Category: Religion

Hermes and the Woodman

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This story is one of Aesop’s Fables, ancient Greek tales dating from about 500 BCE. Aesop’s Fables typically get modernized, with morals that are borrowed either from Poor Richard’s Almanac, or from greeting cards or fortune cookies. Instead of completely modernizing this fable, I’ve tried to retain at least a little of the ancient Greek sensibility — so I left off the obvious moral, “Honesty is the best policy,” and instead used a more literal translation of the original moral. I also like the fact that this myth includes an actual Greek god.

A Woodman was chopping wood alongside a river, when his axe flew out of his hands and and was carried away by the swift current. The Woodman sat down on the riverbank and began to weep; for he earned his living with his axe, and what was he to do without it?

Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and himself the god of trade, merchants, roads, and many other things, saw the Woodman weeping, and took pity on him. The god’s winged sandals carried him to the riverbank, and he appeared before the Woodman. “Why are you crying, Woodman?” he said.

“I have dropped my axe in the river, and the swift current has carried it away,” said the Woodman.

Hermes went into the river, and emerged holding an axe made out of solid gold. “Is this your axe?” he asked. But the Woodman said it was not his. Hermes went into the river again, and this time brought up an axe made of solid silver. But again, the Woodman said it was not his.

Once more, Hermes went into the river, and this time brought up the Woodman’s axe. This time, the Woodman recognized his axe. Hermes rewarded the Woodman’s honesty by giving to him, not just his own axe, but the gold and silver axes, too.

When the Woodman told this story to his friends, one of them grew jealous. He decided to do the same thing as the Woodman. The jealous friend went to the riverbank, began chopping wood, and then let his axe fall into the river, where it was carried away by the swift current. He sat down and began weeping.

The god Hermes appeared and asked what had happened, and the man said that he had lost his axe in the river. Hermes went into the river and brought up an axe made of solid gold. Hermes asked if this was the axe he had lost. The man said happily, “Yes, this is it.” Hermes hated such shameless greed. The god kept both the golden axe, and also the axe the jealous man had dropped into the river.

This fable shows that the divine is in agreement with people who are just, and the divine is opposed to people who are unjust.

Sources: V. S. Vernon Jones, Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation (1912); Laura Gibbs, Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation, Oxford University Press (2002); and a machine translation of the ancient Greek text from the Chambry edition (no. 253).

Numskull and the Rabbit

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This one is from the Panchatantra, an ancient Sanskrit text that contains many well-known folk tales.

In the forest lived an arrogant lion whose name was Numskull. He only needed one animal a day for his food, but he enjoyed killing for the fun of it. So he would kill any animal he saw, whether or not he was hungry, just because he enjoyed it.

At last, all the other animals of the forest — deer, boars, buffaloes, wild oxen, rabbits, and more — agreed to go to the lion together, to try to stop this slaughter. When they approached Numskull, they got down on their knees to bow to him. Speaking with the utmost humility, they said, “O King of all the animals, we beg you to end this endless slaughter of other animals. For as our sacred book tells us:

“When a fool does evil in this life
For the sake of bliss,
They shall have a thousand future lives
Pass in wretchedness.

“We beg you to think of what will happen to you in your next reincarnation, if you continue to slaughter us willy-nilly. We humbly ask that you simply stay at home, and we will send one animal each day to serve as your meal. This way, you will never be hungry, and for our part we will not have to worry about our families. And you can perform the duties of a king without risking punishment in your future lives. For as the proverb says:

“When a king tastes power like a potion,
Sipping bit by bit,
He will not overload his life,
He’ll fully relish it.”

Numskull listened to the animals, and replied, “You have convinced me. But be warned! If you do not send me an animal to eat every single day, I swear that I will come and kill all of you.”

Relieved, the animals promised to live by this agreement. From then on, the animals were able to roam about the forest without fear. But each day, they had tosent one of their number to serve as Numskull’s midday meal. Each day, it was the turn of a different kind of animal, whether deer or gazelle or boar, to send forth one animal of their species.

