Compiled by John Addington

On our Universalist mission, undated
The liberal spirit in religion shines most brightly when elsewhere it is most dark. This is as it should be. To exalt the human spirit, to widen human liberty, to promote and defend exercise of the individual mind and conscience, to uplift the dignity and hope of every human being is the unique mission of Universalism.

From a sermon on Oct. 26, 1975:
It is one of the happiest facts of human existence that, like every buried seed struggling toward the sun, every single generation has had a few poets, dreamers and prophets who have kept the star-gate open to a wider human consciousness.

From The Growing Place, undated
The dark night of the soul, those places of death, of bitter remorse, and sorrow and pain and loss and endings and pointlessness and despair and silence are not what they seem. They are growing places where the seeds of humanity are silently gathering strength down there in the dark for what Robert Frost called "our ever breaking newness." Which is to say they are growing places.  Greet them when they come as familiars if not friends . . . look them in the eye with courage. What time has wasted must be renewed. There is but one place where time and death have no dominion: that place is love.

On Hardship
The last paragraph of a sermon titled “Hard Places”
To sum up, then: (1) Suffering, as the Buddha once said, is universal, and hard places are the shortest and surest road to learning kindness, tolerance, forgiveness.  (2) Acceptance of change is the second great lesson we learn from having been in hard places. The art of letting go; Life will not necessarily be worse, only different. (3) To find the true north within yourself and live to it will bring you 'round right, no matter what life does to you. These are the important uses of the hard places in every life. To use our hard places as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, to be created by them rather than destroyed by them is our part in the great game of life.

On Progressiveness
A benediction given and the 163rd commencement of his alma mater, Bowdoin College on June 15, 1968
“As the generation of leaves, so is that of men.” HOMER.
Ye of the tender leaf, stand in the presence of those who are no more, and know that all men bear upon their frame the marks of the tortuous journey through ages!
Together have we traveled, and none has arrived far ahead of the others. Constrained are we by the same forces, and made mighty by the same powers. Travelers are we all whose eternal journey is toward the future: climbing barriers, crossing mountains, through the gaping centuries we stride out into the unknown, into the unseen; and in our blood the trumpet sounds: “Beyond all borders, go beyond!

FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO A BOOK OF HIS SERMONS, ‘THIS STRANGE AND WONDROUS JOURNEY’
What I would like to say to the people of the future is this:
You will look back on us with astonishment at the truths that stared us in the face, and which we did not see. You will look with wonder at the bright toys, which we created, and used only for the rape of the planet, and one another.
It will seem strange and beyond believing that we reached for the stars, and did not know the simplest keys for living well together.
But know this also, you of the future, you with your libraries and fountains, you in your star cities. Know that even in our slumbers we dreamed. In our fumbling, shadowed search for mistaken glories, even in our clumsy cruelties, it was for you that we dreamed.
Beneath the piled up centuries, below the lost and ruined rubble of our striving, it was you who lay safe-enfolded in the womb of our dreaming: you, the first cause of all our daring. Even now it comforts me to know that it shall be one day as the Way Showers have for centuries foretold.
In that far age and in the chrysalis of time, it shall be your glory and a cause of pride that, born into a universe without justice or mercy, our kind bethought itself of justice and mercy, and put them there.
Remember us for this: that in our wildest wanderings, never did we forsake that dream!

A QUOTATION FROM HIM CONTAINED IN A LETTER FROM THE PRAIRIE STAR DISTRICT NOMINATING HIM (SUCCESSFULLY) FOR THE DENOMINATION’S ANNUAL AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO THE CAUSE OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM:
The flame of the liberal spirit in religion shines most brightly when elsewhere it is most dark. This is as it should be. To exalt the human spirit, to widen human liberty, to promote and defend exercise of the individual mind and conscience, to uplift the dignity and hope of
every human being is the unique mission of Universalism.
In periods of human progress, they flower; in times of regression they are cut down and crucified; in bleak times, they sleep like seeds beneath the snow waiting for another spring. But they are always there! Let the doomsayers and the preachers about sin explain that away if they can!

On our historical forebears
A SONG IN THE FACE OF DEATH, UNDATED: MORE ON THE IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE:
We . . .  are the living immortality of all those who have gone before us. Our art, music, our ideas and philosophies, our laws and civilizations, the very humanity we have slowly brought forth from out of the raw stuff of existence . . .  All these are the living immortality of millions up on millions of human beings who have walked across the earth before us. . . . Each of us, a pilgrim, climbs eternally the mountain of the past, and when we reach the peak, and see what is to be seen therefrom, we lie down upon that mountain of human experience, and the small measure of our dust adds to its height, whereby our peers, companions, and those who come after us may see a small way further than we.

FROM JESUS OF NAZARETH, UNDATED
The error of history is simply to have chosen the wrong miracles, the miracle of superstition (because it was safer and less fearful) rather than the miracle of life.  The true miracle is that goodness continues to blossom, in the human heart and in every season, like the flowers and the grass, and it never has been and it never can be killed. Because it IS there! And it can be there for us, if we so choose!

On tolerance
THE ELUSIVE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE, UNDATED
I often feel a Unitarian Universalist has arrived when s/he can return, perhaps at Christmas, to the bosom of a more orthodox family and/or childhood church and attend its rituals with respect, tenderness and affection, knowing what it means to them and accepting it for that, and for the beauty of itself.

It has sometimes been said that the reasons Unitarian Universalists don’t sing hymns very well is because they are too busy reading the next line to see if they agree with it. If you have not arrived at the point where you can say, “You’re you, and I’m me, and that’s okay,” and mean it, then you have achieved a measure of tolerance.

. . . But aren’t there some things one ought to be intolerant of? Certainly, but not persons! If Adolf Hitler applied for membership in this church, we should admit him, figuring he needed it more than most. He would doubtless feel uncomfortable with our collection of values here, but we should have to welcome him, or drop the appellation UNIVERSAL, and our claim of belief in the supreme worth of every human personality.

THE FAITH OF AN ATHEIST, UNDATED
We all become atheists with regard to lesser beliefs as we outgrow and replace them with larger ones. It is a terrible mistake to categorize others who happen to be at a different place in their religious development than our own. To avow anything at any time of life is to disavow others. Real religion is a living, growing thing .  . . . To equate the words irreligious, immoral and atheist is only to admit the dearth of your own understanding.

On UU Belief
JOURNEYS OF THE HEART, UNDATED
What is religion? Your religion is your total belief and behavior. No one living is without a religion. Atheists are religious. Agnostics are religious. Hedonists are religious. . . . You are religious! . . . If you really want to know what you believe, all you need to do is look at your check stubs. What you spend your time and money on that is what you believe in. . .  Joining a liberal church never signifies that one has arrived at a set of beliefs, but only agreement to a process of open inquiry.

THE TRUTH ABOUT UNIVERSALISM, UNDATED
The chief criticism of Universalism by traditional Christians is that it is a patchwork of artificial borrowings from various traditions, a meaningless “potpourri” without roots or belonging, and as such is shallow, hollow, immature. This accusation . . . must be addressed. I address it briefly by pointing out that every religion on earth has always borrowed, knowingly or otherwise, from every religion around it, and every religion that went before it, including Judaism and Christianity. Thus Jesus  . . . prayed “Our father, who art in heaven,” lifting a concept of  “The Sky Father” directly from the Zoroastrian religion of Persia that existed centuries before he was born.

A SONG IN THE FACE OF DEATH, UNDATED:
(this could be part of a compilation on atheism, including ’the faith of an atheist’ in the book  “this strange and wondrous journey.)
To traditional Christians who believe our salvation is dependent on the sacrifice of one person long ago, we must say . . .  what Hamlet said to Horatio: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”  
As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I am regularly asked what I believe about immortality. And the question implies that if I do not believe in the Resurrection of Christ, why then, what meaning can life possibly have for us? Do we just live and die, and there’s the end of it? My answer is, “Yes, we die; each of us and all of us go down to that great democracy from which there is no return. . . . Nor are we meant to live forever. No living thing endures.  . . .  And yet, no soul that ever lived, no spirit, however dim, no life, however brief,  has ever tread this strange and wondrous journey between the gates of birth and death without leaving its precious and unique bequest with the ongoing stream of life. . . . It is the immortality of influence . . .  Our victories of character remain to bless all humanity forever!

YOU, ME, AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE , 1971
We who are Christians, but not Christian, Jews who would be more than Jewish, have become like the ancient Phoenicians, inhabitant of no single culture but travelers and traders between cultures, interpreters of the Jew to the Moslem, the Buddhist to the Christian, the Catholic to the Protestant, of the agnostic to the believer, seeking to build a universal human community of understanding.

FROM A PAMPHLET TITLED THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS, UNDATED
The speed of change has caught our generation driving down the super highway of modern technology in model "T" institutions and with antique concepts in our minds. That is not only disconcerting; it is dangerous! The past is littered with the ruins of civilizations and the graveyards of species that proved incapable of coping with changed situations that confronted them. Our ancient mindsets, the old provincialisms, religions, and national loyalties now dangerously divide the human family. There is desperate need in today's world for a broader, more inclusive view of human life.
The Unitarian Universalists have created a religious movement that is intended to meet that need. It is based upon what we really know about the universe today. It seeks to appreciate the best in each of the religions that come down to us from the past, and to remain open to new understandings.  It is appropriate to the needs of One World. . . . Unitarian Universalism is nothing less than a drawing together of all the ancient hopes and dreams of humanity in a new religious consensus, formulated in and appropriate for the new world that is coming to birth in our time.

On his beliefs
BEGGING FOR GOD, UNDATED
Those of you who know me well have seldom heard me use the word “God,” except possibly when I stub my toe. Begging for God, for all things good, for health, for wholeness, for holiness, is what ministers do. A truly liberating ministry stands always with both passion and compassion, between two worlds: the world as it is, and the world as it might be.  . . .  Every human community from the beginning of recorded history has felt the need of such a person. Like the oracle, the shaman, the witch doctor, the guru, the holy man, philosopher, poet, rabbi, the pastor, priest or prophet.

The minister is set apart from the normal routine of the marketplace, from “getting and spending” to reflect on the meaning of life, to range through the storehouse of human knowledge, and to measure the issue of the moment against the totality of human existence.

MY IDEA OF GOD, UNDATED
[It is not] in the least necessary to argue for belief in God. If God exists, then he exists, whether we believe in him or not.  . . If, on the other hand, there is no God, but only an eternally existing universe, then, I think, our moral and religious duty is to develop a Doctrine of Human Destiny, based on the best we can know or find out, and base our actions on that . . .  Some might say that this is an arrogant atheism, but I believe it to be a deeply religious and humble outlook on life.

A RELIGION OF YOUR OWN, ANOTHER TAKE ON THE IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE, UNDATED:
I have never believed in a hereafter . . .  What I do believe is that each person born into the world is totally unique, a new creation, a fresh and radiant possibility. I further believe in the immortality of influence … that each life makes a contribution that is totally unique, and which only that person can make …which becomes a part of the ongoing stream of life.  . . .  I believe that our mistakes and weaknesses die with us, but that our victories of kindness and character remain to bless humanity forever.

WHY I AM A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST, UNDATED
I am a Unitarian Universalist because . . . There is absolutely no evidence of a “hereafter,” nor for that matter is there any evidence of a “heretofore.”  A short time ago, I did not exist. A short time hence, and I shall not exist. . . .
I am a prisoner of light, limited inexorably to those few golden moments of awareness in which I have been somehow thrown up out of eternity. I have examined every nook and cranny of my prison of light.
All Christian theologians and landings on the moon to the contrary, there is no escape. I am a mortal man and always will be. Yet, the darkness on either side of my life does not frighten me. It only makes the light in my crevasse of time that much more sharply, blindingly bright. . . .
I am a Unitarian Universalist because I believe there is no eternal life outside this prison, and if there were, I should wish for no salvation for myself unless or until I could take all other men of earth with me.

Giving Thanks
THE EARTH IS ONE, UNDATED. ITS ENTIRETY IS JUST THESE THREE PARAGRAPHS:
Thanks be for those of every age and tradition, of every land and religion, in whose hearts have been peace, and who have sought to invest the green and fruitful earth with the golden gifts of equity, community, and good will.

The earth is one! Let every mosque and temple, every roadside shrine and cathedral, proclaim it! Let the halls of nations ring with it! The earth is one!

And may every child of earth be increasingly free from bondage of the mind and of the spirit, until the hills and the skies and the seas shall dance, and almighty justice cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

FROM AN UNDATED THANKSGIVING SERMON
The offering of thanks often is, and ought to be, a deeply personal act --a delicate and private gesture which often may take the form of deed as well as words.  When this happens, the giving of thanks becomes one the most fundamental and spontaneous of human deeds: the giving of goodness to one another. Giving is a holy act. What we give to the world, here or any place else, is the only true measure of our worth to the world: a healthy child, a creative idea, a kindness that eases someone's pain. In such gifts rests our true worth and the seeds of our immortality.  All else, what we get through accidents or fortune or acquisitiveness, is irrelevant and of no significance.

On Prayer
FROM GOD, PRAYER AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 1982
Prayer is what you wish, want and hope for more than anything else in the world, the deepest desire of your soul.  . . . It is wise and healthful for us human beings to take regular moments . . . To reflect and bring to the surface in our conscious minds just what our deepest desires may be.
In the end, however, prayer is action, for no one who has a truly held desire or belief fails to act upon it.  . . . Hidden from view in the school prayer issue is the pernicious idea that those who don’t pray in accepted manner are really responsible for all America’s problems--immorality, drug use, crime, and the breakup of homes as we have known them, not to mention “secular humanism,” atheism and anti-religion.

On Politics    
FROM REAGANOMICS, FROM THE 1980s
Reaganomics, "supply side economics," a return to the law of the jungle, is not only simplistic and cruel; it is also dangerous and unworkable. If any here still think it is a good idea, let him reflect that the comfortable American middle class of today was made possible by such things as the G.I. loan that gave a college education to millions, the Social Security act which protects his mother, and the 4% G.I. loan that finances his home; all of which are forms of "welfare."  . . . Civilization requires more than private morality. It requires social morality, morality in the system. Civilization did not rise out of the jungle and the swamp through competition but through cooperation; through reasonable distribution of the means of existence among all its members.

On Censorship
FROM A SERMON ON DEC. 12, 1963:
If freedom fails in this great complex, modern democracy, how will it fail? Certainly not from without, and certainly not from the enslavement of men’s bodies! But more subtly as befits our age, through the enslavement of men’s minds and loyalties . . . If you cannot destroy an idea, you can at least prevent it from reaching the mind to begin with . . . Through censorship . . . By library trustees who are selective about what they make available to the public . . . Through religious censorship boards . . . Through committees or public citizens who make themselves self-appointed guardians of other people’s children . . . Through parents who do not trust their children and young people to be exposed to all magazines, TV shows, and books, and to judge for themselves what is good.
How else, but by exposure to the good, bad, and indifferent, can they learn to discriminate for themselves?  . .  Through school committees which ban books on and the teaching of communism in the public schools, and through newspapers always slanted so that nothing under the communist label is ever right. . . . How can we fight communism if we don’t know what it is?

