James Luther Adams Society

The James Luther Adams Society honors our friends who have pledged their support to the School through life income plans, bequests, or other planned gift arrangements. Celebrating Adams’s enduring legacy of ministry and scholarship, the Society recognizes and encourages the valued tradition of ensuring the Divinity School’s continued excellence through financial strength and stability.

Stories of the Impact of Planned Giving

Miles McKey, AB ’50, STB ’58, and Mary Ellen McKey

Bequest

"I wanted to make the bequest because I had a good experience at HDS that helped me in my life."

Arlene Hirschfeld

Life Insurance

"I am honored to be able to share my time and financial support with HDS—one of the best investments I can make in our future."

George Rupp, PhD ’72, and Nancy Rupp

Bequest

"We are eager to support HDS because we value the fact that the School’s important core identity has stayed very much the same even in a changing world. And, in a way, that helps all of us to engage with the changing world."

Nozomi Ikuta, MDiv '82, and James Watson

Charitable gift annuity

"The values and morals and principles that are universal to all religions are vital for society to function and for humans to live. So, when we were deciding where we were going to make a gift annuity, we wanted to support HDS."

Russ Savage, MDiv ’93

Bequest

“I appreciate what I experienced at HDS, and my gift is my way of expressing that appreciation."

Richard Coutinho, MTS '94

Bequest

"Harvard Divinity School not only helped me find my career path, it allowed me to find my own voice so that I could help others do the same. I could think of no better way to honor that legacy than to gift a bequest to benefit future generations of scholars and leaders."

Ron Alberts and Rita Schneider

Charitable remainder trust

"The gifts to HDS are a way to sustain messages of tolerance and peace at a time when they’re most needed."

About James Luther Adams

James Luther Adams (1901-1994), STB ’27, was one of the most renowned theologians and social ethicists of the 20th century. Adams graduated from HDS in 1927, after which he served as Unitarian minister in Salem, MA and later in Wellesley Hills, MA. In the mid-1930's, he also spent considerable time in Germany, during which he befriended Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. After his return to the US, Adams taught at the Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago from 1936 to 1943, and returned to HDS as the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Professor of Christian Ethics from 1956 until his retirement in 1968.

Adams played a significant role in shaping Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist institutions. And as a social ethicist, he helped envision the new national and international institutions that emerged in the post-World War II period. He is remembered as one of the first Americans to offer a theological critique of Nazism, a direct result of his travels to Germany. He was also the most important American interpreter of the work of Paul Tillich. Known as an inspiring and exemplary professor, Adams deeply influenced generations of students and colleagues throughout his life, and his influence continues in the 21st century.