James Luther Adams: A Memorial Address

Extract

In consultation with his pastoral advisor, James Luther Adams dictated two letters when one of his many strokes forced him to ponder his own mortality with a new urgency. In the first letter, he specified that a memorial service be held at his beloved Arlington Street Church in Boston (rather than in an academic setting), that it be on a Sunday afternoon so his daughters and the clergy could come, and that we have particular pieces of music.

His wishes in death extended his commitments in life: he loved the church and called those in academia to attend to its importance in the souls of individuals and in the destiny of civilizations, even though he often became a “smiling prophet” in his impatience with the ecclesiastical community. He loved his family, in spite of the fact that he knew that he often neglected them because he was preoccupied with a multitude of adopted sons and daughters, represented by the many ministers and professors here today. And he loved the arts, holding that true beauty also shows itself to have a “heart of service,” one that can reveal “the nature of existence, and the character of the transformed life,” as a marvelous homage to him, in ARTS, says.