Collected Speeches and Essays

This collection of essays and speeches is representative of the prophetic voice of Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell, minister, writer, public speaker extraordinaire, from the time of her first keynote address in 1987 to recent Huffington Post articles published after her retirement as senior minister of the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon, where she served with distinction for seventeen years.

The breadth and variety of Dr. Sewell’s writing is stunning. Here you will find 

• a letter published in the NY Times the Sunday after 9/11;

• an analysis of the uses of power;

• a historical overview of the protestant church’s failures to address racism;

• a description of a self-directed blues tour of the Mississippi Delta;

• a speculative essay on the sexuality of Jesus;

• a moving personal essay on death, previously unpublished;

• a Jungian perspective on gender balance; and

• an impassioned plea for theological shifts demanded by the climate crisis.

Running through all her writing and speaking is a passion for justice-making, and a plea for compassion. Her words prove as powerful and compelling as when they were first written.