Is the Morality of Jesus Sound? / A Lecture Delivered Before the Independent Religious Society

The lecture accepts the gospels for argument's sake and then subjects the moral teaching attributed to Jesus to critical scrutiny, arguing it is neither universally applicable nor morally flawless. The speaker compares religious systems to buildings whose weakest parts determine their strength, contending that isolated beautiful passages do not prove overall perfection. He faults the teaching as provincial and sectarian in scope, questions injunctions that promote unrestricted forgiveness and discourage judgment as potentially undermining accountability, and urges a more rational, expansive ethics that transcends the limitations and subterranean biases of traditional theological instincts.