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Welcome to Voices From The Archives
A journey through the rich history of Fountain Street Church, a unique, non-denominational congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Through recordings from our archives, we bring you the voices of past ministers, guest speakers, and community leaders as they wrestle with timeless questions of faith, justice, and the evolving role of religion in society.
Each episode revisits key moments from Fountain Street Church's history, from thought-provoking sermons to pivotal discussions on spirituality, social action, and the liberal religious tradition. Whether you're a longtime member or discovering us for the first time, these archival recordings offer insight, inspiration, and a connection to a progressive legacy that continues to shape the present.
Produced by Kayle Clements with assistance from Dick Wood and Nathan Dannison. Theme music by Kayle Clements.
You're listening to Voices from the Archives of the Fountain Street Church, a non-denominational congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In our first episode of Voices from the Archives, we explored the 1994 Symposium on the Future of Liberal Religion. At the beginning of that panel discussion, the Rev. Bruce Bodie referenced a controversial sermon that had been delivered the prior Sunday by Fountain Street Church Minister Emeritus, Rev. Duncan Littlefair.
That sermon, entitled "What Are We Celebrating?" was preached from the pulpit on September 25, 1994. The scripture text for the sermon was 1 Corinthians 4, verses 1-7.
It has been remastered by Kayle Clements and reproduced here in its entirety.
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What hast thou that thou didst not receive?
If then it was given to you, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? What do you have that you did not receive?
George. John. Jerry. Barbara. Mary Ann. What do you have?
Did you make your own body? Did you create this magnificent creature?Did you make your own brain? Did you create your own understanding?
Did you create that voice that can soar and sing of the wonders and glory of the world and of the Spirit? Did you make those hands that can move over those keys of the musical instrument? Did you create that?
What have you that you were not given?
Oh, I know there are various talents. You see, the notion that we're all created equal is absolute nonsense, totally against nature. We are created unequal.
Jesus knew that.
Every man and woman of the Spirit has known that. So he said so simply that some of us have ten talents and some have five and some have one.
Your job is to do the best you can with what you've been given. And that means you don't boast and you don't snivel.
You have one talent, thank God. You see, the miracle of it all is, of course, that in the eyes of God we are all equal. Not created equal, but equal in the eyes of God.
Jesus took account of that, didn't he? He said that the person of one talent, two talents, may see God better than the person of ten. Indeed, he said that your ten talents may get in your way, your money, your power, your achievements, your talents that you boast about.
But the person of one talent can find the Spirit miraculously, like a person of ten. And it's the same Spirit. And they know each other.They know each other.
So what is our mission? To be grateful.
Grateful for what you've been given, to rejoice in it, give thanks, sing, and celebrate.
Grateful for your body, grateful for your mind, grateful for your skills, grateful for your courage, grateful for the will that was given to you with your body and mind.
You didn't make it. You used it, but you didn't make it. Grateful for that.
Grateful for the food you eat and whatever you drink, for the ability to go to work, and for the capacity to see and to feel and to hear. Grateful for your children and your husbands and wives and your parents and your friends and the people who touch you and the people who love you and the people whom you love.
Be grateful and rejoice and celebrate like we're doing in this church this year. Celebrating this great institution, this great church that was given to us and has been here for all those years, 125 years.
Singing of the divine.
First a spire and then a tower, rising above the roof surrounds. Saying to those who could see, this is a place of God. It's a house of worship.
Bells ringing out noon and night and every other occasion of sorrow and joy and celebration. Saying to all those who have ears to hear, there's something going on in this place that's not going on out there. Something going on here that is transcendent. Something that we think will give meaning, worth and significance to the life you're living out there.
Redeem the tawdriness of it. Lift up the horrors of it. Transform them and give your simple little life the dignity, the meaning and the worth and the joy which knowledge and awareness of God can give.
So we say, come on in if you're looking. Come on in if you have needs such as these. Come on in and be part of this great people.
We have no requirements, no conditions, only that you want to seek, that you hunger and you thirst for something transcendent in your life, and you like our company. Come on in and be a part of us.