Rabbit-day came around, and the rabbits decided on one of their number to send to the lion. As the other animals sent her off to die, this rabbit thought to herself, “Somehow, it must be possible to kill this horrible lion. For it is said:

“In all things wisdom surely can prevail,
In nothing can determination fail,
There is nothing flattery cannot subdue,
Nothing enterprise cannot win through.”

And having repeated this little poem, the rabbit thought to herself, “Perhaps I can even kill a lion.”

She went along slowly, thinking of ways to defeat the lion. She was several hours late when at last she came to the home of the lion. Because she was so late, the lion had become very hungry, and was thinking to himself, “I cannot stand waiting so long! First thing in the morning, I shall go out and start slaughtering all the animals.”

While the lion was thinking these thoughts, the rabbit came up and bowed low. The sight of this small little rabbit, barely a single bite, enraged the lion. “You worthless animal!” he roared. “Not only are you late, but you are too small to make a full meal. I shall kill you first, and then I shall kill all the other animals besides.”

The little rabbit bowed low again, and humbly said, “O great lion, the fault is not mine, nor does it belong to the other animals. If you will listen, you will hear the real cause.”

The lion replied, “Tell me quickly, before I eat you up.”

“O great lion,” said the rabbit, “today it was the rabbits’ turn to supply an animal for your meal. When they saw how small we rabbits are, they sent six of us together so you would have enough to eat.

“Yet as we walked to your home, another lion leaped out of a huge hole in the ground, saying, ‘And where do you think you are going? You had better pray to your favorite god before I eat you up.’ I spoke for the other five rabbits, saying, ‘We are travelling to become the dinner of the great lion Numskull, according to our agreement with him.’ To which this great lion said in return, ‘Well, this whole forest belongs to me, which means that the animals can only make an agreement with me. This Numskull is merely a small-time thief. Go call him and bring him here at once. Whichever one of us is stronger shall be the king of the forest, and shall eat all you six rabbits, and whatever other animals he pleases.’

“So said this great lion,” concluded the little rabbit, “and this is why I am late. As for the rest of it, your majesty shall be the judge.”

Numskull grew angry at this. “Show me where this thief of a lion is, and be quick about it. He shall feel my anger.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the rabbit. “Yet you should know this other lion lives in a fortress with stone walls, where it is difficult to attack him.”

“Little rabbit, show me this thief,” said Numskull. “I will kill him even though he hides within a fortress.”

“Very well,” said the little rabbit. She led Numskull to a place where there was a well. “You see, your majesty, as soon as he saw you, that thief of a lion crawled into his hole. Come, I will show you to him.”

“Hurry,” said Numskull, “for I grow more and more angry.”

The rabbit had Numskull look down into the well. The lion saw his own reflection in the water deep down in the well. He gave a great roar. Out from the well came an echo, sounding twice as loud. Upon seeing another lion and hearing it roar, Numskull hurled himself down the well to fight his rival, and drowned to death.

The little rabbit brought the good news to the other animals. They showered compliments on her, and they all lived in the forest happily and peacefully ever after. From this comes a proverb:

Wisdom by itself is power, but not where
Power and folly together make a pair.
The rabbit played upon the lion’s pride,
Outsmarting him, and so the lion died.

Source: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma: English Translation (Univ. of Chicago, 1925), p. 81-88.

The Blue Jackal

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. This one is from the Panchatantra, an ancient Sanskrit text that contains many well-known folk tales.

Once upon a time there lived a jackal named Fierce-Howl. This jackal lived in a cave not far from a city. Now this jackal felt throat pinched with hunger, and one night he went hunting in the city. But the dogs that lived there snapped at him with sharp teeth, and terrified him with their barking. He ran this way and that in order to escape, and blundered through the door of a house where there lived a man who made his living dying cloth. A huge vat of indigo dye was just inside the door, and in his haste the jackal tripped and fell into it.

By the time the jackal had managed to crawl out of the vat, all the dogs had gone. So he slunk back into the forest. Once he was in the forest, some of the other animals who lived there stared at with astonishment at this strange blue-colored beast. They cried out, “What is this creature whose coat is richly colored with the remarkable color?”

