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Art Reading Scripture Sermon Sexuality

God’s lovers.

Our metaphors take us only partway, but only then do we see that we are at the limits of our understanding.

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History Scholarship Unitarian Universalism

Unitarianism and early American interest in Hinduism

The early history of American interest in Hinduism is closely tied, surprisingly, to the early intellectual history of a small, liberal sect of American Christians known as Unitarians.

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Sermon

Divine interruptions.

If Christmas has a tendency to make us a bit sentimental in our religious attitudes, Advent reminds us that the terrible disruptions of our lives can also reveal the divine.

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Scholarship Theology

The reality of the symbol of God.

Paul Tillich and Gordon Kaufman both argue that God isn’t something that exists, but that God is nonetheless real and profoundly important. What do they mean?

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Sermon

The critical faith of Doubting Thomas.

The story may say ‘happy are they who never saw and yet have found faith,’ but I think everybody knows what it’s like to be Doubting Thomas.

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Scholarship Theology

The object of religion.

G.W.F. Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach each believe that studying human consciousness will tell us something about the nature of God – but Feuerbach says we’ll discover that God is really a projection of human nature.

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Scholarship Theology

Schleiermacher on true religious fellowship.

Friedrich Schleiermacher published his urbane and eloquent book, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, in Berlin in 1799. His fourth speech is addressed not just to the “cultured despisers” of religion, but especially to the despisers of the historic, institutional church. “Your opposition to the church, to every event aimed at the communication of […]

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Scholarship Theology

The religious availability of John Dewey’s God.

In his only book about religion, John Dewey defines God as the “unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and to action.” What does he mean?

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Scholarship Unitarian Universalism

‘Words are not the only language’: Henry Whitney Bellows’s view of scripture.

A leading 19th-century Unitarian says that “God talks in creation, in history, [and] in revelation,” and that the church is a community of ongoing interpretation.

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Scholarship Theology Unitarian Universalism

Authority in the Spirit: Developing a doctrine of the liberal church.

A doctrine of the church, refined by theological and historical analysis, helps us identify the purpose and significance of Unitarian Universalist congregations.