The Morning After Easter (April 2, 1961): Spring Festival Sermon Delivered by the Rev. Stephen H. Fritchman, Minister, First Unitarian Church, Los Angeles

Please note: this sermon is *not* reprinted in the Rev. Fritchman's posthumous collection of sermons and addresses entitled "For the Sake of Clarity." Offered is the text of a Sermon entitled "The Morning After Easter," a Spring Festival Sermon given on April 2, 1961 by the Rev. Stephen H. Fritchman and published in print form in that year by the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. A mimeographed publication, as issued, measuring 8-1/2" by 14" and containing two-and-one-half pages of text. From his Sermon, reading in short part, "Throughout the United States today, in scores of other countries, elaborate services and celebrations of the Holy Week events are climaxing the Lenten period. After thirty years of conducting Unitarian services around the Easter theme, and to a lesser degree around the Passover theme, I am, to put it mildly, in a mood of protest. The myths outweigh the truth involved - they do not create better human character, they do not arm a man for courage like that of Jesus or Moses. Quite the contrary - they seem, to me, to obscure and distract - and above all to anesthetize the conscience at the very moment the world needs its conscience stabbed wide awake." Folded once, as issued. The REVEREND STEPHEN H. [HOLE] FRITCHMAN (1902-1981), author, liberal humanist, and social and antiwar activist, was the minister of the progressive First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, California, from 1948 to 1969.…