Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we are

traveling to Harvard and we are traveling to July 15th, 1838. Ralph Waldo Emerson will come to the Divinity School there at Harvard and will deliver what amounts

to the commencement address

and it has taken its place as a significant essay both in American literature and

American history and is simply known as the Divinity School

address and this work as the Divinity School address.

In this work, Emerson begins with quite a descriptive statement of the moment.

In this refulgent summer, he says, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life.

The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire in gold in the tent of flowers.

The air is full of birds and sweet with the breath of the pine.

And so Emerson sets the stage for us.

In the Divinity School address, he sets about simply dismantling every single doctrine of Orthodox Christianity.

The two that Emerson goes after the most are the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of scripture.

It is very fascinating what Emerson has to say about Christ in the Divinity School

address he says Jesus Christ belong to the true race of prophets.

He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul, drawn by its severe harmony,

ravished with its beauty.

He lived in it and had his being there.

Alone, in all history, Christ estimated the greatness of man.

One man was true to what is in you and me.

He saw that God incarnates himself

and man and ever more goes forth anew to take possession of his world.

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