r m p

SERMON ARCHIVE

 

 

A bit of explanation seems needful. The sermons you are about to peruse are perhaps less traditional sermons and more philosophical reflections on issues raised in the biblical texts for the day. They span some dozen years and reflect varied affiliations and orientations. The first half, roughly, stem from my pastorate at First Baptist Church of Montclair, NJ, Harry Emerson Fosdick's first pastorate as well. These sermons use vaguely theistic language, though I had already come to opt for the God of the philosophers, as Pascal put it, over the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In these sermons you may read me as somewhere between the classical liberal theology of Schleiermacher and the left-wing Neo-Orthodoxy of Tillich and Bultmann.

But then, under the influence of the Higher Critics of the nineteenth century and that of Deconstruction, and Don Cupitt, I headed rapidly in a post-theistic, religiously humanistic direction. Soon I had left the Baptist Church and was going through the process of recredentialing for the Unitarian Universalist Association. That proved a dead end for me, and I became the local director for the Center for Inquiry (Council for Secular Humanism) in North Jersey. We continued (with a splinter group of my congregation) to meet Sunday mornings in my living room as The Church of the Holy Grail, or simply, The Grail.  Some of these sermons stem from that period. Here I promote Nietzscheanism, mysticism, and free thinking. The Bible and the Gospel of Thomas remain important to me.  Finally, after six years, I decided I had nothing more to say in such a forum and dissolved the whole thing.

Robert M. Price

 

Last updated August 11, 2009
Entries in
red are the most recent additions.


1989

Bootleg Baptists (7/9/89)

 

1990

[Most sermons from this year were hand-written and have been destroyed in a fire.]

Is It Finished?

1991

Advent and the Circling Year

Agnostic Piety

A Consuming Fire

Is the Bible the Word of God?

A Miracle of Bread

Who Is the Bride of Christ?

Coming in the Clouds

A Critique of Love

Dark Counsel

The Deep Things of God

Christ Through Many Lenses

Expecting Christ

The Foolishness of Preaching and the Preaching of Foolishness

Funeral Homily for Robert Cornwell (Dec. 10, 1991)

What Gift Have We to Offer?

Existence and Grace

Hell's Harvest

Hypocrites!

Idolatrous Faith

Implicit Faith

Who Is the King of Glory?

The Last Testament

The Light That Enlightens

Lord, Lord

Other Stars, Other Mages

A Mighty Fortress Is Our Mentality

Mystery, Miracle and Authority

Is Christianity a Mystery Cult?

The Naked Cross

The Narrow Door

The Gospel of the Nephilim

Thoughts on Pat Wickham

The Persecuted in Heart

The Night of Power
(
Christmas Eve Homily, 1991)

Prophecy and Truth

Redeeming Every Thought

Better Than Life

Power, Love, and a Sound Mind

The Speaking One

In Spirit and in Truth

Tiny Wisdom

What Is Truth?

Tyndale at Stake

In the Volume of the Book

The Workers in the Vineyard

The Wrathful Deities

 

1992-1993

Saint John's Apothecary

Baptized in the Wind

What Language Shall I Borrow?

The Centered Act

Child of Promise

The Cosmic Cross

Cross Examination

Cross Purposes

Under the Deadline

Demonic Holiness

Suspension of Disbelief

Here I Raise My Ebenezer

Expressions on the Face of the Saviour (93? 94?)

Forgiveness as a Given (93?)

After Righteousness

Incomparable Kingdom

This Irresistible Cross

Kettle Logic

Jesus X and Malcolm X (93?)

Mask Without Face (92? 93?)

Mute Oracles

Jesus Wants to Know

The Omega Point

On the Move

Doctor Pangloss Speaks

The Place in the Text

The Play's the Thing (sequel to "Suspension of Disbelief")

Political Pentecost

The Promise of the Father

The Purloined Kingdom

Fade Away and Radiate

Infinite Regress

I Can't Get No Sanctification

Forgotten Trove

I Am Undone (93?)

Jesus Versus Jesus

A Thousand Voices Speaking Perfectly Loud

For the Wedding of John and Tracy (10/9/93)

Christ and Nihilism II (Holy Saturday, 1993)


1994

Real Sin (Halloween 1994)

A Rage of Angels

Blasphemous Truth

Jesus in a Bottle (9/20/94)

The Lamp and the Bushel

Equinox of the Gods

The Holiness of Desolation

The Fall of God

The Haves and the Have-Nots

Infrastructure

Jade Pavement (94?)

The Way of All Flesh

Nothing to Fear

That Which Prevents

The Cross and the Raft

A Simple Matter

Subtext

Such a Time as This

A Matter of Taste

After the End

The Tradition of the Elders

 

1995

Black Hole Sun (6/24/95)

Blind Guides (6/27/95)

Can Christianity Rise from the Dead? (11/4/95)

The Fracture in Scripture (9/16/95)

If I Only Had a Soul (9/24/95)

Last Known Trajectory

Lead Heaven (8/11/95)

Occult Sciences (9/2/95)

The Möebius Strip (9/9/95)

The Quest for the Grail (11/19/95)

Pillars of the Church, Tombs of the Prophets (5/95)

Principalities and Powers (8/4/95)

Hell's Ramparts Rebuilt (11/4/95)

A Field of Ruins (7/21/95)

Moving Target

Spin Doctor

God, Zen, and the Mystery of Being

 

1996

There Is Nothing Buried That Shall Not be Raised Up (4/18/96)

Around and Around (3/31/96)

Don't Ask!

A Spirituality of Inquiry (1/13/96)

Mister Know-It-All (7/6/96)

In the Realm of the Mothers (3/16/96)

He Really Is Santa Claus (12/96?)

The Shadow Knows (7/28/96)

I Am He; That Thou Art (6/2/96)

 

1997

Practicing the Absence of God (12/6/97)

Reason and Revelation  (notes)

Narrative Breakdown (7/19/97) (sequel to)

Century's End (8/21/97)

Imagine There's No Heaven (97?)

You're a Joke/You're Not the Lord/You're Nothing But a Fraud (7/5/97)

Lamps Unto Yourselves (8/30/97)

The Dharma Path (8/30/97)

Mosaic

No Man Is Killing Me! (97?)

The Great Noon (7/12/97)

Stop Looking at Me! (97?)

Sky-Writing (10/19/97)

To the Edge of Within (8/2/97)

 

1998

Action Figure Addiction (11/28/98)

Enlightenment and Entertainment (5/31/98)

Getting Real (8/2/98)

Neelix Agonistes (1/10/98)

Collecting Dust (11/29/98)

The Council of the Holy Ones (8/30/98)

Pluriverse (98?)

Under the Wing

Son of Man and Superman (98?)

The Man Who Wears the Star (12/5/98)


1999

Myth and Death

The Garden of Good and Evil

Fundamentals of Fundamentalism (99?)

The Illuminated Man (6/19/99)

Third Eye in the Back of Your Head (5/29/99)

The Philosophy of the Trench Coat (4/24/99)

Meetings with Unremarkable Men (6/5/99)

The Sect of Zarathustra (6/12/99)

 

2000

The Agnostic a Gnostic (4/29/00)

Plaster Sanctification (7/26/00)


2004

Homily for Mable Price (7/20/04)
 

 A special note of thanks to Julian W. Haydon for
funding the work on this page!

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