Bethel’s Hillary Mullins Wins
Universalist Sermon Award

By Mary Anderson

Hilary Mullins of Bethel has won the Universalist Heritage Foundation Sermon Award. This is the first year that the award has been given. According to the Universalist Heritage Foundation the goal of the award is to "encourage deeper study of Universalist history and spirituality, and the sharing of the good news of this faith with ever widening audiences."

A lay preacher, Mullins has studied at the Starr King School in Berkely, Calif., and at the Vermont Academy of Spiritual Training. She has preached locally at the Brick Church in Bethel, as well as the church in Bethel Lympus.

Mullins wrote her sermon about Hosea Ballou, whom she says was the "Universalist minister who made Universalism a force to reckon with in the 19^th century." She discovered him while she was staying with her mother and was asked to preach a sermon at the Brick Church.

Knowing that Ballou had been in Vermont and was an important part of the Universalist tradition, Mullins decided to research him for the sermon. She was surprised to learn that his first ministry "was in this area from 1803-09" and encompassed the "sister societies of Bethel, Bridgewater, Barnard, Hartland and Woodstock." She was further surprised to learn that he used to preach at the "oldest house in Bethel," which was the very house that she was staying in and that her mother, Janet Burnham, lives in.

Mullins said it was while Ballou was in this area that he wrote his "great work in 1805." She added that Ballou’s work, which was published in Randolph, was a "treatise on atonement and played a significant role, along with his pioneering work, in altering the prevailing theology of the day which held that salvation is predestined. Ballou argued that God was love and brought all souls back to Himself."

Mullins said Ballou’s theology spoke to her own and that her sermon pointed out how relevant his words are today. Mullins’ award included $500 and she will also preach her sermon July 27 at the Universalist Heritage Center in Winchester, N.H., the site of the 1803 adoption of the historic Universalist profession of faith.

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