Then they fled in terror, and quickly spread the news through the forest: “Some strange beast has come into our forest! No one knows from whence he came, or what he might be like.” And the animals began to say to each other, “We must flee from the forest!” for they knew the old animal proverb: “When you do not know who someone is, it is wise not to trust them.”

Fierce-Howl saw how frightened they all were, and had an idea. He called out to the animals, “Why do you flee in terror from me? The god Indra saw that the animals of the forest have no king, and he has appointed me as your king. My name is Fierce-Howl. You may rest in safety in my strong paws.”

When they heard this speech, the lions, tigers, leopards, monkeys, rabbits, gazelles, jackals, and all the other animals bowed humbly to Fierce-Howl, saying, “Your Majesty, please tell us what our duties are.”

Fierce-Howl made appointed the lion to be prime minister, the tiger to be lord of the king’s bedchamber, the leopard to be the keeper of the king’s food and drink, the elephant to be the royal doorkeeper, and the monkey he appointed the bearer of the royal parasol, to keep the hot sun off the king’s head. But fearing the other jackals might recognize who he really was, he cuffed them and drove them away.

And so the jackal lived in royal state. The lions and tigers killed food animals for this king, and laid them before him. And King Fierce-Howl divided the food animals, and distributed them among his subjects according to their need and their service to the king, just as all kings do.

One day when King Fierce-Howl was sitting in his royal court, he heard a pack of jackals begin to howl. This brought back old memories of the days before he became king. A tear came to his eyes, and without thinking he stood up and began to howl back. The lions and tigers, upon hearing this, realized that their king was nothing but a jackal. The jackal saw that he had made a horrible mistake, and stood there ashamed and downcast.

Lions and tigers do not care for jackals, since jackals may try to steal their food. The lions and tigers looked at each other and said, “We have been deceived by a jackal. He deserves to die.” And that was the end of the jackal.

Source: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma: English Translation (Univ. of Chicago, 1925), pp. 122-124.

The Old Man at the Frontier Loses His Horse

Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. Dr. Kate Sullivan, the DRE with whom I work, told another version of this story in the Sunday service two days ago. She based her version on the famous Alan Watts retelling of the story. Today, we tracked down the origins of this story. It comes from the Huainanzi, a Chinese philosophical text from the 2nd century CE. I did some more research on my own, found three or four different translations, and decided to do my own retelling of the story, that hews more closely to the Chinese original.

Many years ago, there was a man who was a Daoist, and he and his father understood how good fortune and bad fortune can turn one into the other. This man lived near the border of China, close to where the land of the barbarians began.

One day, his horse got loose and ran away into the land of the barbarians. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that he had lost such a fine horse. They all knew how expensive it would be to get a new horse. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”

Some months later, the man’s horse returned from the barbarian lands to his household. Following close behind the man’s horse came another horse. Horses from the barbarian lands were known as being especially fine animals. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how pleased they were for him. But his father said, “How do we know this is good? Perhaps it will bring misfortune.”

Those two horses had babies, and soon the man owned many fine horses. The man’s son loved to ride all these wonderful horses. Alas, one day the son fell off the horse he was riding and broke his thighbone. The man’s neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that his son was so badly injured that he would walk with a limp the rest of his life. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”

The next year, a large army of the barbarian Hu people invaded China from across the border. Every man who was strong and able-bodied took their bows and went to fight. The fighting was so fierce that nine out of every ten young men from the border lands died in battle. But because the man’s son was lame, he could not go off with the army. He and his father and gradfather managed to protect each other, and so they survived the war.

And so you can see:

Good fortune becomes bad fortune,
Bad fortune becomes good fortune;
Their transformations never end,
So deep we cannot understand.

(And from this story comes the Chinese proverb, or chengyu: “When the old man lost his horse, how could you know that it was not good luck.”)

