In his education, he moved from "premillenarian fundamentalism" to "scientific humanism" and then to liberal Christianity.

In the mid-1930s, Adams spent considerable time in Germany, where he befriended several notable religious figures (including Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer) who were active in clandestine resistance to the rise of Nazism.

In 1956, he became Professor of Christian Ethics at Harvard Divinity School, where he stayed until he retired in 1968.

A number of his students later became influential figures in Christian ethics across the theological spectrum.

Among them was Stephen Charles Mott, a pioneer in evangelical social ethics in the US who taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for a quarter of a century and former President of the James Luther Adams Foundation.