An Examined Faith: Social Context and Religious Commitment

This companion volume to the earlier The Prophethood of All Believers touches on the entire range of thought of this prominent Unitarian ethicist and theologian. Adams is an avowedly liberal Christian. ``Fed up'' with the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth that maintains that God is ``something detachable'' from the world, he looks, in editor Beach's words, ``for renewal of liberalism in religion, in politics and in culture.'' For him, Christianity claims that the meaning of human existence is found not in isolation but in human community. No separation can be made between social and moral or religious issues. Essays range from autobiographical material and reflections on his intellectual mentors (such as Tillich and Troeltsch) to considerations of AIDS, racism and poverty. The portrait of Adams which emerges is that of a thoughtful and deeply caring clergyman and academician who, like Christoph Blumhardt (about whom he writes), glimpses the Kingdom of God--a new world in the making--but who also knows that it will not come ``without dust and heat, and not without the pain of change.'' Beach is a Unitarian minister. (July)