19 November 2022 at 09:59
Emerson Re-defines Us “Channing’s Baltimore Sermon, Emerson’s Divinity School Address, and Parker’s South Boston Sermon have long been accepted as the three great classic utterances of American Unitarianism.” (Conrad Wright, Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism )All three were widely controversial – and widely influential. William Ellery Channing’s Baltimore Sermon, “Unitarian Christianity,” in 1819 was the manifesto that launched and defined Unitarianism as a new denomination. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Divinity School Address in 1838 spoke for a new generation. Channing had defined us, and Emerson re-defined us. Invited to address the graduating class of Harvard’s Divinity School, Emerson, then 35 years old, delivere...