On Women
FROM WOMEN AS LEADERS, 1974
He recalls the milestones and struggles of Universalist and Unitarian women ministers:
Maria Cook, who preached to the General Convention of Universalists in New York in 1811 and was presented with an informal letter of recognition as a preacher of the Universalist Gospel but tore it up as "an insincere token of fellowship" and yet struggled on by preaching to small congregations on the western frontier.
Olympia Brown, ordained by the Northern Universalist Association in 1863, the first woman ordained by any U.S. denomination, and who served a number of small congregations in the Midwest.
Augusta J. Chapin, ordained also in 1863 and the first woman in America to receive a doctor of divinity degree.
"In the shadows are the many lesser known Unitarian Universalist women ministers who themselves earned doctorates and Ph.D.s, who wrote books and fought brilliantly for human liberties, but  . . . served as little known and poorly paid circuit riders on the rural frontiers of America. . .
"The Universalist Register of 1904 showed only about 60 women ministers among us, about one-half of whom were in regular pastoral work -- meaning that only half of them could persuade the churches to hire them. In the Directory of the Unitarian Universalist Association for 1973, there are only 30 women listed as ministers.
"Today as we face the issues of our engagement with life in the seventies, will there be those -- even in the liberal church -- who, faced with the prospect and possibility of women as leaders, will say, as did the College Dean of over 100 years ago, 'I would be glad to have her, but several trustees and members  . . . some of them no doubt women, . . feel it to be too great an experiment.' "
Will the day EVER come, I sometimes wonder, when a major Unitarian Universalist church in a major city will seek out and . . . employ a woman as their minister?"

Biographical inspiration
FROM AN UNIDENTIFIED ARTICLE, PROBABLY FROM A NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSPAPER, ON JOHN’S INSTALLATION AS MINISTER OF FIRST UNIVERSALIST CHURCH IN 1963. THIS IS THE END OF A BRIEF ESSAY THAT WAS PUBLISHED ALONG WITH HIS RESUME.
The first truly religious insight of my life was given to me by a biology teacher in seventh grade who, on a field trip along the ocean beach, picked up a spiraled conch lying empty in the sand, recited Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “The Chambered Nautilus.”
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll,
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple,
Nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven
With a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outworn shell
By life’s unresting sea.”

Compiled by John Addington

About scientific progress as no substitute for human solutions
From “THE FORGOTTEN DREAM,” APRIL 29, 1933
We live in an age of multiplied helps and devices, but they do not solve any of our real problems . . . The multiplication of electrical and mechanical devices  . . . throw no light upon the main thing, the great and noble ideals and the higher dreams of life and how to reach them. On the other hand, it is these alone which give meaning and purpose to all the ingenious appliances which science and invention have bestowed. But it is the dreams and aspirations which we too often forget.
Let us remember that these accessories are HELPS AND NOT SUBSTITUTES. They enable us to do our work more easily and swiftly.  . . . But the work is still the object. Even a robot is no substitute for brains . . .
It is the risk of losing the main thing which CONFRONTS THE CHURCH  as well as the individual. We need machinery, organization, in Church work. But after all our solution is not in machinery. . . .
And so it seems to me sometimes as if our churches have been forced almost to give up religion just to look after and finance the machine. . . . Keep the machine. Improve it. Use it. But never forget its object. Never forget the dream of Jesus. Never forget that the church is the instrument through which that dream must be realized.

About the role of Jesus
“THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JESUS,” preached by Dr. Shutter on Easter, March 19, 1939, was chosen by him on the day before his death at 86 on August 31, 1939, as the Women’s Association’s first pamphlet publication of the fall season.
In all ages Jesus has presented a problem to be solved instead of a life to be lived. The ordinary discussions about Jesus try to prove that he was God or at least some supernatural being; that he existed before his advent at Bethlehem; that he came into this world by an event that transcended the laws of nature; and that he lived in a region of miracle and in close companionship with beings who were not of earth. . . .
I am not going to try to find out how much of him was God and how much of him was man. . . . The Trinity and his relation to it are questions of abstract theological mathematics, and have no more to do with the conduct of life than Einstein’s theory of relativity.
What I am concerned with today is not what Jesus meant to another generation . . . The question is: “what does he mean today?”
He looked ahead and believed that something of him was going to survive, that his words at least would live, though earth and heaven passed.
But something more than that. The influence of Jesus in the world now and always is the influence of a great personality. . . .
I tell you that his teachings are vital enough to be at the bottom of the unrest, the confusion, the conflicts of this unsettled world. . . .
Jesus is still the head of a mighty enterprise. This man dared to dream of a moral conquest of the world. He dared to make it the one purpose of his life.  . . .
He is still the interpreter and inspiration of life. . . . Jesus still stands in the world as the basis of our hopes for the future.

About infallibility of the Bible
From “THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE MODERN WORLD,” undated.
When I am told that I must accept the Bible as literally and infallibly inspired and without error, I ask, “By what right does anyone say I am not a Christian if I refuse?  . . . Who shall demand that I accept the accounts in Genesis or the story of Jonah? Who shall demand that I accept the New Testament mythology about Jesus -- the supernatural birth, His miraculous control of the elements, the resurrection of His body?  . . .
Do not tie up your religion with any unhistorical statements of Scripture, with any theological or economic system.  If you do, your religion will last only till these statements and theories are discredited.  . . . Build your life and your religion upon Christ’s life.
Nor has science any real conflict with religion. It has changed our ideas about the nature of the Universe . . . But it has not changed our ideas about the spirit of Christ in the heart.

About Death
From a pamphlet “NATURALNESS OF THE LIFE HEREAFTER,” an Easter sermon preached on April 20, 1933, published by the Women’s Association and printed by the Boy’s Printing Club.
Let us admit that we are largely in a realm of conjecture. We cannot speak with absolute certainty. Time after time, I have felt my utter helplessness in the presence of bereavement. “I do not know! I do not know!”  This has been my answer so often when questioned about the destiny or condition of those who have passed away. But, “What do you believe? What do you think?”
I believe that we live on; that if you or I should die tonight, we should be living tomorrow -- our own conscious selves!  “But how would you prove it?” I cannot prove it. I do not pretend to prove it. I believe it, because I am made that way; because having been once introduced into the universe, I see no way of getting out of it; because the power that brought us here cannot afford to destroy the spirit of man, its noblest work; because, if I am a part of God, I shall last as long as God lasts!

From “MAETERLINCK AND LIFE AFTER DEATH,” an article written for the Minneapolis Journal of Oct. 13, 1913.  
NOTE: Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet, dramatist and philosopher, had written an article in the Century magazine, one of the leading national magazines of the day, on scientific investigations into what Shutter calls “certain classes of  phenomena which seemed unrelated to the material world, such as apparitions, table-tipping, messages through mediums, and all that borderland of mystery.”
[Many Universalists in the late 19th century were interested in these phenomena, which must have led to Shutter’s article, strange as it seems to us today. Maeterlinck comes to no definite conclusion, though he cites many purported incidents described by reputable people. ]
Personally, I have no prejudice against the doctrine of transmigration. What I say upon this or any other theory, I say as dispassionately as if I were discussing a problem in mathematics; and with the utmost respect and consideration for all who differ. . .
Our conclusion is that, whatever dormant faculties the soul may have awakened and developed, whatever new and strange knowledge may now be communicated in ways as new and strange, yet the veil that hides the hereafter is  . . . dark and impenetrable. The demonstration has not yet been made; and speaking for myself -- if not for others -- I do not care whether it shall ever be made or not. If others need it and believe they have found it, I bid them Godspeed!
I am speaking again for myself  . . . When I say that no outward proofs could add to the certainty of that conviction which I find in my own nature, the conviction that if I die tonight, I shall somewhere, in God’s great universe, be alive tomorrow!  . . . It is a matter of faith and hope. It is a belief in the sanity of the universe and the love and wisdom of the power behind it. It is a faith in the eternal righteousness and justice of the system in which we live. It is a conviction of the rational outcome of human life and human destiny.     

About Politics
From “READY FOR THE QUESTION?” Dated Nov. 1, 1936, the Sunday before the Roosevelt-Landon presidential election.
Standing in the Valley of Decision, it is a good time to ask ourselves what we really think of our campaign methods.
What do we really think about the violence, the abuse, the “mud?” . . . Do we really believe all the mean things that we said and applauded about the candidates?  . . . It offends me when such terms as “scab” and “liar” and “Communist” applied to the president of the United States. Equally do I resent the disgraceful epithets applied to his opponent, which reduce him to the intellectual status of a cabbage head. And above all do I resent the caricature of the Supreme Court at the “Washington Merry-go-round” [a syndicated political column in newspapers].  Is it true that common decency has no place in a political campaign? . . .
We must consider, too, that no matter how the elections go next Tuesday, there will be many problems left unsolved for the coming administration to take up.  [He lists unemployment, poor relief, Social Security, the question of the future of the industrial order, the budget, taxation and tariffs]  . . . The builders of the Chinese Wall and of the Pyramids of Egypt, if they look down on [Jan. 20, 1937] may well congratulate themselves that they lived when life was simple and jobs were easy!

About anti-war sentiments
From a talk delivered to the Home Folks’ Association on March 25, 1918. The Association was apparently composed of family members and friends of soldiers. The talk is a denunciation of people opposing the war.
I am glad to meet with you and with you hear these messages from the front. These letters are the real thing. In the presence of a great crisis, the heart speaks in its truest terms. These boys are teaching us (1) Duty, (2) Sacrifice, (3) the value of the Spiritual. . . .
We send back to our boys the assurance of our sympathy and backing.  . . . They will take care of the foe at the front, if we take care of the foe at the rear.
The insidious character of this opposition at home, it is difficult to measure and handle. One thing about it is that (1) it never denounces the crimes of the enemy, but dwells upon our own defects. If it is proposed to punish a criminal red with murder and black with lust, the pacifist says: “Stay your hand, judge; remember you have a wart on your nose or a mole on your chin.” (2) Advises forgiveness. An article I read this afternoon, suggests that we get together in our churches and pray for a forgiving spirit. That will end the war -- the writer says.  There are two conditions that are laid down in Scripture, as conditions of forgiveness: (1) Repentance, and (2) Restitution. When Germany shows some signs of complying, it will be time enough to forgive.  . . .
First is to be settled whether we continue as American freemen or pass into slaves of Germany. . .
The great question is whether we shall fight with one hand tied behind us, and with our feet hobbled and with a flint-lock in the free hand, or whether we are going to fight with both hands, with the best weapons, with the whole power of the body behind the hands and the whole power of the soul behind the body!

From a talk entitled “CITIZENS MILITARY TRAINING CAMPS,” delivered at an American Legion meeting at the St. Paul Hotel on April 10, 1930.
In spite of Kellogg peace pacts, the government still makes appropriations for Citizens’ Military Training Camps. I assume that the government sees no inconsistency. The conditions that prevail in the world are more significant than treaties. The things out of which war grows are in force -- nationalism, economic pressure, pressure of population, fear and suspicion.  . . .
I believe in [such training] in spite of the treaties. I believe in it in spite of the objections of pacifists: [They say that the training is] a form of militarism, gloss it over as we may. Training young men for war is not the best way to bring peace.
[My answer is] What is militarism? The control of the Civil Power by the military. In this country the Army is the instrument of the Civil Power. .  . . [The camps are] Not the best way to bring peace? I am not so sure. The object of military training is to prepare youth for citizenship; and as one of the duties of citizenship is to uphold the government, this training will help them to defend it. When it is understood that they are able and willing, to defend their country, the chances of peace will have been measurably advanced. Peace is assured where the power exists to maintain it.
NOTE: The reader should be aware that Shutter’s son was a career Army officer.

About Government and Fiscal Responsibility
From “AGAINST A PHILOSOPHY OF DEFEAT,” June 1939, when Shutter was past 80 and two months away from his death.
(He quotes from a letter from Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to the reactionary Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia: “I think the individual, whether rich or poor, has a right to a decent place to live. I think he has a right to security in old age and to protection against temporary unemployment. I think he has a right to adequate medical attention and equal educational opportunities with the rest of his countrymen. The government expenditures which you condemn have in large part been the means of translating these basic rights into realities.”
Shutter calls that a philosophy of defeat. )
It is the philosophy which teaches that the individual is a victim of forces beyond his control -- forces that work against his development. He can do nothing for himself.
His character and abilities are determined by heredity and by circumstances. He is shaped by unseen hands -- hands that are dead and dust, circumstances that are unconquerable.
We express in terms of economics an old theological conception that man was totally depraved . . . The social science of today picks that discarded rag from the refuse heap of theology, and binds man as tight in economic chains, as ever he was bound in those of the creeds. He can do nothing for himself, nothing to improve his own little patch of ground. . .     This is the philosophy of despair and defeat. This is the propaganda of many a government agency today.  . . .
What are the effects of this philosophy? What is the result of all the fine and pious teaching about man as the child and the ward of society and government?  . . .
It destroys the character of the individual.  . . A philosophy that destroys the morale, and saps the courage, and cuts the incentive out of the individual, can never inspire man to the achievement of which he is capable! This philosophy which keeps millions out of employment and millions on relief has spread the pall of paralysis over the entire land. . . .
What to do? Have faith in yourself. When you are told that someone else must take care of you, that society must rock your cradle and the state must guide your uncertain steps,   Say “That’s a lie and I know it to be a lie.. . .”
Have faith in your country, without its communist and fascist propositions.  . .  Finally, have faith in God. Not that for so much praise and prayer and worship, he will get you a job, or send you a loaf of bread or a new coat; but that faith in the great unseen power, a power out of which the world has come and all the history that has been staged upon it; such faith will keep one’s courage high; it will gird him for the struggle and bring him into fellowship with Him who said: In this world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!”
NOTE: It might put this sermon in perspective to remember that for much of Shutter’s pastorate, the leaders of his congregation were wealthy and powerful men.

