Abraham Lincoln was a religious man, and he was a spiritual man, and he was a secular man. He was essentially a very paradoxical man. How can you be religious,…
Sermons
On this Martin Luther King Sunday, I have chosen to link the life of Dr. King with that of the great Frederick Douglass, who in many ways commanded the same…
The fulcrum for today’s sermon is a book by the former Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, Lord Jonathan Sachs. The title of the book is, “Not in God’s Name:…
“Mr. Fulghum, is it true that you’re a minister?” “Yes.” “Where’s your church?” “We’re standing in it.” “But this is a bookstore and it’s a Friday.” “Yes, but you might…
“Speech gives rise to speech” that’s what a famous German philosopher from the last century wrote: “Speech gives rise to speech.” What could he have meant? Now the philosophy of…
Sermon on Patriotism for Unitarian service, 11/1 In Castine and 11/15 in Belfast. America is a big adolescent boy. Glory, like war, is a boy’s thing and America has had…
When I was first in Seminary in New York City in the 1960’s we were all excitedly reading a book by a Harvard theologian called “The Secular City.” It celebrated…
When the center cannot hold—and we do feel it—we need new ways to hold ourselves together. In the cycles of history new religions are born out of the disintegration of…
OPENING WORDS: “The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around: brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own…
As we look around the world today we see religious forces moving front and center as the driving forces in the evolution of civilization. We see religion play a role…