Sources: Huainanzi, ch. 18:7. Based on several translations: (1) Lin Yutang, The Importance of Understanding: Translations from the Chinese (Cleveland/New York: World Publishing, 1963), p. 385; Yutang’s loose translation is somewhat similar to the more famous version told by Alan Watts, but Yutang keeps closer to the original Chinese; (2) The Huainanzi, trans. John S. Major, Sarah A Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth (Columbia Univ. Press, 2010), pp. 728-729; a scholarly translation; (3) The Chinese Text Project version of the Huainanzi; this is a scholarly website with bilingual text, Chinese and English https://ctext.org/huainanzi/ren-xian-xun#n3395. Story revised 6 March 2026 with simpler language.

MFC notice

The Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has sent out the following notice:

“I am writing to inform you that the Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted recently to remove the Rev. Bob LaVallee from fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association for violating UUMA Ethical Standard #10, which prohibits sexual contact, sexual harassment, sexualized behavior and sexual relationships with anyone the minister serves, and Ethical Standard #13, which prohibits engaging in words or actions that degrade the vocation of ministry.”

A quick web search shows that Bob LaVallee was the associate minister of the Albuquerque congregation for about five years, up until 2025. As always, I’m making no judgement myself about any of these notices — I’m not part of the MFC, and it’s been many years since I was part of any congregation where a minister was removed from fellowship. Especially so in this case, as I’ve never heard this name before, and I know nothing about the Albuquerque congregation.

Elizabeth Tarbox biographical information

Recently, I used something written by Rev. Elizabeth Tarbox as a reading in a Sunday service. I realized I knew next to nothing about her, so I decided to look up her obituary in the Unitarian, Universalist, and UU Yearbooks (now digitized and online). She died in October, 1999, which means her obituary would be in the following year’s Yearbook — except that was the one year when the UUA decided not to publish minister’s obituaries in the Yearbook. I found no other obituary or life summary for her online.

With a little bit of research, I was able to generate the timeline below — which tells me most of what I want to know:

  • 5 March 1944, born Elizabeth Irene Peck to William and Irene Hard Peck in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom (birth record)
  • 1963, married Charles E. Tarbox (1938-2016) in St. Albans; she and Charles later had a child (marriage record; Charles Tarbox obituary in Boston Globe)
  • 1968, she and Charles immigrated to the United States; applied for Social Security card (Social Security records; Charles Tarbox obituary in Boston Globe)
  • 1986, B.A. in philosophy, Bridgewater State College (Bridgewater State yearbook for 1986)
  • c. 1980s, congregant at First Parish Duxbury, Mass. (mentioned in FP Duxbury newsletter)
  • c. 1986, began studying at Harvard Divinity School
  • c. 1988-90, served as student minister, First Parish Norwell, Mass. (mentioned on FP Norwell Facebook page)
  • 1990, graduated Harvard Divinity School (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1990, ordained (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1990, settled at First UU Society of Middleboro, Mass. (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1993, publication of Life Tides: Meditations
  • 1997, settled at First Parish in Cohasset, Mass. (UUA Yearbooks)
  • 1997, publication of Evening Tide: Meditations
  • 1999, resigned from First Parish in Cohasset due to ill health (First Parish Cohasset records)
  • 31 Oct. 1999, died in Duxbury (Duxbury Annual Report; Social Security records)

I’m mostly satisfied with this timeline, though I wouldn’t mind finding answers to a couple of questions. First: When did she become a Unitarian? — it’s even possible she was raised Unitarian, as there was a small Unitarian fellowship in St. Albans in the 1950s, according to Alan R. Ruston, Unitarianism in Hertfordshire (Watford, Hertfordshire, U.K., 1979), p. 26. Second: What was she doing between marriage in 1963 and starting college in the 1980s — which includes a subsidiary question: Why did she come to the United States?

Continue reading “Elizabeth Tarbox biographical information”

Another MFC notice

A couple of weeks ago, I got one of those emails from the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The key paragraph read as follows: “The Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted at its December 2025 meeting to remove the Rev. Benjamin Meyers from fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association for violating the terms of ministerial probation, as related to acts of plagiarism.” When I was in the Bay Area, Ben served at the Berkeley Fellowship and the congregation in San Mateo.

This raises a question for me:

Does using generative AI to write a sermon count as plagiarism?