About Communism
From “THE BILL OF RIGHTS,” Oct. 31, 1937.
In  . . .   a world which once craved political liberty above everything else, the yearning for that liberty has largely passed.  A war that we were told was to make the world safe for democracy has made the world unsafe for democracy or anything else that is reasonable and right.   . . . The people became the prey of ruthless revolutionists. Dictatorships arose . . . Whatever the name, these forms of dictatorship are one and the same thing at bottom. That is the style of the [Roosevelt administration’s] Brain Trust. But the Trust has gone into bankruptcy -- for the lack of capital.. . .
Communism takes shape in leagues and war and fascism, while it prepares for violent and bloody revolution. . .  It seeks, through certain labor unions . . . to rehearse in communities the scenes that are to blaze into tragedy upon the larger stage.  . . . They vilify and abuse business and business men . . . They never see the marvelous achievements and the wonderful progress of our country under the capitalist system. . . .
Whether communistic or not -- and I know there are those who will resent the use of the term -- we are having in Minneapolis, at this very moment, an attempt to destroy, for certain of its citizens, every right guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. . . .
Why has this church been surrounded by pickets for four Sundays in succession? Why has it been singled out for this demonstration, when it has no labor dispute with any labor man or labor union? Why has it been dragged into this publicity upon a purely private and personal matter?
[NOTE: This refers to a dispute involving Shutter, his chauffeur and the Private Chauffeur’s Union.]
Do you need to be told that an effort is being made to turn Minnesota into the banner state of communism? . . . Is not that the object here  - -  to keep the doors of  this Church shut, to put us out of business?  Is not that the object of the threats to keep the pastor out of this pulpit, to shut off our coal supply, to shut down our heating-plant?  . . .
Some of my ministerial friends are catering to communism . . .  Perhaps you think it is old-fashioned Socialism that you are encouraging, but communism is something more and something more vicious. Communism is socialism filled with dynamite. . . .
This evening, in the Eagles’ Hall, on the other side of the River, a celebration will be held of the twentieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. No one is objecting. . . . If interference were attempted, I would be one of the first to protest. The meeting is held under the auspices of the Minnesota Communist League. The principal speaker is himself a member of the Central Committee of the National Communist party. His three brothers -- “Trotsky Communists” -- are among the men who dominate the Union that has been picketing this Church and trying to drive its pastor into the snare of racketeers. . . . All the unions  . . . Combine to crush ONE man! . . .  The REIGN OF TERROR IS HERE. Its shadow lies across every business in this city. . . We are either free citizens of a free city with the rights guaranteed by our constitution, or we are the slaves of communistic and revolutionary organizations.
NOTE: The three Dunne brothers, who openly described themselves as Trotskyite Communists, led the bloody strike of Minneapolis Teamsters in 1934, and were leading the Teamsters local in 1937. The 1934 strike eventually led to Minneapolis evolving from an open-shop town to a union town.

From “THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE,” undated
NOTE: but undoubtedly 1933, because he refers to the United States’ recent diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union. It’s a period of profound change. The Great Depression is ravaging the nation, and the new Democratic administration and its New Deal are struggling to cope with it. The sermon contains a strong, sometimes sarcastic, attack on the Roosevelt administration’s policies and Shutter’s customary condemnation of the Soviet Union.
[Shutter’s text is the story of the mighty Samson, blinded and imprisoned by the Philistines, who pulls down the pagans’ temple upon them, destroying them and him in the process.
[He lists the “pillars,” or elements, of civilization as the conservation of human energy, the mastery of nature, the social heritage (“the conservation and strengthening of the home,” ) and education.]
Our civilization . . . Has its defects. If you doubt it, read the doleful articles written about it. Listen to the hysterical ravings about it.  . . . Fifty theorists want you to try their particular adventures in cloud-land.
If the capitalistic system . . . must go, so be it. But remember that it is the system under which the individual and society have made the greatest strides in human history. . .  Under it  . . . The wealth has been produced which it is proposed to redistribute -- which is in process of redistribution. And I remember that this wealth has not been produced by those who are jauntily distributing it. . . .
We have just recognized [the Soviet Union] and given her a status of respectability, And in gratitude for all this, Russia now proposes to buy all of our goods that we will lend her the money to pay for! . . . We have created another debtor and laid another burden upon our own taxpayers, in the interest of “world prosperity’! . .
And this question of liberty is one that we are balancing in our own minds today. Some of the plans for that national recovery for which we all hope and for which we shall all work, raise the general question, How far is it necessary to bind the strong in order to help the weak? Or how far will making the strong weak help to make the weak strong? How far is it necessary to put the industries of this country under the direction of those who do not understand them, in order to secure “social justice”? I do not suggest these questions in anything but the most kindly spirit. But they are questions that are being asked -- not by carping critics -- but by serious minded citizens who have a right to an answer. I believe in the general health and soundness of the country. Like the human being, it has its “sick spells”; but I think the patient will recover, in spite of the doctors!

About the idea of damnation
From “RISE AND GROWTH OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT”  delivered in the Church of the Redeemer, Minneapolis, Sunday Evening, November 16, 1890.
NOTE: This was four years after Shutter abandoned a Baptist pastorate  in Minneapolis to become assistant minister of our church, and one year before he became senior minister. The main Sunday service was held in the evening in this period.
The early belief of the Church was that of ultimate restoration to righteousness of all souls that have wandered from God.  . . . The doctrine, as held by the great leaders of the Church and taught in the schools of Christian learning, up to the middle of the sixth century, was the restitution of all things. But at the council of Constantinople, the theology of Origen was condemned, and the theology of Augustine thenceforth reigned with undisputed sway. .
The doctrine of endless punishment first appears distinctly and unmistakably in the writings of Tertullian of Carthage [between 190 and 220 A.D.]. “That day [Judgment Day]  . . . How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings and false gods . . . groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! . . . So many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection.”  . . .
[Shutter goes on to explain what circumstances in the early church contributed to the rise of the punishment doctrine. One was the growing exclusiveness on the part of the church. ]
They came to regard themselves as the special favorites of heaven, and to look with intolerance and scorn upon their neighbors.
[There was also] a feeling of retaliation for the opprobrium heaped upon them by the heathen fellow-citizens.
[And there were degrading views of God]. Such writers as Tertullian looked upon God as a magnified man, with human passions, with the human thirst for revenge. . . . They were not much in advance of the pagans themselves They had, it is true, only one God, while the pagans had many, but they made their one about as bad as all the pagan gods put together.
[He then moves on to Augustine, born in 354 A.D.] A man of powerful intellect, he put into system the ideas of Tertullian, stamped upon it the impress of his own thought, and shaped the theology of the west for more than a thousand years.
[He quotes from a book titled History of Latin Christianity] “The Church was the predestined assemblage of those to whom, and to whom alone, salvation was possible; the Church scrupled not to surrender the rest of mankind to that inexorable damnation entailed upon the human race by the sin of their first parents.”
[Then he moves on to the Dark Ages.]
The Northern Barbarians had conquered the Roman state, the Church now had to conquer the barbarians.
By this time the Church had developed. Its organization was perfected. Its machinery was complete. But it retained the spirit of Imperial Rome, and the aims of Imperial Rome. Its purpose was a world-wide external conquest. The Founder of the Church had said that the Kingdom of God was within; the Church at Rome said that the Kingdom of God was outward and visible. Territorial extension was the great object.
By what agencies was this object accomplished? (1) By keeping the people they sought to influence in ignorance. One of the Gregories [popes] declared that “ignorance was the mother of devotion.” The price of heaven was intellectual stupor.
(2) By materializing the high conceptions of religion  - - by making worship as sensuous as possible -- by addressing the eye rather than the understanding of the heart.
(3) By the use of fear. They made the interdict and excommunication their weapons so far as this world was concerned, and the flames of hell in the next world. . . .
The darkest period of Christian history is precisely the period during which this doctrine flourished most luxuriantly. It was the appeal of priest craft to ignorance.
[Shutter then lists some of the consequences.]
1. In the immense increase of insanity. . . .
2, In the rise of ascetism. Under terror of coming judgment, thousands forsook the world, friends, families and all, and fled into the wilderness, thinking that in isolation and penance they could alone lead a life that would save them from the flames of the future.
3. In persecution for heresy.  . . .
In the rise of the practice of granting of indulgences.
The ideas of hell became so awful that some mitigation was at length devised in the invention of Purgatory.  . . . For although the spirits of the dead might be detained in Purgatory to be fitted for heaven, they were allowed to slip through to hell unless the surviving friends paid liberally for the prayers of the Church.

Compiled by John Addington

Best Sermons 1926  

THE INCREASING PURPOSE

An Ohioan by birth, educated at the University of Wooster and the Baptist Seminary of Chicago, Dr. Shutter was ordained to the Baptist ministry in 1881. Five years later he changed his views and became a Universalist, serving first as assistant and then as pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, in Minneapolis, where he has labored for forty years—a conservative in politics, a liberal in theology, one of the great citizens of his city.

Twice president of the National Convention of his Church, Dr. Shutter has been a sagacious leader in social, civic, and humane enterprises. Yet he has found time to write many books, among them the Wit and Wisdom of the Bible, Justice and Mercy, Applied Evolution—which attracted the attention of John Fiske—and the Life of James Harvey Tuttle, his predecessor. When a preacher serves one Church for forty years, and his anniversary is celebrated by the whole city, it bespeaks extraordinary qualities of personality and leadership.

In the sermon here following we find the basis of his faith, founded in the nature of God and the order of the universe—rational, righteous, beneficent—moving to spiritual ends and the final victory of a Love that hath in its keeping the secret of unknown redemptions.

THE INCREASING PURPOSE
By MARION D. SHUTTER, D.D.
CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, MINNEAPOLIS

Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Matthew 6:10.

Henry Adams belonged to the great Massachusetts family of that name, and his book entitled The Education of Henry Adams is the record of the travels and reflections of a life-time. His brilliant mind seems to have arrived at no settled convictions concerning life or its meaning, nor did he find any meaning in history. In Rome, more than once, he sat at sunset upon the steps of the church where Gibbon had mused on the fall of Empire—sat and reflected, and concluded nothing. Rome, to him, “was a bewildering complex of ideas, experiments, ambitions, energies. Without her, the Western world was pointless and fragmentary; she gave heart and unity to it all; yet Gibbon might have gone on for the whole century sitting among the ruins of the Capitol, and no one would have passed capable of telling him what it meant. Perhaps it meant nothing.” Has not the same doubt often arisen in our own minds concerning the history of our planet? Often have we despairingly asked in these recent years, “What does it all mean?”

I do not wonder that men despair, that their hearts fail them, feeling that in the highest things the world is totally bankrupt. Brooks Adams, another member of that distinguished family, in his preface to the new edition of The Emancipation of Massachusetts, says: “Each day I live I am less able to withstand the suspicion that the universe, far from being an expression of law originating in a single primary cause, is a chaos which admits of reaching no equilibrium, and with which man is doomed eternally and hopelessly to contend.” What can you make of it? What can one say? Only this: History is a dark and horrible puzzle, without the thought of intelligence and purpose, without the thought of God and His universal Fatherhood. Put that into it, and we may sometime find our way to solid footing. Two friends were recently conversing about the great tragedy. “I do not see how I can go on living,” said one; “it seems as if I had lost God out of the world!” “Strange,” answered the other, “it seems to me as if I had just found Him.”

This is the time to hold fast our faith in the Eternal Goodness and the Eternal Justice. Is truth

… forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne?

Remember, in the long last, by a sure outworking of laws and events, as faith and fact alike attest:

That scaffold rules the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.

This is the thought I am bringing you today. We are passing through a wild and stormy period, which threatens the foundations of our faith in all that is best. It will make a great difference to all of us, whether we are driven to the assumption that everything sprang from chance and ends in chaos, or whether we go forward with the belief that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, we are living in a sane and reasonable universe and one that is capable of justification at last.

After all, there is something that holds society together and keeps it moving on, and mainly in the right direction. Beneath the surface, three tendencies may be discerned in history which ought to reinforce this faith; retribution, righteousness, and love. These tendencies can only be explained by the existence behind them of a Power that is just and wise and good; and that has planned the universe for the triumph of justice and wisdom and goodness.

1. Retribution. The first of these is the tendency to retribution. The laws of retribution are woven into the processes of nature and into the texture of society. Let us see how they work. Evil often defeats itself; like Macbeth’s vaulting ambition, “it o’erleaps itself and comes down on the other side.” One of the most notable examples in our own country was the attempt in the days before the Civil War to fasten a slave constitution upon Kansas, to impose an institution of darkness upon a free territory. The up-piled iniquities fell, at last, by their own awful weight upon the inventors and crushed them. The architect of every house of lies proves in the end to have been a fool—in spite of all his perverted ingenuity. His timbers are rotten and his ruin is sure. The late Andrew D. White once said of his great teacher, Benjamin Stillman: “He had faith in truth as truth; faith that there is a power in the universe good enough to make truth-telling effective.” Falsehood and intrigue defeat themselves, and “frightfulness” itself is a two-edged sword, that cuts equally him who wields it with him against whom it is lifted.

By a series of crimes and atrocities, till then unparalleled, the Spaniard sought to crush political and religious freedom in the Netherlands. Massacre succeeded massacre; in the smoldering embers of one conflagration fresh torches were kindled against the gates of Leyden. The cruelties of Spain reacted at last to the overthrow of her power in the Netherlands and to the erection on her throne of the first great bulwark of constitutional freedom!

The sinking of the Lusitania, by bringing America into the conflict, decided the World War, and drove its chief projector into exile. One element of the safety of society lies in the final insanity of its enemies—that madness which the gods have marked for destruction. The good has but one enemy, the evil; while evil has two enemies, the good and itself. Evil is often overruled in such a way as to minister to the good. The wrath, the folly, the littleness, the meanness, of men is often made to praise God and to work for human welfare. Lincoln defined statesmanship as using individual meanness for the public good. Satan himself is often harnessed to the chariots of Jehovah!

It is related that one of the dearest wishes of Dom Pedro, once Emperor of Brazil, was a great hospital at Rio; but the people who had the means to build it could not be induced to subscribe. An idea came to him one day that solved his problem. He granted life-peerages to all who would make large contributions to his hospital. These patents were not hereditary, and if the children wished to inherit their father’s title, they had to pay for it again. Brazil became peopled with nobles, and the hospital was erected on the grandest scale. When it was completed, the Emperor placed this inscription over the gates: “Human Vanity to Human Misery.”

Let us go farther back. We have just been celebrating “Columbus Day.” What made Columbus? The closing of the last route between Europe and the East by the fall of Constantinople. The Turk drove Columbus to find a western route to India. The Turk could not foresee that, under the overruling of that inscrutable power which makes the blunders of fools and the wrath of men and the fury of fanatics all to praise Him, the problem his sword had marked out for Europe would be gloriously solved. He could not see that, as a result of his cruel ignorance, intelligence would become universal; that, as a result of his stupid oppressions, freedom would some day fill the world! Where evil cannot be made the drudge and slave of good, it is—in the long run—utterly overthrown. The track of time is strewn with dead iniquities, with slaveries, inquisitions, tyrannies. Lowell sings of the destinies:

Patient are they as the insects that build islands in the deep;
They hurl not the bolted thunder, but their silent way they keep;
Where they have been, that we know; where empires towered that were not just,
Lo! the skulking wild-fox scratches in a little heap of dust!

The cities of the past that sit today in weeds of mourning and ashes of desolation tell us through the owls that hoot in their priestless temples, the wild beasts that bound in their deserted palaces, or the waves that roll over their buried splendor: “This is the result of world-ambitions we tried to realize by trampling on the rights and liberties of men!” The most tragic figure in the world today is the ruler who tried to grasp the scepter of the world and lost the one he had—now despised, rejected, and abhorred!

2. Righteousness. The second of these tendencies is the tendency to righteousness. I know the cruelties, the martyrdoms, the outrages, the crucifixions and worse; but, in spite of all, there is an upward trend in all human history. In all that is good and true and just, there are signs of increasing life and power. If this were not true, if there were not these counteracting forces, ages ago the world would have rotted out.

