February 6-February 8

On Monday I decided to start scanning the documents that recorded John C. Fuller's sermons. I had finished scanning the Orlando Ministerial Association documents and cataloging their metadata so it was clear to me that I needed to start on something else. Reverend Fuller was the secretary of the Orlando Ministerial Association during its most active years and was author of many of the meeting minutes. This led me to believe that by scanning Reverend Fuller's sermons delivered by him during his time spent as secretary I could possibly learn more about the Orlando Ministerial Association. Also, by scanning his sermons I would be able to learn more about the reverend himself. I spent Monday scanning a folder that contained records of the sermons he delivered in 1957 to 1958. What immediately surprised me about his sermons were how liberal they were. The first sermon I scanned was titled "Why do Good". I expected this to be a simple sermon about how God wanted people to be good but Reverend Fuller's explanation was a lot more complicated than that. According to him, their was the authoritarian way and the liberal way of doing good. The authoritarian way was the way used by most of the other churches. According to Reverend Fuller, this involved threatening people that if they did not do good God would withdraw their love from them. He also pointed out that the authoritarian way can be seen in how people constantly do good so that other people will still like them. Reverend Fuller then explained that the liberal way had a better understanding of good. The liberal way saw people as being made in the image of the divine and this meant that they were capable of doing good by themselves without being told that God would punish them if they didn't. Reverend Fuller's faith in the goodness of men and women really surprised me. In the past I attended a conservative Baptist high school and what they taught in the school sermons was very different from all that Reverend Fuller taught. Another thing that really surprised me was his December 1957 sermon where he talked about what kind of Christ he wanted in Christmas. Contrary to all that I have heard other reverends say, Reverend Fuller stated that he did not place importance in the virgin birth and that he did not believe in a magical Christ who died for our sins. He believed that Christ was a man and a wise teacher who had an amazing understanding of human problems, something I have never heard a member of the clergy say before.  

On Wednesday I finished scanning the sermons and started working on the metadata. Working on the metadata for the sermons was a lot more time consuming than the meeting minutes. This was because the sermons required longer descriptions since Reverend Fuller covered so much ground in his sermons. When it came to topics, Reverend Fuller talked about a large variety of different things. In a frank manner he discussed topics such as letting go of the past, alcoholism, mysticism and how Jesus was a Jewish reformer. I can safely say that I have never met a clergyman nowadays that was anyway like him. Reading the sermons and uploading their metadata made me realize just how different the Unitarian denomination was from other Christian denominations. Examining the sermons have also given me plenty of insight into Reverend Fuller's beliefs.