Tag Archives: james luther adams

12/30/09

Resolution Day

New Year’s Day is a day for resolutions, often taking the form of freeing ourselves from slavery to addictions, obsessions, and other bad habits.  This renewal through promises to be stronger, healthier, and wiser celebrates one of the cornerstones of American Unitarian Reform: commitment of character.

AUR strives not to promote false salvation, moral justification, and consolation on the cheap, whether its the sort of “bow to dogma and your soul will be spared” comfort of many conservative churches or the “I’m okay, you’re okay, nothing we believe really matters” comfort of many liberal churches.

Spiritual peace and strength are not won by reciting a confession or catechism as if they were magic spells, or by impulsively tossing your life over to God like a hot potato for which you can abdicate all responsibility.

Nor is spiritual peace achieved through conflict-averse relativism or laissez-faire creedlessness, what Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams described unflatteringly as religion you can’t flunk.

Peace, strength, and freedom are achieved only through a resolute struggle, by committing of one’s character to moral growth and accepting a higher Good beyond one’s desires and instincts.  New Year’s Day, what AUR calls Resolution Day, provides a unique opportunity to stamp these commitments into our memory at the turning of the calendar.
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06/4/09

Post-Cynical Religion Part Two – Smashing the Iconoclasm

Part one of this sermon (posted last Thursday) reflected on the rational cynicism that is evident in the ministry of Jesus, and necessary for genuine Faith, Hope, and Christian Love.

While many churches — all along the political spectrum from conservative to liberal — offer a naïve comfort that turns a blind eye to the cynical realities of the world, AUR refuses to offer “salvation on the cheap” through the false faith of sin-dumping confessional conformism or the false hope of sin-denying celebratory relativism.

Reform Unitarianism recognizes that true Christianity (and, indeed, true religion regardless of its sectarian idiom) is post-cynical, and its comforting truths lie on the other side of a blood-sweating struggle against instincts of self-preservation and sociability, and the “unchallengeable” sacred cows of culture. Continue reading →

05/28/09

Post-Cynical Religion Part One – Christian Cynicism

While many churches — all along the political spectrum from conservative to liberal — offer a naïve comfort that turns a blind eye to the cynical realities of the world, AUR refuses to offer “salvation on the cheap” through sin-dumping confessional conformism or sin-denying celebratory relativism.

Reform Unitarianism recognizes that true Christianity (and, indeed, true religion regardless of its sectarian idiom) is post-cynical, and its comforting truths lie on the other side of a blood-sweating struggle with self-preservation, social/psychological instinct, and the “unchallengeable” sacred cows of culture.
Continue reading →