The tendency to righteousness is shown by the constant elevation of moral standards. A Greek or Roman of the early Christian centuries would not know himself were he to come into this modern world, even with its hundred smoldering battlefields. He would not understand the revolutionized conditions. He would find a new sense of the sanctity of human life—a sense not destroyed, but rather enhanced, by these years of bloodshed. He would discover that the universal slavery which he knew had vanished before the sentiment of universal brotherhood. He would find that the position of woman had changed. He would find that crimes and vices condoned and tolerated two thousand years ago, are today condemned and reprobated. Atrocities and outrages which then would have been accepted as mere incidents of war, today fill the world with horror and loathing. He would find that neither genius nor wealth nor power, but character and service determine position in the modern world. Thus have moral standards risen.

The extent to which these standards have risen can hardly be realized, and is obscured by the discussions going on about “profit” and “service.” No legitimate business can exist today except by the service it renders; and no business would be undertaken if it did not yield some degree of profit. The profit may be too great and the service too small; but that is a matter for adjustment and does not affect the principle. No enterprise would be started, if it did not promise to pay; but no enterprise can exist, after it has ceased to serve. The standard is service.

The tendency to righteousness is also illustrated in the history of legislation. From the very beginnings of human society, the rights of men have been increasingly safeguarded by laws. Those who have, at times, been beyond the pale of law—the slave, the common laborer, woman—have been included. Their interests have not been committed to chance nor left to the whim of a ruler; they have been embodied in written statutes. More laws have been passed in behalf of labor in recent years than for any other object. The courts are open. Citizens have rights as against the state itself. This fact stands clearly out. Within our own time, slaves have been made citizens and women have been enfranchised. And not only is the broadening and security of rights apparent, but these have developed those agencies of education and religion which train and fit men and women, not only for the enjoyment of rights, but also for the performance of duties. Every one has the right of free speech; but he must accept the responsibility that goes with it. When one wants to know how the world has progressed from the crudities and barbarities of old customs, let him study the history of legislation. There is an important sense in which the increase of crime is itself an evidence of advancing civilization. Offenses which once were deemed personal are seen to have a social significance and are sooner or later prohibited by law. They thus become crimes or misdemeanors. The Prohibition amendment was an important step in human progress; but for the time it fills the courts with a new set of misdemeanors and crimes. Its moral value is measured by the resistance it encounters.

And this leads to the other illustration of our point. The tendency to righteousness is shown in the extension of liberty. Gradually and in spite of all defeats, the tendency of the ages has been towards greater freedom for all men. Political bondage, from time to time, is overthrown; free institutions advance. The most tremendous impulse that history knows, has just been given to the cause of human liberty. Let us not think alone of the waste and the slaughter, not alone of the burdens of taxation under which we groan—most of which were piled up by blundering and dishonest civilians and not by the army—but let us ask whether it is not worth something to pay taxes to our own government rather than tribute to a conqueror. That was our choice; and we kept faith with freedom! We are still paying pensions and the interest on bonds for the Civil War. Would you be rid of these taxes and see slavery reëstablished? The Spanish War added other burdens. Would you throw them off and plant again the power of Spain in Cuba? Think of this side of the question. This is no time to lose confidence in the eternal purpose. Let us thank God that we are alive and that we have been permitted to witness the falling of thrones and the gathering of new forces. The law of sacrifice for the promotion of righteousness runs through all human history. It was said of the Great Master that he should see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied—not here, but hereafter. Through every tragedy runs the law of sacrifice that links it to Calvary; and we may well believe of our sons who fell that, gathered with their great Exemplar, they see that liberty lives and are satisfied. And we who survive will inscribe their names on the walls of our new cathedral where they will live in immortality and glory—while the names of those who “gave aid and comfort to the enemy,” who tried to obstruct and hinder the government in the prosecution of its high purpose, who prolonged the carnage and multiplied its victims, will rot in infamy and be lost in oblivion!

There is, therefore, a fixed principle that works for righteousness. True faith is belief in its ultimate triumph. Real infidelity means settling down to the conviction that evil is going to prevail, that it is stronger than good. That is atheism. To believe in God, is to believe in good. Have faith that righteousness is dear to God and that, in spite of all seeming contradictions, it will eternally win! But it must have your coöperation and mine. It cannot win without.

Tho’ the cause of evil prosper, yet ’tis
Truth alone is strong;
And, albeit she wander outcast now,
I see around her throng,
Troops of beautiful, strong angels,
To enshield her from all wrong.

But we must be found among those guardian angels, defenders of truth, the vanguard of her chariot’s progress!

3. Love. The third of these tendencies in history is the tendency of love. If there is a tendency to retribution and to righteousness, there is also a tendency to humanity and gentleness and kindness. There is a power that makes for benevolence as well as for goodness. At the time when this late war broke out, the humanities had gained larger practical recognition than ever before. The evils in society were being investigated and remedied—the condition of the poor, the claims of the working population, the discipline and sanitation of prisons, the disabilities of women, the pressure upon children, and a thousand things which manifested a broader and deeper spirit of humanity.

For example, there has been going on for years a movement of which no critic of society ever utters a word—a movement, inaugurated by employers themselves, in behalf of better wages, conditions, treatment of labor, and even for a measure of participation in the management. This had been going on before the war, and will not be retarded by its close. Read the book by Ida Tarbell, New Ideals in Business; follow the course of events since, and see how hundreds and thousands of enterprises have built new workshops, equipped them with safety devices, and let in the sun and the air that health might prevail; how they have provided homes for their workmen; established benefits and pensions; introduced education for those who had been denied it; and are making stockholders of labor.

Thousands of men are striving, with their best light, to introduce Christianity into their business, and you and I are not helping them by shouting “greed” into their ears. The present industrial order is not bankrupt. Some of the schemes proposed as improvements are bankrupt. Russia appeals to what she has contemptuously termed the “capitalist” nations, to save her from the ruin and misery of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”—her experiment in applied Marxian Socialism. The present industrial order is not bankrupt; it is adapting itself to changing conditions, and this is the very essence of life. Civilization and Christianity are not bankrupt. They are all purging themselves and developing new power. Individualism is not lost and ought not to be lost; but the new watch-words are coöperation and harmony. Nor will this movement and others be retarded; rather will they be quickened. Some one says in the September North American: “We radicals always seem to aim for the rocks; the way to end a voyage profitably, we think, is to sink the boat. … So with this society of ours. … Somehow it goes; and we must spend more time sailing it instead of damning it.” Nor is our representative government bankrupt. We are Americans who believe in our founders, our constitution, our courts, and our destiny. If our constitution needs changing, we can amend it. We shall never tear it to pieces and scatter it to the winds.

Often of late we have heard it charged that America is responsible for present world-conditions, because after the war she said: “I’ll have nothing to do with you!” America never said that. America refused to merge her nationality into a vague internationalism; but she has never repudiated her international duties. She has always met her responsibilities to the world and always will; and all the better by refusing foreign entanglements. She took a mighty step in the call of her President for a conference on limitation of armaments in the hope of removing the fears and misunderstandings upon which armaments are based. Remove the causes of future wars, and armaments will disappear. Otherwise the weight of armaments will only grow heavier upon the shoulders of mankind! We are likely to go farther, if we take the journey step by step. Slavery was not abolished by the Abolitionists. They did something to create public sentiment, but they were willing to wreck the Union. Slavery was abolished by a party that set out to “limit” it. Armaments may at last be abolished in the same way.

So things will go on. Mr. Wells, in his Outline of History, notes the growth of good-will among men from the beginning. We can see today how the outrages and brutalities of war have stimulated anew the heart-beats of sympathy. Over every battlefield blazes the Red Cross of mercy; the hand of help reaches across the sea. Some one has said: “Man made the war, but God put the Red Cross nurse into it.” Not only shall righteousness triumph, it shall be crowned with a diadem of love. “This world is God’s world after all!” That is what I want you to see and to believe. There never was a time when that faith was needed more than now, as the processes of rebuilding the world go on.

We ask and ask again, “What does it all mean? Is there any outcome? Is there any gain to mankind?” I want you to feel that there is such gain, that history confirms it. We have witnessed a breaking up among the nations such as never has occurred since the old Roman empire went to pieces. That crash seemed, at the time, the end of all things. But out of the chaos came modern Europe. Chaos never lasts—it is the furnace in which a new order is fashioned. Rarely does any destructive or disintegrating process reach its logical conclusion. It is always met by counteracting forces. There is no Merrimac without its Monitor.

I want you to feel that the background against which our lives are cast is one of hope and progress. I want you to feel that the principles of our Church are one with the processes of evolution, the laws of society, and the development of history. Over all is the Universal Fatherhood of God, working through nature up to man; then taking the first crude semblance of man, and through countless centuries reducing the jaw and rounding the dome of the brain, and paralleling the struggle for existence with the struggle for the existence of others. I want you to see that our principle of “just retribution” is woven into the texture of society, and demonstrated in the events of history. I want you to see how righteousness and love are working towards the final harmony with God. Let us work, then, as never before. The Church is not bankrupt. We are coöperating with the beneficent forces that have shaped the course of events from the beginning until now, and we must work with them in all the years to come. With this background and with these forces, we shall be able to accept any challenge that the age or the universe may fling before our feet! Our faith rests upon

Truths which wake
To perish never:
And neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor man nor boy,
Nor aught that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy.

Compiled by John Addington

The majority of his sermons are not easily quoted in sound bites. He had a great deal to say about UU theology, which is listed here in depth. Other topics include Mortality, Sin, Prayer, Religious Education, and an excerpt about the congregation before its move to the new church house.

The Community of Liberal Religion

FROM “RELIGIOUS LITERATURE,”  FEBRUARY 1962
It is not necessary to inform intelligent people that the world constantly is becoming more and more a unit, with the highest interests of each person in it inseparably connected with the welfare of all others.  . . . However, we do need to develop practices by which this fact may enter our spirits and influence our actions. No greater force operates in this direction that that of liberal religion. If we can bring ourselves to an acquaintanceship with, and a sympathy for, those who, under a different name and leader, embrace the same or similar ideals, we shall be closer to God and closer to our fellow men. It is this purpose and hope which inspires the Unitarian Universalist to share with others the truths of our faith. It is this purpose and hope which leads us to seek wisdom and truth regardless of its finite source.

FROM “REALISTIC RELIGION,” OCTOBER 1961.
It seems to me strange and sad that the institutions which ostensibly exist to promote religion in the world should employ so much of their resources in upholding beliefs whose appeal and authenticity diminishes steadily with the passing years. The spiritual values, on the other hand, do not essentially change. The situations in which we find ourselves in the twentieth century demands ever more insistently that we learn to match our growing control over material nature by promoting the control of worthy values over mankind, over us. To strive toward this end, in whatever slow and painful stages, would seem to be the supremely important and significant task of religion in the present age. And this, I submit, would be a realistic religion -- beyond mythology, but actually closer to Man and to God.

FROM “THE LAWS OF WORSHIP,” PRINTED IN THE UNIVERSALIST LEADER, MARCH 1955.

Worship is a renewed self-commitment to the creative life, to the highest ideal, to the consecrated service of hopes, dreams and aspirations. It is the practice of whatsoever ceremonies, rites or other means as may serve to bring the individual more completely under the control of what is variously called the better self, the noble desire, the Divine Mind, the Kingdom of God, the All-highest, or simply, God.  Some, with a reluctance to use complex or mystical terms, simply say that they seek to serve The Good.
It is possible that a person will lose his true sense of proportion for a time, after joining a Universalist church, in reaction against the misrepresentations of a dogmatic orthodoxy and in response to an intoxicating sense of release in liberal religious freedom.
If and when this happens, there may be a failure to recognize that true liberalism must maintain its own element of conservatism, if it is to be valid. That is, there must be an awareness that not all of the past is to be repudiated as a condition of religious growth. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. Every present good has its roots in the past. Every present growth depends for much of its nourishment upon that which has been.

FROM A PAMPHLET, “AN UNDERSTANDING OF UNIVERSALISM,” PUBLISHED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF AMERICA.  THE FIRST PRINTING, IN APRIL 1949, WAS 2,000 COPIES. IT WAS  REPRINTED  IN 5,000 COPIES IN MARCH 1950 AND IN 10,000 COPIES IN JANUARY 1951 AND MARCH 1953.

Universalism is so much  a faith that grows and acquires increasing significance within the individual, that one must liken it to a gem of many facets, each of which may catch and shine forth with a new brilliance as the light of truth plays upon it. . . .

The great difference between Universalist and other churches is that we are a non-creedal church.  . . . Our most prized possession is what is often called  “the liberty clause” in all our statements of program and purpose. Whenever, in any assembly the Universalist Church sets forth its judgment, there is written into such a statement these words or the equivalent of this thought: “Neither this nor any other precise form of words is required as a creedal test.” …
If each of us were given pencil and paper, and asked to set forth a concept of God, the result would be a variety of statements, I am sure.  . . .If … we would share these several expressions -- gathering from one and from another a stimulating thought, but retaining our rights to formulate our own ultimate conclusion -- we would be illustrating the Universalist attitude and procedure.

And following this latter procedure, we would be Universalist if, within this variety of concepts, we would affirm that -- whatever the nature of the particular lesser emphases -- this Creative Power and Spirit of the Universe is to be conceived as in and through everything and everyone that is. This is what we mean when we assert the Universal Fatherhood of God. Universalists assert that God is neither tribal, racial, creedal or national: God is universal!
Universalists differ among themselves concerning the natural or supernatural character of Jesus. Acceptance of Jesus’ authority is not based upon any requirement of acceptance for the miracle stories. Many Universalists see them as the familiar literary device of gospel times to add stature to any revered person.  . . . Reverence for Jesus does not depend on any special or peculiar circumstance surrounding his birth or death, but upon the splendid quality of his life and upon the timeless value of his judgments and precepts. . . .

Among Universalists, the Bible is regarded as religious literature containing a record of the spiritual aspirations of man. . . . Universalists do not regard the Bible as verbally inspired and infallible. They do regard it as inspiring and helpful in countless ways. . . .

Universalists hold that punishment is not for sin, but by sin. That is, when anyone does wrong, the action contains its own retribution. The verb “to sin” -- as it appears in the Bible -- is translated literally “to miss the mark.” . . . The problem of good and evil is one which no man has explained in a satisfactory manner. Much that happens in our world defies rational interpretation. The Universalist position, however, may be indicated by saying that “evil carries within itself its own disastrous consequences.”…

Universalists admit to limitations of knowledge which prevent them from expressing any certain and definite familiarity with whatever lies beyond the mortal existence.  . . .

The best possible preparation for any future life is to be found in living this life to the best of our ability. Good must triumph over evil. This is the end toward which we strive.
Universalism recognizes that religion has divided itself into many historic forms. These forms have shared in men’s ignorances and superstitions. At the same time, they have nourished humanity’s higher life and produced its nobler attitudes. Accordingly, Universalists believe that there should be developed an appreciation and an understanding of other faiths and traditions. Each faith should be regarded not as a paganism to be scorned, but as a part of the infinite spiritual wealth with which humanity is endowed.  . . .

Many people become partially acquainted with the Universalist or Unitarian Church by learning of the protests and denials which adherents make in the face of orthodox and authoritarian creeds and demands and restrictions. As a result, there arises a mistaken assumption that Universalists and their liberal colleagues believe nothing and unite only to repudiate the ordinary concepts of other church people. Let me undertake to correct this impression, but with no apology for denials or repudiations when they are necessary in the service of truth. . . .

