Another way to approach James Luther Adams’ five smooth stones of liberal religion is the whole hand method.Here are several different examples. Adams’ original essay uses more complex language, which is how we can have such a diversity of ways of understanding and applying the five smooth stones in our lives.
1: Wonder
2: Community
3: Love
4: Justice
5: Hope
1: Change
2: Interdependence
3: Stewardship
4: Justice
5: Hope
1: Truth
2: Relationship
3: Responsibility
4: Change-Agent
5: Optimism
1: We’re always learning.
2: Being together matters.
3: How we are together matters.
4: We do good to be good. Doing good feels right.
5: We always hope.
1: Revelation and truth are continuously revealed
2: We choose relationship with one another
3: We have a moral obligation to create a just and loving community.
4: Good must be consciously given form and power in history.
5. Meaningful change directs us toward an outlook of ultimate optimism.
Advocates for Youth are empowering youth for informed reproductive and sexual health decisions.
James Luther Adams’ second smooth stone of liberal religion - all relations between people should be grounded in mutuality, freedom, and consent. Being together matters.
Revelation is Not Sealed - A Unitarian Universalist introduction to James Luther Adams’ first smooth stone of liberal religion.
I appreciate James Luther Adams’ complex and rewarding essay on the five smooth stones of liberal religion. I translated it into a simplified form for use in adult programming, but then that still didn’t pass the five-year-old-test.
I’d like us to be able to use the five smooth stones in our classrooms and at home, as part of living this Unitarian Universalist faith. Adams was thinking about the tradition of five stones David needed to slay Goliath - mythologically, bringing down our own towering monsters of (1) ignorance, (2) individualism, (3) selfishness, (4) apathy and (5) cynicism.
1. We’re always learning.
2. Being together matters.
3. How we are together matters.
4. We have to do good to be good.
5. We always hope.
With these stones we build cities of refuge, houses of love, and gardens of peace.
The five smooth stones of liberal religion are from a Unitarian Universalist theologian & ethicist, James Luther Adams.
1. Revelation & truth are continuously revealed.
2. We freely choose to be in relationship with one another.
3. We have a moral obligation to create a just & loving community.
4. Good must be consciously given form & power in history.
5. Meaningful change directs us toward an outlook of ultimate optimism.
From these stones, we build our spiritual house of wisdom, thanksgiving, joy, and action.
I’m focusing on them this year instead of the 6 sources or the 7 principles named in the UUA’s covenant among congregations. They are another way to approach the life of liberal religion and the free church, and one of those ideas that continues to shape the life of those trained to Unitarian Universalist professional religious leadership. I felt James Luther Adams’ five smooth stones of liberal religion were too interesting and too rich a source of spiritual reflection and practice not to share them more widely. (& those who’ve studied Adams call him “JLA”.)
