The Sesquicentennial celebration kicked off on October 25 and 26, 2008, one year in advance of our actual anniversary, with "Faithful Founders and Free thinking Liberals: Launching our Celebration of 150 Years of Liberal Faith in Minneapolis." This enlightening and enlivening weekend of events began on Saturday with nearly 130 UUs assembled to hear presentations by three noted Unitarian Universalist theologians, ministers and historians. If you weren't able to attend or you were there but would love to read what these excellent speakers said, read on!!!!
The Rev. Dr. Paul Rasor, Unitarian Universalist minister, theologian and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom at Virginia Wesleyan College, began with a presentation titled "Circumscribing Universalism: Navigating Some Universalist Shoals". Paul quoted Dr. Robert Cummins, former head of the Universalist church of American and father of our Minister Emeritus John Cummins, as saying "a circumscribed Universalism is unthinkable". Read Paul's presentation here.
Following Paul, the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Strong, a raised Universalist, student of Universalist history and Unitarian Universalist minister of religious education spoke on "Universalism's Long and Proud History: Its people, theologies, scholarship and just plain quirkiness". Read her Narrative for a Romp through Universalist History, complete with dates and fascinating factoids.
The third speaker was John Hurley, the UUA archivist and Director of Communications. John got our history juices flowing by reading articles about our congregation's 50th and 100th anniversaries from the Universalist/Christian Leader, predecessor to UUWorld magazine. He talked about the importance of history in answering the questions what do we need to be reconciled to and what wounds need to be healed. Read John's presentation here.
On Sunday, Rev. Rasor preached on "Democracy Matters." Read his sermon here. Following the second service, Rev. Strong shared fascinating excerpts from Rev. Marion Shutter's ten sermon series on evolution, which he preached around the turn of the century to crowds of over a thousand. Rev. Shutter was minister of our congregation, then known as the Church of the Redeemer, from 1891 to 1939. You can read more about his ministry under Articles. Click here to read excerpts from his evolution sermons.