Universalists affirm that  . . . the power to think and to reason is one of the most divine. We claim that there is no other way in which to separate error from truth except by investigation and the use of reason. We believe, therefore, that there must be free and full inquiry into religion as well as into every other phase of life. . . .

As we study our world and the universe, we see it to be a unity -- a cosmos and not a chaos. Its creation transcends our human intelligence, but observable evidence impresses us with its operation in response to natural laws, functioning without exceptions or interruptions. Universalists have faith in its dependability, and believe that from man’s intelligence must be produced the means for curing the ills of existence. . . .

Man, as part of the world of nature, is constantly gaining new behaviors, and there are within him the ideals and impulses toward a better world. This attitude crowds out the idea that man is born in sin and requires redemption by supernatural means. Moral progress is the evolving of man toward a more complete cooperation and sympathy.

FROM A PAMPHLET “MAKING RELIGION REAL,” PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSALIST WOMEN OF THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER (FIRST UNIVERSALIST CHURCH), MARCH 1942.

I think that we all feel that Christianity has stood for an ethical development and stimulus which has been very fruitful. Its influences for good can hardly be overestimated.  . . . But we should be able to look at things objectively if we are to understand why we have moved away from orthodoxy and find ourselves in a relatively small numerical group with an obviously great influence upon modern thought and life.  . . .    
Beginning as an essentially democratic brotherhood of fellow-believers in which wisdom and experience, rather than authority, guided affairs, the Christian Church gradually adopted the political form of the society in which it existed. Officials of the Church gained more and more power to suppress disagreement and to maintain the outlook which became traditional. . . .
Protestantism was a reform rather than a revolution in its religious aspects. Real revolutions take centuries for growth.  . . . But the break in organization opened the way for the subsequent divisions which came as differences continued to arise within succeeding groups which maintained rigid doctrinal standards. . . .
It was in this fashion that the Universalist Church and other religious groups of our day were formed.  . . . By some fortunate circumstance, these truly liberal groups admitted to their consideration what we call the scientific attitude of mind. When they found that some specific doctrine was placed in question by the revealed fact of an advancing science, they subjected the doctrine to scrutiny. . . . By this action was achieved a realization that religion is most real and most serviceable when it is used as lens to focus human abilities and aspirations upon daily life.  . . .  Freedom from dogma and doctrine as conditions of association made possible a wider and broader fellowship, one more fruitful in the harmonizing of deed to the supreme creed of brotherhood. . . .
The ideals and methods of such a religion can never be easy. Ease is always evidence of religion’s absence. . . . When seriously applied to life, religion is never mere conventionalism, never a matter of laissez faire. . . .
This religion of which I speak is one which will  . .  declare with certainty that God is part of each one of us and that divinity may arise within each one of us as we seek and attain and cherish the highest human values.

FROM “LIBERAL RELIGION,” A PAMPHLET PUBLISHED BY THE WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, FIRST UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY OF MINNEAPOLIS , AND CONTAINING THREE SERMONS PREACHED IN JANUARY 1941.
(this seems to me to be useful as individual nuggets of how he regards the Universalist faith and of what he believes about Jesus and about God. J.A.)

Religion played an important role in the development of democratic ideals. There comes to us now a somewhat belated and haunting thought that religion and respect for our fellow-men may be inseparably related and that, having prided ourselves that our good society did not need religion, we may have been coasting under a power exerted by previous generations. And we now face the alternative of doing some pushing ourselves or of seeing our progress cease. . . .
Freedom of thought when it is sincere, is the sine qua non of Universalism. You and I, as religious liberals, have the right and duty of thinking for ourselves and the obligation to follow those principles which commend themselves to us as sound and worthy and practicable and adequate.  . . . As we look back over the years and call to mind those who were regarded as liberals (and quite possibly as heretics) in their day, THIS is the tie that binds us in a continuum. Little creeds have their day -- they have their day and cease to be. But the urge to THINK and to EVALUATE and to reach INDEPENDENT CONCLUSIONS is the continuing genius of our faith. . . .    
The test of the adequacy and value of any religion is in its practical and spiritual implications, not only for you -- but for all the world of men. This is to say, as Jesus and fellow-prophets of religion in every age have said, true religion must be inclusive to have value. Personal concepts of salvation often are but masks to cover one’s selfishness -- and they cover it but  poorly. True religion must be something grander, broader, higher and deeper than this. It must have dimensions great enough to merit the title, Universalism.. . .
There is no merit in adhering to the faith of the fathers, merely because the fathers had a faith. Religion is a developing understanding, modified and enriched by human associations and life situations. Once a group believes that it possesses truth beyond which the mind cannot go, religion becomes static. A practical value in our faith is its admission of place for change.
Some creedal statements [assert] beliefs to the exclusion of purposes.  Assent to a set of beliefs does not produce a religious life.  . . . If we have a grasp of truth we must do more than merely hold it!  . . .
Having come into existence within the Christian tradition, the Universalist Church accepts this heritage willingly. But it looks to the teachings of Jesus rather than to the person of Jesus for Christianity’s meaning. . . .    
We turn to the Bible as a source of wisdom, gladly, but without binding ourselves to regard it as the sole source of wisdom. . . .
We believe that God is good. We admit that definitions are impossible and that description is a futile effort. But we are convinced that truth is a stronger force and more reliable than error, and that error cannot prevail when men of good will ally themselves with truth. . . .
Some have said that the righteous are justified by their faith. We say that the faithful are justified by their devotion to the right. . .
It is certainly true that man is not perfect, but to think him bound inextricably in toils of depravity is contrary to all the religion which we possess. . .
Universalists draw no sharp line between the practical and spiritual in life. We hold that the ideals and aspirations which are a part of our religion should be committed to actual operation and influence in life. . .  On the other hand, we hold that everyday living should be so guided as to reach constantly toward the highest potentialities attainable. . . .
Traditional theology asserts belief in man’s fall from grace and in his continuance under the influence of what is called “original sin.” Liberal religion, on the contrary, holds to what may be called a belief in the rise of man.. . .    
Where mortal life was once regarded as a melancholy pilgrimage toward bliss to come in after-life, a modern faith bids us make of this existence a worthy preparation for whatever is to be. . . .
A modern faith, in my opinion, does well and wisely to abandon a search for God as an entity in time and space. . .
There remains so much which man might yet accomplish to remedy the imperfections now apparent, it seems our time were better spent in this than in speculation upon the definite nature of deity. For my own part, I feel the wisdom of the hymnist and say with him: I do not ask to see the distant scene -- one step enough for me.” Pressed for a definition, I would say, “God is the Power which makes for righteousness.” And -- as a Universalist -- I would say that within all men a portion of that power resides.

FROM A PAMPHLET “FINDING A FAITH BY WHICH TO LIVE,” EARLY 1940, PUBLISHED BY THE WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER (FIRST UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY)
As we observe the problems which face us in our day, we may be sure that we cannot say: “Let us all adopt a religion adapted to present needs, in harmony with modern thought, democratic in principle, conscious of its social mission,” and find our job done by the statement.
Religion must be the product of the inner self. It arises naturally or not at all. Its strength and stability come from within. Personal faith is its root: ideals and causes are its flowers and fruits.

Theology
FROM “AN UNDERSTANDING OF LIBERAL RELIGION, A SUMMARY PREACHED AT YEAR’S END OF 1958.
(This is a lot longer than most of the excerpts, but I think it is an excellent summation of one minister’s beliefs as of 1958. John Addington)
Religious liberalism teaches not merely that Jesus was human, not divine, but that the human race is capable of producing such leaders as Jesus, as Buddha, Confucius and others, and it teaches that all men are the sons of God, actually or potentially.
Religious liberalism teaches that men love and yearn for good. They make mistakes in in the efforts to attain good, as do we all, but they -- and we -- continue to seek it. Children are born, not of or in sin, but of their parents’ love of life and desire for fulfillment. …
Religious liberalism teaches that the religious books of all peoples are to be respected and revered as the products of the aspirations and as their interpretations of the meaning of life.
Religious liberalism does not simply reject the Trinity, it teaches that the spirit which we call God is present everywhere, in all things and in all persons, and at all times. No figure or representation or limitation is great or broad enough to contain what we mean. To present God as Trinity is not very different from presenting it as a many-headed Hydra. Any figure limits the concept; no figure contains it.
Religious liberalism teaches that life is unending, that death is a phase of life, that the forces of life are present everywhere, at work constantly, neither beginning nor ending ever, at any point in time, as far as we know.
And as for belief in a personal God, religious liberalism knows that all so-called personal Gods are determined by the ideals of men, in different ages, in different places, at different stages of growth. They change as man changes.  We respect these human ideals and human yearnings, but we do not deify them. We try to reach outward and beyond.
Religious liberalism holds that every person not only has the right and the privilege, but also bears the burden and the responsibility of thinking honestly, of examining carefully, of speaking in accordance with his convictions. Each individual is morally bound to think what he MUST think in the light of his own experience and understanding. It is one of the functions of religion to guarantee the freedom of each individual to fulfill this moral responsibility. It is the duty of each parent and teacher to free the child to accept, to understand, and to live in accordance with his universal human responsibility and privilege. When properly assumed, this responsibility and privilege never can result in irresponsible or inconsequential thinking. Only as each of us is encouraged and challenged to think truly and freely, in the judgment of religious liberalism, can religion truly serve us and our world in quest for reason and reality.

FROM A PAMPHLET, “WHY UNIVERSALISTS CANNOT BELIEVE IN HELL,”  PUBLISHED IN 1950 IN RESPONSE TO A BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADE IN MINNEAPOLIS. IT IS A CONDENSATION OF A SERMON PREACHED ON OCT. 8, 1950, AND FINANCED BY THE PRINTING FUND OF THE ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSALIST WOMEN OF MINNEAPOLIS.
This morning’s scheduled discussion has been set aside to permit the more important and necessary consideration of the fires of hell which have been kindled oratorically in this community in an effort to frighten men, women and children into a profession of the Christian religion.
In common with a number of other clergymen, I have been reluctant to engage in verbal fisticuffs -- and I do not propose to do so now. But, when the insidiously foreign and perverted doctrine of hellfire and eternal damnation is proclaimed as an essential of Christian belief, there must be at least one voice of protest and of challenge raised in a Christian pulpit. I do so protest!
However, let it be clear: every person has a right to his opinion, and a right to express that opinion. I protest not the man, but the doctrine. The issue is not one of being intolerant, but of being intelligent!
Universalists cannot believe in hell for five reasons: It is contrary to the Bible; It is contrary to Christianity; It is contrary to science; It is contrary to reason; and finally, it is contrary to religion.
By the last point, I mean that such a belief is a denial of the majesty, the power, and the purpose of God!
It is very clear that belief in eternal hell and damnation is contrary to the Bible. This is an historic contention of Universalism, and it can be documented.
When we realize that the Bible was not written in English, we know that we must go behind the English words to see whether the translations have been accurate. As we do this, we discover the word “hell” appears in the English translation fifty-three times. And in the more ancient manuscripts, it was invariably one of four words:  Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, or Tartarus. None of these words meant a place of eternal torment prepared by God for his children!
Sheol, according to the early Jewish view, was the abode of all the dead.  Distinguished from the grave, it was also known as “the place of silence” or as “the land of forgetfulness.” This accounts for thirty-one of the references.  
Hades, a Greek term, designated the same thing -- the abode of the shades or spirits of the dead. Actually, in its ten instances, it is used as a figure of speech for a moral reality,
Gehenna was the common name for the Valley of Hinnom, outside of Jerusalem. The term appears eleven times and in a definitive moral sense. The place was used, at a very ancient time, as the scene of sacrifices. Subsequently, it became a dump. Accordingly, it was suggestive of disgust and abhorrence and uselessness -- but not of any physical post-mortal abode.
The term “Tartarus” appears once in the Bible, and that is in the Second Epistle of Peter, the second chapter, the fourth verse. The word is a heathen term, derived from the Greek mystery cults. It is sometimes used synonymously with Hades, but it merits special attention because it indicates the beginning of the corrupting heathen influences which have perverted the religion of Jesus into something which he would never recognize as his faith.
This brings me to my second point -- that a belief in a hell of eternal torment is contrary to the entire teaching and spirit of Jesus. As a matter of fact, the question of what becomes of men at death was never asked of Jesus, nor was it ever taken up by him independently. Christianity, if it is to be understood as a presentation of the precepts of Jesus, must be framed in the spirit of his message.
Surely no one can study the life, the precepts and the practices of Jesus and ever reach a conclusion that he  condemned anyone to utter hopelessness and torment by any fires of hell. He spoke of God as a Father and he, himself, urged that men and women should know and acknowledge God as such. His message was that the Divine was infinite in love and mercy, anxious that humanity should develop and display these qualities. I tell you, a Christianity which presents the doctrine of an eternal hell is foreign to everything which Jesus represented. As a matter of actual fact, this is literally true! The real source of these ideas in religion is not be found in the faith of Jesus, but in the ancient Persian teachings and mythologies. The ideas are not Christian!
That these ideas are irrational, contrary to reason, obviously depends in great part for its endorsement upon an individual’s ability and willingness to think. Let me suggest two approaches in this connection.
In the first place, I ask you to accept the concept that God is at least as good as you and I. If you will grant this, how unreasonable it becomes to attribute those qualities and actions which, in you or in me, would be despicable! If a man or woman thrusts a child’s body into a furnace, or even sears it briefly with a glowing iron, how would we feel about it? Could a rational person believe in that kind of a God? It is absurd!
Or, to use another approach, if we believe that God is infinite in love and wisdom and power, where is that wisdom or love or power if it is to be defeated in eternity? If such were to be the destiny of mankind -- and an infinitely wise God would have known it from the beginning -- where is the why of creation? The whole of creation and of history becomes fantastically unreasonable, if we hold this view!
The revivalist, according to newspaper accounts, admitted that he did not know about hell but stated that he believed in a hell of torment over which a wrathful and vengeful God presides. I admit to a similar lack of knowledge, but I cannot accept the sort of God which would act in the manner projected. Such a creature might become my Devil, if I believed in one, but such a creature as would condemn anabaptized millions and non-Christian billions to eternal fire would never qualify as my God!
In addition  to these points, there is the truth that belief in such a hell is contrary to science. There are many aspects to this contention, yet the problem of simple geographical location is enough to convince me. Back in the days when everyone thought that the earth was flat, with a canopy of heaven above and a pit of darkness beneath, this might have been a feasible concept. In the light of today’s knowledge, it is an outmoded superstition. No further comment in this connection is necessary.
In my listing of reasons why Universalists cannot believe in a hell of eternal torment, I said that it was contrary to the Bible, contrary to Christianity, contrary to reason, contrary to science, and contrary to religion. This latter item was explained as indicating that Universalists maintain that acceptance of this dogma, unsupported as it is, would be a denial of the majesty, the power, and the purpose of God. I want you to think with me for a moment upon this suggestion.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson purchased his farm at Concord, he said that he obtained more than those who sold it supposed that they were conveying  to him, for he acquired possession not only of the land and buildings, but also of the landscape, the beauty of the flowers, the glory of the sky, the songs of the birds, and the enchanting interest of the manifold forms of life around him. All these were there before, but they waited for someone to recognize and appreciate them. So it has been with the love of God and with his children in this world and in religion. Universalists reach toward a broader appreciation and understanding.
In religion, each one of us has the possibility of gaining either a narrow piece of sectarianism and creed or a portion of the great and wonderful universe of creation and of humanity. The sense of the Fatherhood of God, universal and all-inclusive, is within religion -- if we have the spirit and the vision to know it. The sense of the Brotherhood of Man, similarly universal and all-inclusive, is there -- if we have the spirit and the vision to show it.
As for me, and all who would claim the name of Universalist, I sincerely decline to believe the worst of God and prefer to hold a faith in love and kindness and inclusiveness as his attributes. I pretend to no greater knowledge than any mortal, but I adhere to what I believe to be the greatest and most glorious faith! It can be stated in these words:
“All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. Whatever it be which the Great Providence prepares for us, it must be something large and generous and in the great style of all his works.!”