Technically, it’s not plagiarism. At the same time, it’s not your own work. It’s an interesting ethical question.

In-person event!

If you live south of Boston, I want to invite you to a workshop I’ll be giving on Sat., Jan. 31:

Woody Plants in Winter: An Intro to iNaturalist

Saturday, Jan. 31, 10-12 noon. Led by Dan Harper, sponsored by the Cohasset Conservation Trust.

Come explore the winter woods using iNaturalist, a nonprofit online platform that helps you learn about nature while connecting you with other nature lovers. We’ll start indoors with an introduction to iNaturalist. Then we’ll head outdoors, to identify trees and shrubs in Great Brewster Woods and Dean’s Meadow, a 25-acre tract of woodland next to Cohasset Common.

10 a.m., Introduction to iNaturalist, Carriage House Nursery School, 23 N. Main St. Cohasset. Learn the power of the iNaturalist platform, which offers computer vision identification suggestions that are checked by human experts who volunteer their time. If possible, install the iNaturalist app on your smartphone in advance.

11 a.m., Woody Plants in Winter, start at Carriage House Nursery School, 23 N. Main St. Cohasset. After an introduction to identifying woody plants in winter, we’ll go out and find some plants to identify. We’ll use the classic field guide Woody Plants in Winter by Earl L. Core and Nelle P. Ammons, as well as other field guides. If you have a 10x hand lens, or a macro lens for your phone, please bring it along.

All ages are welcome, but persons under age 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Please note that iNaturalist users under the age of 12 must obtain parental permission to use the platform here.

Weather cancellation: Major winter storm cancels. Otherwise, dress for the weather. If it’s super cold or wet, we’ll spend minimal time outdoors, and bring samples indoors to identify in comfort.

As a professional educator for 25 years, Dan Harper developed curriculum for a weekly ecojustice class (gr. 6-8), a week-long ecology day camp (gr. 2-8), and week-long half-day workshops for children and adults. He currently is co-director of Ecojustice Camp South Shore.

The Cohasset Conservation Trust is a volunteer, non-profit organization whose mission is the protection of areas of ecological importance, such as marshes, woodlands, and seashores; the promotion of public interest in conservation and smart development; and the preservation of properties of unique historic interest or unusual beauty.

2025: liberal and progressive religion in review

A/ The decline of organized religion has halted (for now)

In 2025, the big news in progressive religion was that religion is not quite as dead as the social scientists want us to believe. A Pew Research Center study released in December was titled “Religion holds steady in America.” At the same time, the study also found that “people in every birth cohort — from the youngest to the oldest — have grown less religious as they have aged.”

However, as usual, religiosity is measured with phenomena that are very much Christian-centric. One of the metrics that Pew looks at is how “prayerful” people are. By that metric, I’m completely non-religious, since I don’t pray. Another metric used by Pew is whether people “identify with a religion.” That means that Pew is measuring religiosity as a function of affiliating with an organized religious group. But we already know that the twenty-first century is a time when people are disaffiliating from all organizations. I would also say that lots of people I know are religious/spiritual without belonging to an organized religious group — I think of the people I know who do yoga or qi-gong, or who create their own spiritual rituals for groups of friends, or who consult Tarot cards, etc.

You also have to consider how organized religion gets defined. If you’re a practitioner of Orisa devotion (such as Santeria) and regularly visit a botanica, you’re not going to be counted as participating in organized religion. If you’re a yoga teacher, spending many hours leading classes and attending ongoing training, you’re not going to be counted as participating in organized religion. The unacknowledged influence of Protestant Christianity on American social scientists is still there. The more something looks like a Protestant Christian church, the more likely it is to be defined as a religion. The more something looks like Protestant Christian spiritual practice (e.g., prayer, regular attendance at religious services, belief in God, etc.), the more likely it is to be defined as a religious practice.

B/ Protest politics remains important for White Christian and post-Christian religious progressives

In a year-end article on Religion News Service, veteran religion reporters Jack Jenkins and Bob Smietana wrote about the Americas religious figures whom they expect to be most news-worthy in 2026. They chose a mix of religious conservatives, moderates, and liberals/progressives — and a range of races, ethnicities, and religious affiliations. The only person they chose who is best known for protest politics is Rev. David Black, a progressive White minister in a majority-White denomination, Presbyterian Church (USA).

