A Statement: On the Future of This Church

A Statement: On the Future of This Church

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A Statement: On the Future of This Church by John Haynes Holmes

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1919

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A Statement: On the Future of This Church

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Book Excerpt

al only as the fetters are central to the problem of slavery. Furthermore, the means which I recognized to the great end, were also spiritual. I could find no place in my thought for the use of violence. The plea of class-conscious rebellion never won my acceptance. Only patience, persuasion, and much love for humankind, seemed to me legitimate weapons of reform. In other words, I was again a victim of the logic of Christianity. And where did this logic hold me, if not to the church? Where could I make plain my spiritual position, or bring to bear my spiritual influence, apart from the church? If this institution must hold me altogether aloof from the social question, then of course my duty was manifest. But its pulpit was wide open to social preaching; its altar a chosen place for social consecration; and its machinery of service all at hand to be shifted from the gear of [10] charity to the gear of justice. Why not stay, therefore, in the church, as Theodore Parker stayed, and fight capitalism, as he fought

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This is an important Unitarian milestone in which John Haynes Holmes, a pacifist Unitarian clergyman, first announced from the pulpit his intention to leave the Unitarian denomination. This action related in part to the American Unitarian Association's support for US involvement in World War I, and in part to his evolving vision of a single "Community Church" that he hoped would replace separate denominations in each geographic locality, with all working together for the common good of their community. Here he lays out his vision for the "Community Church" concept. Holmes was a co-founder of the NAACP and the ACLU, and a friend and early supporter of Gandhi.