So what is it we're celebrating? As David mentioned, not just longevity, although that's something in itself. I want to tell you very briefly what I think we're celebrating in this church.
It makes it worthwhile. It gives it its significance and its worth. You're not going to agree with all that I say. That doesn't matter. I don't judge myself by you, as Paul said. It's between me and God, and I tell you what I think this church stands for and what it means.
You make your own list.
One, this is a Christian church. It's not a Mormon church. It's not a Buddhist temple. It's not a Hindu temple. It's not a debating society. It's not a humanist association. It's not a psychological cult. It's not a social organization.
It's a Christian church.
Oh, we're not a Christian church in the eyes and the way the founders of the Nicene Creed understood it in 325 of the years of this era. We're not a Christian church of 1512 and Martin Luther or 1542 and John Calvin. We're not a Christian church in the eyes of the founders of this place in 1869 or of 1930.
We are a Christian church as God gives us the ability and the insight and understanding to be a Christian church in 1994, whatever that may mean.
You see, God is not frozen in time.
God is not confined to a particular century or a particular place on the planet or a particular generation or century. God is infinite and eternal, and he will speak infinitely and eternally, and it is for us to hear.
He speaks to us as he spoke to Abraham and to Moses and to Isaiah and to Jeremiah and to Job and to Jesus and to Paul and to Calvin and to Luther. He will speak to us, and it is our job to hear, to listen, and I am suggesting to you that there is nothing in our Christian heritage that prevents us from listening and hearing in the terms of our life of 1994.
We will listen, and we will see, and we will experience as Christians, and if ever we should leave this Christian heritage, we will be the lesser for it, and we will betray our traditions.
This is a Bible-oriented church, Bible-based. People who founded this church founded it on the basis of their understanding of the Bible. It has been carried on by people in their understanding of the Bible all these hundred and twenty-five years.
Again, we do not understand the Bible as Calvin did or as any other person. We understand the Bible as we are equipped to understand it and driven to it.
You cannot have a whole century and a half of the most magnificent development of scientific understanding and knowledge without it affecting the way in which you understand and appropriate the Bible. Impossible. But all those years, that century and a half now of scientific development and more does not undermine the Bible, does not take away anything from its wisdom and its insights.
That Bible, coming at an early stage in the life of man, perhaps giving those people a better opportunity to understand the source of their being than our technological society does, spoke and speaks of the depravity of the condition of man, of the horrors of public and human life, of the glories and wonders of it, of the dreams and ambitions of the terrors and of the frightening destructive things.
It speaks of all of that.
It speaks of the revelation of God to man and of man to God. Knowledge does not interfere with that. We are never outdated, never transcended. We'll only open it up and illuminate.
As that beautiful poet of my growing ages said, "Let knowledge grow from more to more, but more of reverence in us dwell that mind and soul according well may make one music as before." If we in our pride and supercilious sophistication and technological civilization leave the Bible, we will be the lesser for it and we will betray our heritage.
This church is scientifically and empirically grounded. We believe in the advent of science. We believe in the capacity of scientists to discover the nature of man, the nature of the world, anything that is scientific investigation. That's what science does. It gives us the truths of the world, but that's not our business.
Our business is the spirit.
We're not concerned out there with those things. We're not biologists here. We're not geologists. We're not astronomers. We're not physicists.
We're people seeking for the spirit.
And if you're a physicist or a biologist, you come to this church seeking for the spirit, knowing or sensing that there's something out there, something in there, transcending all and giving it its meaning and its worth.
You see, we go back a long way in this kind of understanding, even though it's only 160 years old in the world, our reliance on the truth of the world.
One of my favorite scientists in the late 19th century, T.S. Huxley, put it this way. He said, "God, give me strength to know the truth, even though it destroy me." Well, you see, the world can destroy the spirit, almost.
Maybe eventually can, but it can hurt it. It can hinder it. It can freeze it out. It can squash it. It can dry it up.
It can turn it into something other than what it is.
The world has an enormous impact on us, and we must know what that world is so that we can protect against it and use it, not as religion is for the growth of knowledge, but for the growth and development of the miracle of the spirit.