Contrast that with the person Jenkins and Smietana picked to represent Black Protestantism, Rev. Frederick D. Hayes, who is running for Congress in his Dallas congressional district. Instead of protest politics, Hayes is using his religious platform to try to add another progressive voice in Congress.

Or consider Brad Lander, a Jew who is running for Congress in New York City. Lander offers a nuanced, liberal Zionist take on Israel — he calls himself a “steadfast supporter of Israel,” while also calling the Israeli campaign in Gaza a “genocide.” But instead of setting up a protest like a tent city, Lander hopes to take his nuanced view of Israel to Congress.

Or contrast that with Mehdi Hasan, a Muslim journalist whose show was canceled by MSNBC. Hasan went out and founded his own media outlet using Substack, and now has 50,00 paid subscribers (and 450,000 total subscribers). Instead of protest politics, Hasan is contributing directly to public discourse.

Speaking personally, most of the Unitarian Universalists I know (i.e., people who are mostly White, mostly progressive, mostly post-Christian) seem to place highest value on protest politics. If you want to get maximum kudos in Unitarian Universalist circles, tell people that you’re going to go to a protest rally. But if you say that you’re running for the local school board, or helping to run the local food pantry, or doing progressive journalism, it doesn’t seem to impress other religious progressives as an expression of your progressive religious values.

White religious progressives seem to place the most value on protest, and on what they call “resistance.” I just wish they placed more value on constructive ways to change the world.

C/ What religious progressives don’t seem to pay much attention to

The religious progressives I know don’t seem to pay much attention to several trends that I would have thought interesting to all religious progressives.

Continue reading “2025: liberal and progressive religion in review”

Preston Bradley online

I’ve been trying to find out something about Preston Bradley. He was the minister of People’s Church in Chicago from 1912 to 1976. At its peak, People’s Church reportedly drew 4,000 people each Sunday, presumably over the morning and evening services, probably the largest Unitarian church of all time. Beyond that, Bradley’s radio broadcasts reportedly reached five million people. These figures may be exaggerated — Bradley has been accused of inflating the size of his congregation and the number of his radio listeners — but he certainly reached a great many people, most people than just about any other Unitarian minister; his closest competitors are Theodore Parker and Norbert and Maja Capek.

But there’s not much about him online. This post collects some of the information that I’ve been able to dig up. Feel free to link to more material in the comments.

In 1929, the Universalists took notice of Bradley in an article in The Universalist Leader (vol. 32 no. 47):

“One of the most interesting preachers now in the Unitarian Church is the Rev. Preston Bradley of the People’s Church, or Uptown Temple, in Chicago. It is safe to say that for the first time a considerable number of his ministerial colleagues have become acquainted with him. Dr. Bradley began his ministry as a Presbyterian, but soon found his views expanding and gradually he outgrew the creed of his church. In due time he separated from his denomination and with his congregation carries on an independent movement. Feeling the need of fellowship and the advantages of union with some denominational body, they affiliated with the Unitarians seven years ago. One of the best and biggest sessions of the conference was held in his church. The Uptown Temple is a fine new building, in proportions and arrangements not very different from the well known Tremont Temple in Boston, but much more artistic. It seats about thirty-six hundred people and it is filled every Sunday morning.”

When the People’s Church voted to affiliate with the Unitarians, there was an article in the American Unitarian Association’s Christian Register (7 February 1924) — notice that a different attendance figure is reported here:

“Dr. Preston Bradley is minister of the People’s Church in Chicago, Ill. This church was founded by its present minister twelve years ago, and is now one of the most largely attended liberal churches in the world. Its Sunday morning attendance is upward of two thousand. Services are conducted in the Pantheon Theatre on Sheridan Road north of Wilson Avenue. The church voted recently to affiliate with the Western Unitarian Conference, the American Unitarian Association, and the National Federation of Religious Liberals.”

