By Bonnie Withers
Let’s do some time travel. It is May 5, 1819, and we are at the First Independent Church of Baltimore (First Unitarian after 1912). We are attending the ordination and installation of Jared Sparks and we have been told that William Ellery Channing will deliver a groundbreaking sermon. But we don’t hear it! The acoustics are so bad in the church that only the first three rows get the hour and a half message. Fortunately, the value of the sermon is recognized to the degree that it is eventually translated into seven languages and shared in many countries.
Prior to this presentation, the liberal wing of the New England Standing Order Churches bristled at the epithet “Unitarian” coming from members of the orthodox wing. William Ellery Channing, though young, had stepped up as the leader of the Boston Liberals. Channing’s sermon, “Unitarian Christianity”, now commonly called the Baltimore Sermon met the derision head-on, starting with the title.
Channing made a number of points that will sound familiar to us:
- Reason is valid in interpreting scripture
- God is one.
- Jesus was fully human, not human and divine.
- Rejection of Original Sin and eternal damnation
- The mission of Jesus was to teach love and moral living, not to atone for human sin.
For the next 25 years, this sermon formed the basis for open controversy as churches began to rename themselves as Unitarian. Channing’s view prevailed and UU historian David Parke noted, “It was very probably the most important Unitarian sermon ever preached anywhere.”
You can read the full text of the Baltimore Sermon here in Internet Archives.
You can read more about the Baltimore Sermon in spring/summer 2025 issue of the UU World.
