The "Divinity School Address" is the common name for the speech Ralph Waldo Emerson gave to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School on July 15, 1838.
Emerson decided the time was appropriate to discuss the failures of what he called "historical Christianity". In his address, he not only rejected the notion of a personal God, he castigated the church’s ministers for suffocating the soul through lifeless preaching.