This excerpt from “Another View of Preston Bradley,” by Judy Thornber, gives a sense of the impression Bradley made as a preacher:

“As a true admirer who heard Preston Bradley on the radio and in person at his church, I saw no sign of megachurch techniques. Bradley did not ‘orate.’ He spoke in a personal, conversational way, revealing his own feelings and thoughts and his high aspirations for what people could do. He acknowledged that times were difficult and many people had enormous problems. It was, after all, the Depression. He did his best to provide hope to his following, without mention of God or Jesus, and to engage in citywide social action with various civic organizations. This man was not an Elmer Gantry type egoist. He was passionate about empathy and support for those with troubles, but not in a ‘theatrical’ way. His true genius was that he simply talked directly to his congregation, both on the radio and in the church, as if they were intelligent people who wanted to lead good lives. He tried to encourage them and keep their hope alive.

Thornberg goes on to offer some excellent advice that probably still holds true for today’s Unitarian Universalists ministers:

“Since few of today’s UU ministers can grow membership the way Bradley did, we should seriously study his sermons to understand why they spoke so clearly to people and were so well received by the public. When Bradley spoke, you felt he was speaking to you one on one. He shared himself. He did not pretend to have all the answers. He did preach that hope could be nurtured by persevering and by focusing on leading a good life according to our own best lights.”

With that brief introduction to Bradley’s life and work, here are some of the online resources I’ve found.

Preston Bradley online

N.B.: You must look at the comments for Lisa DeG’s extensive list of links to Bradley material.

About Bradley

1. Time magazine article on his 25th anniversary, 26 April 26 1937.

“The [25th anniversary] jubilee was that of the world’s largest Unitarian church (2,500 members), founded with 67 members in 1912 by a rotund, swarthy little man who today is Chicago’s most popular Protestant pastor.”

2. “Another view of Preston Bradley,” Judy Thornber, 14 July 2015.

Personal memories of Bradley; see excerpt above.

3. Patrick Murfin’s brief biography of Bradley

This is the only biography of Bradley that I’ve been able to find online. That the “Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography” does not have a biography for Bradley may seem like a curious omission, given that Bradley was one of only a handful of Unitarian or Universalist ministers of a 20th C. mega-church (a mega-church is defined as a church with a Sunday attendance of over 2,000; remember, that’s attendance, not membership). Beyond that, because of his radio broadcasts Bradley was arguably one of the most widely-known Unitarian ministers of the mid-twentieth century. Furthermore, Bradley actively promoted social justice, which seemingly would pique the interest of today’s Unitarian Universalist scholars. However, Bradley holds little interest for today’s UU scholars, and that may be for a number of reasons: Bradley trained for ministry at Moody Bible Institute rather than at an elite theological school; Midwestern and Chicago Unitarianism is generally undervalued by UU scholars; and Bradley remained a Christian Unitarian long after that became unpopular. Perhaps his worst sin, though, was that he was a wildly popular preacher, and we UUs seem to be uncomfortable with the fact that our religion actually holds attraction for the common person.

Bradley’s written work

1. A copy of The Liberalist, a publication of People’s Church that mostly featured Bradley’s writing; from May, 1960.

2. “Mystery of Life” in The Unitarian Christian, periodical dated Dec., 1950.

3. Along the Way: An Autobiography, 1962. Hosted at the Internet Archive; if you have an account with the Internet Archive, you are able to “borrow” this book and read it for free online.

Audio of his radio sermons

1. The Harvard Square Library website has audio for six of his sermons (oddly enough, linked to from a webpage describing how Bradley inspired the soap opera “The Guiding Light”)

The sermons are:
“An Inspirational Message in Troubled Times” (25 January 1943)
“What is Christianity” (18 January 1959)
“Thanksgiving Sermon” (November, 1960)
“The Religious Atheist” (12 April 1964)
“Meeting Criticism” (24 October 1965
“The Pastor in the Blizzard” (N.D.)

2. Illinois Digital Archive has audio for one of his sermons

The sermon is:
“Education Decisions” (10 March 1939)