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, […]
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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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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.
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.
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 […]