Adams, James Luther (1901–1994)

James Luther Adams was a preeminent Unitarian Universalist theologian and ethicist of the 20th century. Born in Ritzville, Washington, he was the son of a Baptist country preacher and farmer. After working on the Northern Pacific Railroad, Adams attended the University of Minnesota and Harvard Divinity School. Training to become a Unitarian minister, he moved from his child hood premillenarian fundamentalism to liberal Christianity. Adams served as the minister of two congregations: from 1927 to 1934 with the Second Church, Unitarian, in Salem, Massachusetts, and from 1934 to 1935 with the First Unitarian Society in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. During this time, he earned a master's in comparative literature from Harvard and taught from 1929 to 1932 in the Department of English at Boston University.

In 1935, ...