John Haynes Holmes

“ Our natural affiliations as a church in this city have not been so much with churches of our own denomination, as with churches of various denominations distinguished like ourselves as predominantly civic, or community, institutions. This congregation is an independent congregation. If the Unitarian name adheres to it at all, it is to the embarrassment of those whose Unitarianism is their pride, and to the confusion of those who, not Unitarians either by birth or conviction, desire to join us in spirit and active work. ”

“ Now with the intrusion of the social question into religion, a new concept of church organization came immediately to the fore. The unit of fellowship was now no longer the denomination, but the community. The centre of life and allegiance was no longer the challenge of ancient controversy, but the cry of present day human need. ”

“ Why should I undertake to build an independent church in this city, or accept the leadership of a church however remarkably developed in Chicago, when the Church of the Messiah, pledged to freedom, and long committed to the idea of progress, lies ready to my hand? ”

“ To have a church has been with me from the beginning a necessity. To have a church of the new community order has become a great desire. Last spring I seriously considered presenting to you my resignation, that I might enter upon the fulfillment of this hope. Last summer I pretty definitely made up my mind to lay this problem and prospect before you, as soon as peace should come, and the distractions of war be gone. Then, at the very moment when peace came, as though to anticipate and thus forestall my decision, there came the call from Chicago. ”

“ We are members here not of a political caucus, but of a church; and it behooves us, therefore, to observe even the uttermost refinements of good-will and mutual consideration. We must respect with scrupulous fidelity the rights of each, and seek nothing that falls short of the happiness of all. Determination must now yield place to patience, and courage to sympathy. Conversion and not conquest is our method. ”

“ Men must be free from all oppression, because they are children of God, and therefore living souls. They must be equal in opportunity and privilege, because they are members of the holy family of God, and therefore brothers. They must be lifted up out of poverty, disease, war, because their heritage is the life of God, and they must have it abundantly. The material aspects of the social question, I would be among the last, I trust, to ignore. These are central—but central only as the fetters are central to the problem of slavery. ”

“ Our name suggests a hope of ancient Judaism, a period of Unitarian history, a habit of Episcopalian nomenclature—and that is all! It should be changed, to give some adequate expression of our ideals. The City Church, the People's Church, the Community Church, the Church of the People, the Church of the New Democracy, the Fellowship, the Free Fellowship, the Fellowship of Social Idealism, the Fellowship of the Kingdom, the Fellowship of Spiritual Democracy, the Liberal Centre, the Community Centre,—think of what we might call ourselves, if we but had the courage. ”

“ On the side of religion, it means that we abandon the idea of an inner group of members, who have reached some spiritual eminence not attained by others. Of course, in our body, this sanctification aspect of church membership has disappeared from our apprehension. But if this is the case, why should we retain the form? What is essential is organization and fellowship on the basis of simple brotherhood. Here we are, comrades together, worshipping and working to the great end of a better world. ”

“ I shall be at one with all men everywhere—at home with the family of mankind. I shall not so much cease to be a Unitarian, as to become a Christian. This matter is of course personal; and it thus affected only incidentally the problem which was before our meeting last Monday night. It is easy to find precedent for the occupancy of a Unitarian pulpit by a minister not a Unitarian. At the time of the famous Year-Book controversy, Mr. Potter of New Bedford, Mass., and several of his colleagues, withdrew from the Unitarian body, but continued to hold their Unitarian pulpits. ”

“ At last came a conviction which was a complete reversal of all my former ideas. I was as a man converted; I was as one who had seen a great light. Henceforth I was a social radical; and religion, pre-eminently not a testimony to theological truth but a crusade for social change. Of course, my interest in theology has persisted; but its place in my life has tended to become ever more subordinate to other and more directly practical interests. You know how the character of my preaching has changed since I first entered the Messiah pulpit. ”

“ The wilderness and the solitary place, as well as the crowded city, is the abode of God. But better than loneliness is comradeship. The explorer may see from afar the Promised Land, the pioneer may spy it out, but it is the marching host that enters to conquer and possess. ”

“ We need your names—a body cannot exist and labor without members. We need your love—our hearts must falter if we have it not. To all who hear these words I speak, to all who read them when they are printed, to all whom rumor may inform and question, I cry out, Come! ”

“ Was I wrong when I ventured the assertion at the meeting of our Society, that in this church we have already moved far in this direction? Unconsciously, in the last dozen years, it seems to me, we have been moving out of the denomination, into the community. Nearly every interest in this parish is a community and not a denominational interest. ”

“ It was necessary that we should meet not on the plane of the past, nor even of the present, but on the plane of the future, and thus find ourselves again, and discover what now, in this new world, we wanted, and would be able, to do together. ”

“ What was infinitely more important, as I now see, was the fact that unconsciously through these years, I was coming to question not the church itself, as I have explained, but the whole order and purpose of the church as it now exists. Every ecclesiastical institution today is denominational in character. ”

“ Foster was born, bred and ordained a Baptist; and yet last year was called to fill the pulpit of the First Unitarian Church church in Madison, Wisconsin; and died in the service of this church, a Baptist.
Even in orthodox churches, the denominational tag is losing its significance. Thus, when the City Temple London, the most famous Congregational church in the world, sought a successor to Dr. Campbell, it chose Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, of Iowa, a Universalist. We are getting sensible enough these days to recognize that the essential thing even about a minister is not his name but his manhood. ”

“ But always there is a distinctive form of organization, or type of ritual, or doctrine of belief, or spirit of association, which binds these separate churches into a single group; and always this distinctive feature is something which had its origin, and still finds its vitality, in the thought and experience of an earlier age. Every one of our denominations, and every one of the churches in our denominations, is representative of past controversies, not of present interests and duties. ”

“ I stated at our meeting that if I should remain as your minister, I should hope that this church might similarly baptize itself afresh in the language of our own time, and in the spirit of our own life!
Again, at this meeting on Monday last, I stated that a modern church should have free pews. This statement needs no definition or argument. The system of pew [18] rentals is an abomination, already abolished in countless churches more orthodox than our own, and a scandal in any church claiming to be liberal or democratic. ”

“ We must be bound together in some way, for we must be an enlisted body, not a mob of unrelated individuals. But let it be a Roll-Call to Service—a joining of the church as of the Red Cross for the love of mankind. In spirit, our membership is already this ”

“ You do not know, hence I must tell you, how this intensity of radical conviction is destined to continue in the years that are now before us. For the war has accelerated the social crisis beyond all forecasting. In two years has transpired what fifty years could not have consummated under more normal conditions. Three great empires—Russia, Germany, Austria—and several newborn countries, like that of the Czecho-Slovaks, have been captured by the Socialists ”

“ Our churches will be related as the wards in a city are related, or the cities in a state, or the states in the nation. We shall be all Christians together, as we are all Americans together. We shall have different religious ideas as we have different political ideas. ”

“ Decision on this point came fairly early, and it was favorable to the church. Strangely enough, however, it brought me little peace and surety in my church relations. Outside, in the denomination at large, I found myself in almost constant conflict with my fellows. There were few meetings or conferences in which I did not speak in protest and vote with minorities. Here in the Messiah parish there was no trouble, thanks to your forbearance, friendship, and scrupulous loyalty to freedom ”