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First Unitarian Church of Austin service - 10. 27. 2008. 21:24:05 GMT-0500

221 Views Length: 76:35 19 October: An Early Unitarian Heretic Davidson Loehr If the Congregationalist minister William Ellery Channing named and thereby created “Unitarian Christianity” in 1819, the fledgling movement already had its first – and still most famous –… 19 October: An Early Unitarian Heretic Davidson Loehr If the Congregationalist minister William Ellery Channing named and thereby created “Unitarian Christianity” in 1819, the fledgling movement already had its first – and still most famous – heretic by 1838. Ralph Waldo Emerson – no longer even a “Unitarian Christian” was America’s first public intellectual. In 1838 he gave an address at Harvard Di- vinity School in which he said the Unitarians were already on the wrong track. He didn’t draw on the Bible at all, but on some basic Hindu thought from the Upanishads. He wasn’t invited back to Harvard for over three decades. (Emerson was also famous for saying that Unitarianism was “corpse-cold.”) This church was first founded in 1892 by a student of Emerson’s which gives us a more direct connection to him than to any other Unitarian thinker. What was he about? How was it liberal religion? Should anybody still care what he thought? Music by The FUUCA Jazz Combo More