FROM “WHEN MINDS ARE FREE,” PRINTED IN THE UNIVERSALIST LEADER, SEPTEMBER 1957
Thomas Huxley, in his “Science and Culture,” said this: “    History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.” This, I suggest, is what has happened in Christianity as the religion of Jesus has become set in the molds of orthodoxy.  Some of us have heard the pronouncements of orthodoxy, with reference to men and women as “miserable sinners” whose only hope for salvation, allegedly, lies in the formula of the particular denomination which is being presented.  Ritual and rite, confession and creed, denomination and dogma are imposed in the name of one who said, simply, Love God and your neighbor!
Again, in our day, religion needs that declaration of independence from formalism and ritual which Jesus made two thousand years ago. . . . Instead of being told that we are miserable sinners, we ought to be challenged to become disciples of the teachings of Jesus and of every great and good leader of mankind that we act like Children of God.

FROM “THE FUTURE OF RELIGION,” JUNE 1961
(The quote is unattributed, but probably from Theodore Parker, who is frequently quoted earlier in the sermon.)
The future of religion, as it seems to me, is to be found within the essential being of him who can understand that “From the day of his birth, a man reaches out -- First with his hands, Then with his mind -- Never satisfied, Until at last he reaches out with his heart.”

FROM “THE LEADERSHIP OF JESUS,” MAY 1961
(The sermon asserts that Jesus was firmly rooted in the Judaism of his time, and that “the Judeo-Christian stream of religious development . . . makes more sense if it is regarded as a continuity -- which it actually is.” He quotes Jesus’ declaration: “Thou shalt love the God and thy neighbor as thyself. Upon these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.”)
What does this mean? Not that there is any break in the sequence of religious teaching as to the duties of man -- but that man’s duty must be brought to the level of daily human application IF IT IS TO HAVE ITS FINEST MEANING AND ITS GREATEST SIGNIFICANCE!
This was what Jesus was trying to teach, as a religious radical and reformer within the framework of Judaism. Upon this emphasis does Jesus’ religious leadership rest!
Those who followed Jesus distorted  his message and produced a devolution of Christianity away from vital ethical and moral teachings toward a stress upon forms and ceremonies and extraneous concepts, influenced by myths and superstitions.
That was exactly the situation against which Jesus revolted, in the first place. That was the reason that he stressed human brotherhood and kindness as the essentials of religion. . . .
As religious liberals, our purpose must be to let nothing obscure the primary purpose of religion, which should be, in each one of us, to make themselves better persons and our world a better place in which to live.

FROM “THE LARGER FAITH,” EASTER 1961.
Critics of the Liberal Faith have often scored Universalism as being a negative religion, receiving its initial impulse from denial. The criticism is true insofar as all great religious movements are set into action by a reaction from an unacceptable limitation in the old attitude. But such critics fail to see that the only denial made by Universalism is against some form of partialism which is in itself a denial of the unity, integrity or universality of religion. Universalism negates only the negative, and thus produces a positive faith. . .
This is Easter Day. And how shall we celebrate such a day? Shall we mouth the fevered hope that we shall be individually projected into eternity? What good will that do us, or do for humanity? Better for us to realize that this day is a symbol of the possibility that we may make our lives, in the here and now, things of eternal worth. THAT is the basic meaning of this day.

FROM A PAMPHLET “WHY I READ THE BIBLE,” A SERMON PREACHED ON NOV.     26, 1939, JUST BEFORE DR. OLSON’S INSTALLATION AS OUR FOURTH SETTLED MINISTER ON DEC. 1, 1939, THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ORDINATION “INTO THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.” THE PAMPHLET WAS PUBLISHED BY THE WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER (FIRST UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY).
1. I read the Bible because it helps me to understand what other people are talking about! . . . English literature abounds in references to incidents and characters presented in the Bible. . . . In just four or five pages of Browning’s poetry, there were well over 100 Biblical allusions . . . The content of the Bible has percolated into our consciousness to such an extent that our language would be impoverished without it.

2. I read the Bible also because of its intrinsic worth as literature! . . . No other volume in the world contains such a diversified congregation of literary styles. . . . For me, there is no idea of the Bible as infallible. Consequently, I can read poetry as poetry, history as history, legend as legend. . . .
3.  It helps me to understand  (and to live with) all kinds of people when I am able to turn to the Bible and meet them there. It shows me that human nature which I see today is similar to that which existed in a far different era and environment. . .  I find suggestions which help me in modern life in a complicated world.
4. A fourth reason why I read the Bible is that it teaches me of evolution!
This may sound strange, inasmuch as many declare that the theory of evolution undermines the Bible’s values.    . . .  That the Bible offers teachings regarding evolution may  be verified by a consideration of the progressive development of religion revealed in its pages. . . .
Thus we have the religion of Yahweh, the tribal god in a world of other tribal gods; the religion of the Jews, which is a monotheism . . . with some traces of universalism within it; and the religion of Jesus and the Christians which -- with certain modifications to eliminate foreign influences -- we hold as our own. . . .
We may surely affirm that the Bible supports a theory of gradual and potential development. It is not a final word but an introduction to that which may be brought to pass.
5. I read the Bible because there I find the biography and the message of Jesus! . . .
If you and I are to understand for ourselves the meaning of Christianity, we must turn to the Bible and read intelligently there. . . . When Jesus was asked for the essence of religion, he mentioned no rites or creeds. . . . His sermons were geared to life.
Jesus conceived of the Divine Power as one resident in the world, not as something far removed from man. . . . Reading the Bible is the best way of which I know for any person to reach the ultimate in religion -- the conviction that religion is a matter of daily, personal responsibility.

FROM “CONCERNING GOD,” ONE IN A SERIES OF 10 PAMPHLETS ON UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS, PUBLISHED BY THE PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE OF THE CHURCH, UNDATED. IT WAS MAILED FREE TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE CHURCH BUDGET AND WAS AVAILABLE BY MAIL TO OTHERS, FOR $1 EACH.
As is well-known, the term “God” is one which I use deliberately.  There are some who so emphatically reject the commonly accepted connotations of the word that they wish to avoid any possibility of creating a false impression, and so they reject the word itself. . . . For my own part, I am somewhat obstinate in refusing to those whom I regard as the enemies of honest and intelligent religion all the rights to a term which is as much mine as theirs! . . .
Almost all Universalists, and I use this moderate designation to preserve always a basic element of individual freedom -- admitting their own limitations of knowledge, accept the physicists’ statement that the universe is composed of units of energy. This energy does eventuate in objects that are separate and unique. And the principle or power or spirit by which this energy is grouped into patterns or configurations that give us this world in a form apprehensible by humans may properly be called GOD!
Moreover, we, ourselves, are part of this energy, power, spirit. We are part of a universe in which exist virtues and values in which we may share and in which others may share.  It is very difficult to reduce thoughts of God into terms which are simple and common. . . . For we are dealing with the perennial mystery -- the real depths and nature of which we cannot actually plumb. But it may help to say that we recognize some things in life as being good, and true, and beautiful. Whatever it is that makes these things good, beautiful and true, we call GOD!

FROM A PAMPHLET “CONCERNING JESUS,” SEPTEMBER 1955, PART OF A SERIES ENTITLED “UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS.”
All through Christian history there has been this contrast between the religion ABOUT Jesus and the religion OF Jesus. There has been the Christianity that makes ceremonial and creed the essential things; and there has been the Christianity that relegates these to a lesser position to make essential A WAY OF LIFE -- characterized, as Jesus said, by love to God and love to Man.
Universalists, as a whole, adhere to this latter interpretation of the Christian religion. They accord to ceremonials and to forms a real recognition when they serve as symbols of valid truths. And, it should be noted, this does not imply that everything ancient is denied because it is ancient. There are many truths which apply today as they did centuries ago. But it is our responsibility to test their validity. . . .
As regards the nature of Jesus himself, it is commonly held among Universalists that he was a great religious prophet and leader. It is held that he was different from other men in the degree of his spiritual development and not in the nature of his birth or being. . .  It is far more important, Universalists say, to concentrate upon the vital business of applying religion to life than to argue over theology.  . . .
Jesus’s central, all-pervading teaching is that there should be harmony within one’s self, and that it must be attained through learning that nothing less than universal brotherhood can supply humanity with its essential spiritual needs.

FROM “CONCERNING THE BIBLE,” APRIL 1956, FROM THE SERIES “UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS.”
Universalists affirm that the Old Testament is of great value in showing the growing, changing, evolutionary, instrumental character of man’s quest for happiness, security and understanding. It is priceless as an ancient literary collection. . . .
In the New Testament, Universalists believe, there is shown a schism; then a new religion laboriously extricating itself from the old; adapting, changing, modifying, adjusting itself to another culture; becoming a religious synthesis.  [It ] is regarded as valuable because  it shows the origins of a new religion . . . It, too, is is a literary collection of high merit.
In all honesty, it should be said that Universalists see clearly enough to acknowledge that the Bible often has been and often is today at times a vicious instrument of the stupidity, superstition, credulity, ignorance and book-worship of groups in the western world. The Bible has been made an instrument of magic, opposing learning, darkening men’s minds, imprisoning their spirits, fettering their intellects, and delivering them to error.
One of the great tasks of the Church today, as Universalists see it, is to rescue the Bible from its status as the foundation of error and to place it upon on honorable level as the depository of ancient wisdom, much of which has eternal application and current value.

On mortality
FROM “INTELLIGIBLE IMMORTALITY,” EASTER 1960.
If there is one thing certain in this whole world of human life and experience, it is that man’s hopes and ideals cannot be refuted by the mere fact that they cannot be proved now. Lack of proof, proves nothing; it makes no great amount of difference, if the hypothesis rests upon reasonable assumptions. What does make a difference is this: that any person who admits to the remotest possibility of immortality should fail to remind himself oftener that once a year of its implications! In every day of the week, in every hour of the day, there are challenges before us to make ourselves worthy of the highest hopes and noblest ideals of mankind.
Only as we are constant in our efforts to bring Truth, Beauty and Goodness into our lives and to share them with others, can we approach or appreciate an Intelligible Immortality.

FROM A PAMPHLET “CONCERNING IMMORTALITY” JUNE 1956, FROM THE SERIES “UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS”
Universalists emphasize the importance of directing one’s attention to the proper living of the life which we now have.  . . . When we ally ourselves with the eternal values of truth and justice and love, seeking to give them expression in our lives, we need no assurance of another life in which to atone for failures in this one. . . . Universalists agree that it is  . . . through deeds, thoughts, feelings and actions that we give our lives meaning and immortality which are beyond all conjecture. And Universalists are content to base their lives upon this conviction.
Since this is all a very personal matter, my own and personal thought may be pertinent at this point. My basic conviction is of my own ignorance. I do not know what lies ahead. (This is known as “respectable ignorance,” or as some say, agnosticism.) Beyond this, I admit a mild curiosity. But I am enjoying this life sufficiently not to want to satisfy the curiosity immediately . .  Yet there is one aspect of my own attitude which seems to be understandably individualistic: it would be reasonable and satisfactory to me if, in the economy of the universe, my energies and substance should support one flower of the earth in time to come.  . . .
It seems to me that none of us could wish for more than this: that our lives should be so builded through the years that they deserve continuance. And it would not surprise me, if this were true, that it should come to pass.    

On religious education
FROM “A UNIVERSALIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION,”
DATED JULY 1955.
(note that this was written six years before the merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America into the Unitarian Universalist Association. I have read that the two denominations integrated their religious education efforts well before the merger. J.A.)    It is important for us to realize that our program of religious education should not be designed primarily to produce Universalists and Unitarians. In our own image or in the image of a preceding generation. It should be designed to produce young people who shall be so equipped as to be capable of becoming religious liberals in their own right and in their own age! That is, the aim or our religious education should be not to transmit a theology to children but to help them in living their own lives and in preparing for an adulthood which shall include vital ethical and religious awareness, rather than an inheritance only.
This does not mean that we should deprecate or ignore institutional loyalty or cultivate a contempt for the questings of religious liberalism in the past or present. On the contrary, it involves the development of a sound respect for and interest in the history and achievements of Universalism and Unitarianism as they have served us and all mankind.  But it should make this a part of what might be called a universal appreciation of humanity’s search for high judgments, noble ideals and lasting values. If this is done, we may have confidence in the outcome, I am sure.

On Prayer
FROM  A PAMPHLET “CONCERNING PRAYER,” JANUARY 1956, PART OF A SERIES “UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS”
Every scholar of reputation confirms the fact that prayer is a central phenomenon of all religion; it is found universally.
[He devotes two long paragraphs to the kinds of prayer, including “the calm collectedness of a devout individual soul and as the ceremonial liturgy of a great congregation; . . . as  the spontaneous expression of upspringing religious experiences, and as the mechanical recitation of an incomprehensible formula; . . . as loud shouting and crying, and as still, silent absorption;  . . . as a simple petition for daily bread, and as an all-consuming yearning for God himself  . . . As a desire to change God’s will and make it coincide with our petty wishes.”]
I submit that the motive of prayer is the effort to fortify, to reinforce, to enhance one’s life. And I submit that the essence of prayer is the creation of a unifying relationship between the spirit of man and the spirit which is basic in and to the universe -- the spirit of God, however conceived. . . .
The greatest values and powers of prayer are to be found in the lives which you and I live in fulfillment or furtherance of our hearts’ true desires. What doth the Lord require of us but that we shall do justly, and love kindness, and walk humbly but determinedly in the performance, the actual performance or our duties to the best of our abilities?

