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 […]
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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). […]
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 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 […]
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 […]