Knowing, you see, that that spirit will win over all. It will win over all.
We're not afraid of new truths. We're not afraid of any psychological, social, any mechanical development of civilization and society. Why?
Because I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor height nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love which is God.
That's Paul, that miraculous spirit carrying out the instructions of T.S. Huxley. We're not afraid of truth. We're not afraid of the world, though we know the horrors it can commit.
We're not afraid because we're people of the spirit.
And if we ever lose this emphasis upon the science and empirical process as a church, we will be the lesser, and we will betray our heritage.
We are independent. God knows we're independent. There is nobody out there dictating to us. We will not allow even the State to interfere with us in our spiritual quest.
We are independent of such groups, independent of any kind of council of bishops, of any state bureaucracy, of any ecclesiastical bureaucracy, of any power, of any person, of any group. We're independent. We've always been independent.
We will maintain that independence, and we are independent within this church, because if we are not independent as individuals, we cannot maintain the independence of this great church of ours. Nobody, nobody speaks for you, I hope.
Not Rankin, not Littlefair, not the governing board, not any council, not any committee, not any person, not any group of persons. Nobody speaks for you.
"Matters little to me," said Paul, "what you think of me, because I am responsible only to God." You see, you are responsible for yourself. You're on your own. Your spiritual life is between you and God.
We have a long tradition of that, do we not?
My patron prophet, I think it was Job, who said to the people who were trying to tell him what was going on and explain to him and give him their social and their religious impressions and knowledge and affirmation, he said, "Leave me alone. This is between me and God. And what's more, I will take my case even to him, and I will argue it out with him."
That's independence. That's relying on the voice of God and speaking to you. If you cannot manage this responsibility, if you cannot manage being on your own, then this is not the place for you.
And if we ever give up that independence, if we ever give up the right and the obligation of everyone to think for himself and herself, to find salvation for himself and herself, to know God for yourself, we will be the lesser, and we will betray our heritage.
Finally, this is a loving, caring community. Nothing I have said in any one of these four points is contradicting the others. I trust you understand that.
They're leading on into each other. I just get through saying, "You're on your own. You carry your own burden. I can't carry it for you. I can't live your life for you. I can't solve your problems. I can't see God for you." We are a loving, caring community.
You see, you cannot be a truly loving person if you try to live another person's life, can you? We are a loving, caring community, and we care. We care about the community around us.
Any one of these points, of course, is worthy of a long sermon.
This church, more than any other church I've ever seen or known, has participated in the political social life of its community. There is nothing that has gone on out there that we have not taken account of, nothing, because the world out there can impinge on the spirit, can hurt and destroy and smother it.
So we are careful about what goes on there, but that's not our main business. That's not our main business out there in those social political activities.
Our main business is the Spirit. You see, we will care for each other here.
I said, "You carry your own burden”, and you will, but if you need help, we're here to help. If you're in prison, we'll come and visit you. If you're hungry, we'll help you. If you have no home, we'll help you. If you're lonely, we'll be there to help you. If you're sick and despondent, we'll be there to do what we can. If you're wracked with worry and anxiety, we will try to do what we can.
We will help, but that's not our main business. We're not a psychological group. We're not a health organization. We're not a social organization.
We're a Christian church, and our business is the Spirit. This is the house of the Spirit, and we are keepers of the Spirit.
We've been at it a long time now, fumbling, groping, winning, losing, but we've been at it a long time, and we're still at it. For 125 of the most dramatic, momentous years of human history, we have struggled here in this house of worship to find the Spirit for ourselves and to hold it aloft wherever we can for those who are struggling in the dark to see and to find.
As a good friend of mine likes to say in another context, we've been at it for a long time, and by the grace of God, we mean to carry on. We mean to carry on, and carry on we will.
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This presentation was produced by Kayle Clements with assistance from Dick Wood and Nathan Dannison. Our theme music was performed by Kayle Clements.
Funding for Fountain Street Church comes from our members and viewers like you. To support this and other Fountain Street programming, please visit fountainstreet.org/support. Thank you.