On Sin
FROM A PAMPHLET “CONCERNING SIN AND SALVATION,” FEBRUARY 1956, FROM THE SERIES “UNIVERSALIST BELIEFS.”
Crime is the violation of civil law. Vice is immorality resulting from the disregard of the social and ethical standards of society. In distinction from these, sin is an act or an attitude by which the reality of God is denied or violated.  . . . Among primitive people, the notion of tabu was related closely to that of sin. Probably the concept of sin was derived from this source.. . .
It was the apostle Paul who stressed sin in Christian theology as being whatever did not come from faith. . . . Sin thus has become identified with unfaith, chiefly: if one does not believe, one is a sinner!. . .
One of the major problems which religious thinkers and theologians faced throughout the ages was that of the roots of sin, how it came to exist in a world created by the will of God and according to his plan. The question was how it was possible for man to misuse his freedom of will so that a sinner could set himself against God.
The apostle Paul set forth the alleged answer by supplying the basis for the doctrine of so-called “original sin.” The idea was that the sin which caused Adam’s fall and expulsion from the Garden of Eden is transmitted from generation to generation, so that all the descendants of Adam must be regarded as being of a “perverted” or “depraved” nature.
Later, Augustine undertook to explain the manner of original sin’s transmission by linking it with the reproductive process, in what I regard as the most perniciously vicious teaching ever promulgated. No one can catalogue the enormity of evil, individual and social, which has resulted from the distortions of human life and of God which have resulted from the doctrine of original sin! . . .
While Universalists admit and deplore the existence of evil, their point of view is that, despite his shortcoming and his failures and his missings of the mark, mankind is not inherently and inescapably depraved.  . . . What man needs, in the judgment of Universalism, is the challenge to meet life to make it whole and holy. . . .
Universalism rejects the doctrine of damnation, hell-fire and endless punishment at the hands of God.  . . . God must be regarded as at least as good as we are! . . .
What we should fear, and what is no fiction, is one’s personal wrong-doing.  . . .
Salvation, according to the orthodox viewpoint, consists of a redemption from hell and from the torments threatened  mankind by God.  From the point of view of Universalism, it is plain that such redemption is external, something done for us. And it is equally plain that recovery, such as is urged by Universalism, is internal, something accomplished within us. . . . The actual penalties for sin are suffered within, we maintain; so actual recovery must be brought about within, also.  . . . It is this latter recovery which the Universalist regards as salvation.

On congregation history
FROM “THE WAY BY WHICH WE WALK,” PREACHED ON THE 85TH ANNIVERSARY SUNDAY, OCT. 22, 1944. THIS  SEGMENT DESCRIBES THE MOVE TO CHURCH HOUSE.
The present pastorate began in November, 1939. It was apparent that population trends were away from the location of our building at Eighth Street and Second Avenue South. This was a serious situation, as a survey of actual and potential support revealed.  Sale of our downtown property provided our congregation with the means for relocating in a satisfactory building and in a potentially more satisfactory site. This action was taken in the same spirit which prevailed throughout the previous history of the Society. Seeing the church building, wherever located, as a service center dedicated to the promotion of the cause of liberal Christianity, the decision was made. We would seek to serve where need and response were to be found.
But soon after the action was consummated, this congregation faced the fact of being a part of a nation at war. We were not responsible, but neither could we avoid responsibility. There could be no question as to our duty to forgo thoughts of a new church home until victory should be achieved. As others faced their responsibility, so must we -- as a congregation -- face ours. This has meant sacrifice, great sacrifice. But it has meant, too, that courage, conviction and devotion have been and are being called forth from us. It has meant that, once again, we must test our spirits and prove our powers.
Often, when we look back across the years to see the merits of the past, we see that our forebears in liberal Christianity have faced apparently discouraging circumstances. When the fire of 1888 gutted our Society’s home, there must have been many who despaired at the event. But, because there was courage and conviction and devotion, this event was overcome to lead to new achievement. Today we are called upon to possess and to exhibit those same qualities. And it is a deep satisfaction to be able to say that we are courageous, we are devoted, and we have conviction that our purpose can be and must be and shall be realized.
There are some who require special settings and fixtures to stimulate religious sentiment. We can appreciate their value, now perhaps more than ever before. But the thing which calls us together is something more than any of these. To this fact we bear strong witness. Handicaps often provide strength. So has it been for us. We have been crowded here in our Church House, but it has made us closer friends, both figuratively and literally. We have moved into a new section of the city, but the strangers around us are becoming our friends. We have relinquished many of the things which we had come to accept as a matter of course, but we shall appreciate them the more when we are able to have them again.

THE author of the fourth gospel attributes this remarkable utterance to Jesus : " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth." The Great Master is just about to be taken away. His three years of personal instruction are at an end. He admonishes His disciples not to think that He has told them everything - that He has given them a full and complete revelation of all that is to be known, of all that they and the world need to know. There will be growth and progress in religious thought. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Ye are not yet prepared, O My disciples, for the entire realm of truth. I have led you across the boundary line into the new territory, but vast, unexplored regions lie beyond. "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth." God's Spirit of truth is to be always in the world, guiding men from age to age.

These words show us, in a very striking way, one phase of the work of Jesus Himself. He did not seek, as many of His followers have done, to bind men down to certain formulas, to limit their thinking to certain propositions, to prevent them from going beyond the revelations of that particular time. Remotest from His purpose was the attempt to fasten chains upon the human mind. He was a breaker of bonds; He was a destroyer of traditions; He was the outlawed heretic of His day, the prince of iconoclasts. He stirred men up, He made them think. He gave a marvelous impulse to the religious intellect. He taught the people of His day, and the people of every subsequent age, not to repose upon the teachings of the past, but to watch with sleepless eye the ever-opening and ever-enlarging unfoldings of God.
If Jesus were upon the earth to-day, who can doubt that He would heartily welcome, as portions of the everlasting gospel, the revelations of the astronomer's telescope, which show the work of God to be so much more vast than earlier generations dreamed; the revelations of the geologist's pick and spade, which extend the work of God through uncounted ages, and remove that wondrous " in the beginning " far into the twilight of the past eternity ; the revelations that have come through the naturalism's researches, showing the methods of the Creator? All these would Jesus welcome to-day. He would command His followers to stand, with uncovered heads, before the rising and growing vision, and would Himself lead them in the ascription of praise - " Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty."
How contrary to His high -example the conduct of those who say: " Here in our creed is the truth of God, beyond which you must not go. We have it here in compact and definite shape. Beyond this is danger, destruction, damnation!" The denomination whose name appears in the title of this paper is not prepared to take such an attitude. We revere the past, but we do not idolize it. We do not break with it, but we are not fettered by it. We know full well that the foundations are laid there; but we know quite as well that we shall never get on with the building if we stop with the foundations. " One layeth the foundation, another buildeth thereupon." Our work is that of the builder. Every denomination that intends to live must adjust itself, in each generation, to new conditions of life and thought.
The earliest Universalism in this country is represented by that noble figure, of whose work and influence we must always speak with respect, -

JOHN MURRAY.
Born in Alton, England, Dec. 21, 1741, of Calvinistic parents, his home was constantly overshadowed by religious severity. No sunshine entered the life of the child. His father seldom indulged in a smile. The boy was taught that for any person not one of the elect to say of God or to God, " Our Father," was nothing better than blasphemy. Thus early in life were the terrors of religion impressed upon his soul. He passed through childhood, as many another has done, in constant agony, his childish imagination filled with pictures of the last day, the world in flames, and horrible devils carrying off the wicked to their doom. Like many another child he hardly dared to go to sleep at night, for fear of awaking next morning in hell! (Such were the teachings by which it.was once thought to make religion attractive to children.)
As young Murray grew up, the Methodists began to come into his neighborhood. He was carried away by their enthusiasm, but never changed his Calvinistic views. He chose Whitefield, who was Calvinistic, rather than Wesley, as his guide, although Wesley himself made a class leader of John Murray. Later the young man came under the influence of James Kelly, who, from being a preacher in White- field's connection, had become a preacher of Universalism. He was convinced by the reasoning of Kelly and adopted his views of destiny. Then followed his excommunication from Whitefield's society, persecution by his old friends and neighbors, the death of his wife-one calamity after another, until, broken-hearted and in despair, he resolved to cross the ocean and seek in the new world " to close his life in solitude and complete retirement."
He came, but not to close his career. He came to begin the real work of his life. He came to start a movement that has never died and will not die - a movement that is destined to sweep from theology every vestige of cruelty and darkness that still lingers; a movement whose influences are seen today in the more humane tone of the pulpit and the growing demand for expurgated creeds. The story of his reception upon these shores is curious enough. It is not necessary to restate here the manner of his meeting with Thomas Potter on Cranberry Inlet, and the way in which, all unconsciously and without design, preparation had been made for his advent. If he had come to proclaim the old-fashioned message of burning wrath and relentless doom, his reception would have been called a "wonderful providence." He did not come, however, for the purpose of preaching any doctrine; he did not mean to open his lips; but when circumstances compelled him to speak, he preached the gospel of boundless love and universal victory over evil. We shall, therefore, refrain from calling the manner of his reception a " wonderful providence," that we may give no offence to our evangelical friends, and allow the whole transaction to be classed as an " inscrutable mystery."
This was the beginning. What were the theological opinions of Murray? Those opinions were, to a large extent, characteristic of the Universalism of his day. They represent the early period of the denomination, and are of interest as showing from what we have advanced. Murray was, in most particulars, a decided Calvinist. He was trinitarian in his ideas of God and in his views of Christ's nature and relation to God. He believed in the traditional fall of Adam and all its consequences, original sin and transmitted depravity. He believed in vicarious sacrifice. He held that endless punishment was, indeed, the just due of human sin ; but that Christ had borne the penalty of all, and that all would at last be saved. He held, in his own peculiar way, the doctrine of election, but he enlarges it, in the event, to include all except the "spirits that fell from heaven." He did not go quite so far as Origen, who believed that the devil himself would finally be brought to the " mourner's bench" and soundly converted. Murray believed in a personal devil, but handed him over to be dealt with upon strictly orthodox principles.
Such was the theology of Murray. Such, for the most part, was early Universalism. Such was the rock from which we are hewn, the hole of the pit from which we are digged. There were, however, especially during the latter part of his ministry, those who differed from his views in regard to the person and mission of Christ. Among them were Rich, Winchester, and Ballou. Of these Murray was moved to say, "I know no persons further from Christianity, genuine Christianity, than such Universalists." Murray, honest and faithful, believed sincerely that there was to be no advance in Universalisrn beyond the form in which he held and delivered it. There was nothing to be said that he had not said. Departure from the paths he had marked out was departure from Christianity itself. Murray had himself departed from Whitefield and Wesley; but no one must depart from Murray!
Let us not blame him because he was mistaken. Let us reverence him for the work he did, and for making possible still later and better work. He brought, in a certain degree, the spirit of truth, the spirit of inquiry and investigation; and that spirit has led his disciples into fields beyond the dooryard of their master. It was glory enough for him that he rimmed with light the iron throne of Calvinism; that he found a heart of love in the God of that terrific system ; that to the little band of the elect on earth, he added the mighty host of human souls in the hereafter; that he dropped the plummet of God's redeeming mercy to the bottom of hell!
II. I have suggested certain departures from his views among some of the Universalists, towards the latter part of Murray's career. We must, therefore, call attention to the second great figure in our history,

HOSEA BALLOU,
who stands for the next phase of denominational thought. Born at Richmond, N. H., in 1771, thirty years after the birth of Murray, he also sprang from a Calvinistic family. His father was a Calvinistic Baptist minister. The youth of Ballou was as about as miserable, theologically speaking, as that of Murray. He himself relates: -
We were all taught, and in our youth believed, that we were born into the world wholly depraved, and under the curse of a law which doomed every son and daughter of Adam to eternal woe. At the same time God had made provision for a select number of the human family, whereby they would be saved by the operations of the Divine Spirit, which would operate in what was called conversion sometime during the life of those elected. Those who were not elected would remain without any effectual calling, die, and be forever miserable. When I was a youth, it was the sentiment of all Christian people, so far as I knew, that not more than one in a thousand of the human family would be saved from endless condemnation.
With a mind naturally logical, Ballou, as he grew up, discovered the absurdities and inconsistencies of the prevailing theology, and before long we find him excommunicated from his father's church for being a Universalist. The father entreated and remonstrated, but the son was firm. Among the questions he put to -his father was this: "Suppose I had the skill and power out of an inanimate substance to make an animate, and should make one, at the same time knowing that this creature of mine would suffer everlasting misery -would my act of creating this creature be an act of goodness?" The question troubled his father, but it was never answered. The only answer, indeed that the orthodoxy of Ballou's day, or of any other day, has ever made to such questions is to solemnly warn against the use of human reason: " Do not think and question; only believe. The use of reason may destroy your soul!"
While the logical mind of Ballou could not rest satisfied with the orthodoxy of his day, no more could it rest satisfied with theology as John Murray would have it. In his remarkable work on " The Atonement," a work which embodies most of his own system, he distinctly repudiates the doctrine of the Trinity; he teaches that Christ was a dependent, created being, and not God; he rejects the vicarious and substitutionary sacrifice, and holds that Christ was sent into this world to teach men the way to God and reconcile them to Him. He also repudiates the doctrine of a fall and of inherited depravity, and insists on the original Tightness of human nature. In his early life he appears to have believed that there would be disciplinary suffering in the next world; but latterly he abandoned this idea. " His matured opinion seems to have been," according to Dr. Cone, " that sin is punished when and where it is committed; and as he did not believe that men would sin in the life to come, he did not think they would suffer punishment in that state of existence." His doctrine, for this reason, was known among his opponents as the "death-and-glory doctrine."
Mr. Ballou's book and preaching revolutionized - or, as Murray would have described it, "wrecked" - the denomination. Different from the spirit of Murray, in this respect, was the spirit of Hosea Ballou. He seems to have realized, as did Jesus, that the spirit of truth would constantly lead the earnest seeker into new regions; and in the preface to his great book, published about eighty years ago, he writes:- It is a happy circumstance that in the denomination of Universalists no one feels bound to support and defend the particular opinions of another any further than he is himself convinced of their truth and importance. Our platform of faith is general, and allows individuals an extensive latitude to think freely, to investigate minutely, and to adopt what particular views best comport with the honest convictions of the mind, and fearlessly to avow and defend the same. Golden words, and words we do well to remember to-day.
Ballou accepted Murray's doctrine of destiny, and added to it the doctrine of the Divine Unity and of Christ's work as a moral power influencing men to God. A rational view of Deity and of the nature of salvation was Ballou's work upon Murray's foundation. Having finished his course and accomplished his task, he fell asleep in the year 1852. Says President Cone: -
A great and spotless soul, he well deserves the meed of reverence and of honor from us of this generation who have entered into his labors. Well shall we do and deserve if we perform the work allotted to us with the zeal and consecration, with the courage and sincerity, and with the geniality and toleration which distinguished Hosea Ballou.

