’s in a name? Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labor to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of […]
Rev. Dr. Gary Dorrien Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University Presented on November 11, 2015, at Union Theological Seminary in New York City James Luther Adams and the Spirit of Liberal Theology Watch the presentation and read the full text of lecture below. This occasion is beautiful, and rare, because very few theologians inspire a society that keeps alive their name and […]
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 […]
Michael Hogue Associate Professor of Theology at Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago Presented on March 18, 2014 at Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago Michael Hogue spoke on “Towards a Deeper Democracy: James Luther Adams and the Aesthetics of Solidarity.” In the spirit of James Luther Adams, he critically compares American philosophies of community and advances the idea of aesthetic solidarities as a model for the culturing of deep democracy in a postsecular, pluralistic society. American […]
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 […]
Patrick D. Miller Professor of Old Testament theology at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1984 to 2005. Presented at Princeton Theological Seminary, January 12, 2009. James Luther Adams as Biblical Theologian Read the Patrick Miller Forum Lecture.
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 […]
James Luther Adams: Evangelical Unitarian or Unitarian Evangelical? Professor Harvey Cox Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2007 What Cox learned from Adams helped him “understand the progressive contribution of evangelicals and Pentecostals in Latin America, and in Brazil in particular,” illustrating Adams’s interest in “how institutional patterns that arise first in religious congregations can ultimately shape and transform the larger society.” Click to read Cox Forum lecture.
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 […]
Rosemary Radford Reuther Pacific School of Religion Response by Zayn Kassam, Claremont School of Theology Presented at Claremont School of Theology, Claremont CA, April 20, 2006 Read Rosemary Radford Reuther Forum Lecture with Response.
Liberalism and World Order: The Thought of James Luther Adams Professor David Little, Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School, April 23, 2003 A consideration of the connection that Adams saw between religion and progressive liberalism, relating to his experience of the churches under Nazi Germany and the problem of international terrorism today. Click to read 2003 Forum David Little lecture
Howard J. Berman Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law and Harvard Law School Presented on February 6, 2002, at Emory University Faith and Law in a Multicultural World It is an honor to be asked to give the 2002 annual lecture in honor of James Luther Adams, a great scholar, a great teacher, a great man. I remember him well, and miss his wisdom and his wit. He lives on, not only in […]
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 […]
Max L. Stackhouse Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary Presented at House of the Redeemer, St.Peter’s Lutheran Church. New York, NY, November 2, 1996 Graceful Prophecy: James Luther Adams’s Theology of Art and Ethics He was, above all, a social ethicist. He drew deeply from the Christian tradition, and believed it was the surest basis for reason and for morality, but he did so with a profoundly liberal sensibility, and with […]