INTERFAITH WISDOM

Rev. Dr. A. Powell Davies was the minister of  All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington D.C. from 1944 until his death in 1957.  He was a driving force in developing what the Unitarian Universalist Church is in America today.

Davies was a prolific author as well as preacher.  A list of his books and many of his sermons can be found on the internet. He was also a powerful social and political activist in the post-World War II world.  A plaque with his image is hung in All Souls Church - it bears his quotation, "The world is now too dangerous for anything but truth.  Too small for anything but brotherhood."

Here is a sample of his timeless preaching:   ca. 1952.

"America needs religion.

Let it be preached, let it be taught, let it be practiced.

But while each of us goes our own way to the church of our choice,
free to worship as we will, and to declare our faith and to persuade others,
let all of us together remember that democracy unites us in spiritual communion,
and that we are citizens of one country just as we are children of one God.

Let us not disdain our heritage.

There is a faith within democracy drawn from the best of all religions.

It is a faith in the victory of truth in free and open encounters,
and in the triumph of liberty over servitude, and of universal over provincial,
and of unity over exclusiveness and love over fear.

Whatever may separate us in conviction, ritual, or devotion, let this unite us.

Without it we are lost -  and so is the hope of this world."
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