III. THE MODERN PERIOD.
Since the death of Ballou, we cannot say that any one man has become the embodiment and exponent of a period. There has been progress since his day, but the thought and tendencies of the modern epoch are not gathered up in one individual.
The denomination still stands with its foundations in the past. It retains the doctrine of human destiny for which Murray so zealously labored, but it disclaims the Calvinism with which that doctrine was associated in his mind. With Ballou, it repudiates his ideas of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, vicarious sacrifice, and total depravity. It accepts with Ballou the unity of God, the original Tightness of human nature, and the morally educational work of Jesus Christ. But it no longer accepts the later teaching of Ballou, that punishment for sin is confined to this life; the vast majority to-day would say that penalty may extend and does extend into the other life, and lasts while sin lasts.
But if modern Universalism retains so much of the work and thought of the past, we may well ask, " Has it any characteristics of its own ? What distinguishes the Universalism of to-day from the Universalism of the fathers?" It is already apparent that there is a large body of truth which we hold in common with them. Wherein do we differ?
1. The Universalism of to-day differs from that of yesterday, in some respects, as the oak differs from the acorn; it is the development of certain germs of truth whose unfolding was long delayed.
For example, our fathers, in the confession of 1803, de parted so far from orthodoxy as to declare that the " Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God, the duty, interest, and final destination of mankind." Orthodoxy said, "The Scriptures are such a revelation from beginning to end." We can hardly realize to-day the length of the departure measured by the word contain. The fathers also affirmed man's right to use his reason in the interpretation of the Bible, to whatever conclusion he might be led. The orthodoxy of the day insisted that reason must only be used so far as it brought one back to the predestined conclusions of the creeds. All this was before the day of scientific criticism, and while our fathers affirmed the difference in value and importance of different parts of the Bible, yet in their handling of proof texts they proceeded upon the orthodox assumption, and in their answers and arguments treated every passage, from whatever part of the Bible it came, as if it stood upon a level with every other passage. They denied the infallibility of Scripture, and yet built their theology upon the very infallibility they denied. They recognized the office of reason, but confined it to the explanation of texts.
That word "contain," however, was a seed that has germinated and marvellously grown under the influence of modern critical study. Within its wonderfully elastic boundary line, we find room for the results of the scholarship of to-day. We no longer assume infallibility. We recognize the progress in morality, in religion, in everything, that different portions of the Bible indicate. We recognize the human error, even while we feel the divine heart-beat underneath. To them the Bible was the book of theology; to us it is the book of life. To them it was the mathematics of dogma; to us it is the literature of religion. To them it was a magazine of proof texts; to us it is the torch of the spirit to kindle the flames of devotion and love. It decreases as a theological authority; it increases as a guide to duty, as an inspiration to holiness. A merely textual Universalism has had its day. We no longer think it worth while to show that a smiling countenance is hidden behind every frowning text. Reason, from the drudgery of interpretation, has been lifted to the supreme authority. But the change that has been wrought was all originally wrapped up in that word "contain."
2. The Universalism of to-day differs from that of yester-day, in some other respects, as the kernel differs from the shell; it makes use of the vital and essential truth of the past without the former discussions concerning the incidental and subordinate.
One difficulty-with the Universalism of other days was its terminology. It was loth to part with the expressions of orthodoxy. It used the Trinitarian formula in baptism, in benediction and doxology, although it denied the Trinity. From some of these expressions many suppose, even to-day, that the Universalist church believes in the doctrine of the Trinity. There is frequent necessity to correct this impression. It used the orthodox phraseology to describe the work of Christ, while denying the vicarious sacrifice; so that many thought and still think that the only difference between the Universalists and others upon this subject is in the extent of Christ's work and not at all in its nature. Then, too, there were many discussions about the person of Christ. There is still diversity of view. Not all in the denomination think alike concerning the miraculous birth, the preexistence of Jesus, the exact place of His classification in the scheme of being, and the entire subject of the supernatural.
While in regard to the Bible we have felt the impulse of modern criticism, so in regard to all that has been believed to transcend the ordinary course of nature, we have felt the influence of modern science, the old distinction between natural and supernatural is vanishing. The kingdom of God is not divided into two antagonistic provinces. Slowly but resistlessly increases the thought that the doctrine of "special interferences" must go with the doctrine of "special creations"; that every apparent exception is in reality a part of the universal order. There is no diversity, however, regarding the moral power of Jesus, His life, His example, His teaching. These are the essential things. That exalted human personality, that incarnation of godliness into actual character, in its moving and moulding might, is still preached, while the nugatory questions of the past about Jesus, are allowed to pile themselves up like driftwood along the banks of the living stream.
3. Once more, the Universalism of to-day differs from that of yesterday, as the demonstration in mathematics differs from the application to practical mechanics.
It was, indeed, necessary for great principles to be wrought out, for great doctrines to be established; and for this purpose line upon line, precept upon precept, were needed. The doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood must be veritably driven into the minds of men and fixed there. Sermon upon sermon up-piled, debate overtopping debate, these were needed to abolish the everlasting dungeons of the future. The work was done and well done. All honor to the sturdy fathers of the faith. Let none of the younger generation, who cannot realize the difficulties of that elder day or the heroism it took to meet them, say one word in contempt or depreciation. Let us do our work as faithfully as they did theirs.
It must strike one, however, that, from the very necessity laid upon them, the theology of the fathers was very largely a theology that centered in the future. Its field was the hereafter. Its prevailing aspect was that of "other-worldliness." It banished the clouds from the heavens, but left many a shadow resting upon the earth. It is for us to take the great truths of God's Fatherhood and of man's destiny, turn them earthward, and find here and now their application. Our fathers smote the tyrant of the skies; it is for us to take the same principles by which they did it, and smite the oppressions of the earth. Our fathers affirmed an immortal worth in the vilest creature; they said there was something in him that ages hence would burst into magnificent blossom in the sunlight of paradise. It is for us to insist that the processes of unfolding shall not be postponed; that they shall begin on earth, and that the conditions for that unfolding shall be made as favorable as possible.
The immortal worth of every human being! Put that idea under society, and it is no longer a machine for turning out dollars, but a garden for the cultivation of men. It is this idea that is stirring the world to its foundations, and beginning to thaw the icy maxims of political economy. It is teaching us that human labor is not, in the ordinary sense, a commodity; not to be bargained for in the market-place as if it were a barrel of flour or a load of lumber; not to be driven to the wall by' advantage taken of its pinching necessities; that it differs from other commodities because behind every stroke of work is a brain whose powers of thought and inspiration are sparks from the infinite light, a heart whose throbs of affection pulsate with the immortal love and the immortal life.
The worth of a human being! We see it in every movement to abridge the hours of physical toil, that the mind may be more free for improvement. We see it in every law to protect life and limb for those who labor amid the complex machinery of the factory and mill. We see it in the laws to protect childhood from the blight of that toil to which so many are doomed even before their arms have "seven years' pith." We see it in the provisions that make attendance at school compulsory, and in the additional provisions to make that attendance effective by furnishing free text-books as well as other appliances. The value of humanity in this world is the moral of those old discussions about the future.
Well did our fathers say that no saint could bear the sight of endless misery over yonder; why should any real saint be able to bear any better the sight of the awful misery that still exists in this world - the "Inferno of Modern Civilization," as Mr. Flower has so well named it ? O living saint, wait not for the future. Put aside that noblest of all dreams, the exploration of the regions of the lost hereafter, and carry your message of hope and love and restoration into these hells of to-day of which our cities are full - these hells of pauperism, of grinding poverty, of innocent suffering, of ghastly intemperance, hells of the sweater's shop and the loathsome tenement, hells whose fires " man's inhumanity to man " has lighted - and here let your gospel sound its music. Seraph-wing and savior-heart are needed here and now.
These are the lines along which must move the Universalism of to-day. Along these lines victory is certain. No nobler opportunity is before any people. We must keep in sympathy with the world's thought and the world's life. Let us apply the principles of our fathers, and coming generations will rise up and call us blessed, as we look back to Murray, Ballou, Winchester, and all the transfigured company who have gathered, crowned and radiant, in the heavens!

Citation:
Shutter, M. D. (1895). Progressive changes in Universalist thought. The Arena, vol. 14 (B. O. Flowers, Editor), pp. 144-154. Available: http://books.google.com/books?id=dj0ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA144&dq=marion+shutter... [pdf version]
Full text of Shutter article copied from HTML version on Google Books (search: Marion Shutter Progressive Changes). Font changed, format adjusted to reflect pdf, and scanning errors fixed. Chris Bremer, February 2008.

Note: It appears The Arena was a periodical of the time. The copy this is from, in the Library of Congress, is from the Harry Houdini collection of books.

THE TRUTH ABOUT
UNIVERSALISM

A Sermon by John Cummins, Minister

First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

The truth about Universalism is that it is really not Christian. At least, it is not Christian in the way that churches over the centuries have come to interpret Christian - as "believing in Christ, and him crucified," as the third part of a triune God who somehow became the father of himself, was raised magically into heaven, and so saved all who believe.

There are a few Unitarian Universalists who, emphasizing the teachings of Jesus during his lifetime, believe that he was as nearly divine in his teaching and example as a human being can become, and that no person has ever equaled his example.  Believing in the moral teachings of Jesus himself rather than in the accumulation of dogmas about him in later centuries, these few Unitarian Universalist Christians regard themselves as the true fundamentalists.

Others of us, by far the vast majority of Unitarian Universalists, while recognizing the validity of Jesus' ethical teachings, believe something quite different.  Namely, that Universalism means what its name implies.  That it is not just a particular kind of Christianity, but that it is, in fact, a new world religion with universal implications and applications, able to recognize and assimilate validity in the moral and religious truth embodied in many religious traditions.

All of this would be mere matter for armchair philosophers like ourselves but for the fact that religious beliefs have very real consequences.  One of these is war.  People are still dying by the thousands because of the insularity of their religious beliefs. During the height of the Iranian-American controversy, the Ayatollah Khomeini banned all Western music from radio and television, feeling that such music was a heathen and polluting influence among the faithful. Western news reporters, knowing that the Koran teaches high respect for Christianity as a co-religion, asked Khomeini if the ban also included the great religious music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.  Khomeini's only reply was, "I know not those names." An equal ignorance applies to Western knowledge of Iranian and Islamic culture and history.  And so, in an extremely dangerous and war-prone atmosphere, we talked past each other.

The situation could be duplicated a hundred times over the earth where cultures, rooted in ancient religions, immersed in their insularity, view others as different, alien, hostile.  The problem applies as much to Bird Island, Minnesota, where there are, at best, three churches (with as much difference between them as tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum) as it does to Khurdish tribesmen in the hills of northern Iran.  Pity the poor child in each place!  Each grows up assuming the whole world is Shi'ite, or Lutheran, as the case may be. It might not make any difference except that when such ethnocentric naïveté is backed by undreamed-of military might, as in the case of America, the result is the Viet Nam tragedy, the debacle in Iran, a generation of mistaken hostility toward China, reference to all communists as atheists, and the consequent backing of fascist dictatorships in South and Central America.  Such ignorance will be the cause of world war III, if it happens.  What may the child of Bird Island know of the lessons of Confucius or gentle Buddha, of the ways history and legit­imate aspirations of these peoples? Yet, out of his ignorance, in the end, rise vast national policies with world wide implications.  He may die of his own ignorance - as indeed, he did in Viet Nam. How strange, in a world of vast networks of communication, that this should be so.

The all-alike Christian churches of America need desperately to be challenged by the transcendent Universalism of a church like our own, that thinks in terms of world community, that does not raise up persons like Judd of Minnesota and John Foster Dulles, both the product of narrow Protestant missionary traditions determined to convert the "heathen^"to their way or else, and who therefore found it easy to think of Communism as a great world wide conspiracy of "materialistic atheism." Though neither of these men perhaps ever held a gun, thousands have died and thousands more made homeless refugees because of their influence on American foreign policy, in China, Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam, Iran, El Salvador, Chile, and on.

Unitarian Universalism, unique among the churches of America, not only teaches about world religions but further draws upon their historic beauty and wisdom for inspiration and guidance in worship; and encourages critical selection by individuals from among and within them of those values and practices which command respect and emulation. This "going beyond" merely teaching about world religion, to incorporate, pragmatically and emotionally, various aspects of world religions into a religious outlook that is uniquely one's own is frankly an experiment in the name of religion.  It is an effort to build a religious outlook that is appro­priate for an age of one world, to build a religious outlook that allows and encourages the widest possible individual liberty, a religious outlook that is inclusive, healing, and unitive of the human family, rather than parochial, divisive, and prejudicial.

The question is not whether it's popular, but whether it represents reality, whether it works, whether it stands a chance of preventing the world's future children from dying in wars, which A. E. Hayden referred to as "The quest of the ages."  The chief criticism of Universalism by traditional Christians is that it is a patchwork of artificial borrowings from
various traditions/ a meaningless "potpourri" without roots or belonging, and as such is shallow, hollow, immature. This accusation of "syncretism," of being a rootless and artificial mix, is a responsible one, and must be addressed. I address it briefly by pointing out that every religion on earth has always borrowed, knowingly or otherwise, from
every religion around it, and every religion that went before it, including Judaism and Christianity. Thus, Jesus, in the choicest of all prayers, prayed "Our Father who art in Heaven," lifting a concept of "The Sky Father" directly from Zoroastrian religion of Persia that existed centuries before he was born. Thus the word Easter, taken from the Sanskrit word for dawn, borrows from the religious concept of the resurrection and renewal of all life that existed for thousands of years before Jesus died on a cross.

Every educated person must know that the religions of humanity do not exist in self-contained boxes, impenetrated by each other. The religious experience of the world is a vast tapestry of patterns woven geographically and historically, sharing and profoundly related to one another in symbols, ideals, and ethics -all dealing with universal human experiences of birth, marriage, death, kinship, idealism, and philosophy. Truth, understanding, and beauty flow through them all. None possesses a monopoly on truth or religious wisdom.

Now I admit that I could never make a good Buddhist if it were obligatory to shave my head and bow my spirit before the gong-beat of punctuated meditation, but when I reflect on the pity and compassion shown by the gentle Buddha toward the suffering of the world, then I feel at one with six hundred million Buddhists across the world who would follow his path.

I could never swallow Hindu images of divine beings with three faces and three sets of arms, and yoga only sets me to yawning with boredom, but when I think that for five thousand years, Hinduism has never tried to impose ecclesi­astical uniformity on anyone, nor ever felt any divine mission to convert the world, then I am content to reach out to that breadth of tolerance. I could never touch my forehead to the ground five times a day at the muezzin's call as do the Moslems, nor ascribe to Islam's militancy, but when I reflect that Islam kept astronomy, mathematics, architecture, chemistry, poetry, and art alive when Christian Europe was sunk in a thousand years of darkness, brought civilization to the Arabian desert, and is totally color­blind, then I can still say, "Salaam, and thank you," in all sincerity.

There are four ways of reacting to the diversity of religions in the world.  The first and worst may be called DISPLACEMENT.  In it, you attempt to displace all other points of view and replace them with your own. You organize and pay missionaries to do this. Next best is TOLERATION, or a neutral attitude of studied indifference. Not an offensive approach, certainly, but passive, undynamic, and uninspired.  Third, ECLECTICISM, selecting out of the mélange certain aspects, and putting them in what is, principally, your own framework.  An example of this would be Ba'hai which has 9 recognized world saviors.  It has kept the notion of "savior," yet fitted 9 of them into its own frame of reference.  Fourth is SYNCRETISM; A full synthesis, or full acceptance of the totality of human aspiration.

To stand upon the shoulders of the past and not be buried by it is the challenge of our age of One World. This is just the way we should deal with the great heritage of human ideals and aspirations we have received from the past, and that have come down to us from the prophets and teachers of every age and tradition.
THE TRUTH ABOUT UNIVERSALISM IS THAT IT IS UNIVERSAL.