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The Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon is the 2024 recipient of the Skinner Sermon Award, given each year for the sermon that best expresses Unitarian Universalist social principles.
Gordon, who serves as the settled minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, Missouri, received the award for her sermon “How to Have an Enemy.”
Gordon’s sermon speaks to themes of righteous anger, addressing conflict rather than avoiding it, and the importance of opposing those who cause harm in our communities and world. You can watch the sermon on YouTube below, or read it on the UUA website.
The Wisdom of Knowing Your Enemies
To face vast and devastating ills such as racism, transphobia, and imperial violence towards vulnerable populations, Gordon argues that Unitarian Universalists must be willing to acknowledge when we have enemies, and live our values in opposition to the harm they cause.
Gordon notes that we cannot “just get along” with everyone in our world.
“We cannot disagree but get along when disagreement is code for dehumanization, domination, and oppression,” Gordon says.
The sermon contends that having enemies is not a bad thing that needs to be evaded. Rather, identifying enemies can empower us to create change and avoid “a false and oppressive unity.”
As Gordon puts it in her sermon: “In a world full of violent power, it is good and right to have enemies, even, and especially as people of faith.”
A Brief History of the Skinner Sermon Award
The Skinner Sermon Award is named for Clarence Skinner, who served as dean of the Tufts College School of Religion. The first award recipient was Rev. Manuel R. Holland in 1959.
The UUA page for the award describes its history as follows:
Open to any Unitarian Universalist layperson, religious educator, or minister, the Skinner Sermon award was established to stimulate preaching concerned with the social implications of religion—particularly needed in this period of history. Criteria employed in judging the sermons include: grasp of the subject, religious depth, originality, conviction, and understanding of other perspectives. These qualities are also considered: prophecy and timeliness, courage, personal involvement, strong argument, orientation to action, and inspiration.
Submissions for the 2025 Skinner Sermon Award must be received by April 25, 2026. Visit UUA.org to learn how to submit work for consideration or to read sermons from past award recipients.