Category: Unitarianism

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Revisiting the Lay Centres book

More than five years ago, I first wrote about a Unitarian effort about 110 years past for the creation of “lay centres” that in many ways anticipated the post-WWII Fellowship Movement.

There’s little I can find about this initiative apart from a few articles and a small worship guide. I intended to say more about the book — famous last words — but it is fragile and rare enough that I did not want to subject it to a flatbed scanner.

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So I’ll pick up where I left off.  A couple of years used my phone camera to first “scan” it, and then produced a version to share. This is part of my ongoing meditation what churches can do with less-than-optimal resources. So far as I know there’s a single survivor from that experiment: First Unitarian, Memphis, a.k.a The Church of the River.

Here are those articles listed in one place, to finally launch my review. Hope it’s helpful; comments welcome, below.

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William Ellery Channing site returns (somewhat)

I’ve been building websites since 1996: some have been lost to time, others I have taken down because they’re so behind the times. But then this Twitter conversation with Stephen Lingwood, the minister of the Unitarian church in Cardiff, Wales. He posted, and has been quoting parts of William Ellery Channing’s 1819  Unitarian Christianity, also known as “the Baltimore Sermon.” And as you can count, this is its bicentennial.

We had this chat:

So, I dusted off the version of the site from 2003; I know because the files hadn’t been changed since. I re-purposed unitarianchristian.org, and created a channing folder for the files. I  lightly cleaned up the Channing entry (index) page and knocked together a page for the domain. I know that if I didn’t just do it, I wouldn’t.

So. your blast from the past: William Ellery Channing Center

(I might fix it when I have the time. Maybe a bit by bit.)

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Tilden lectures on the ministry online

There’s a shortage of historic works — Unitarian or Universalist — on the preparation and exercise of the ministry. So — while researching — I was happy to see a printed set of lectures by William Phillip Tilden (1811-1890) to the Meadville Theological School, in June 1889. So we can consider these the mature words of a respected pastor.

I’ve not read this, but will put them on the list. Thought you might like to read it, too.

The Work of the Ministry: Lectures Given to the Meadville Theological School

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Notes on the 1925 Congregationalist-Universalist unity statement

I just published the 1925 “A Joint Statement on Interchurch Relations from the Commissions of the Congregational and Universalist Churches” but didn’t want to clutter that document with thoughts. Indeed, I’ll want to review some of the standard denomination histories to see why the Universalists aren’t a part of the United Church of Christ today. Partnering with the Unitarians wasn’t the foregone conclusion so described today.

Union was in the air, then. Indeed, contemporaneously, the Congregationalists were making overtures to the Christian Church, leading to a merger. Most of the Congregational Christians then merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (itself merged) to create the United Church of Christ. The Universalists were also talking to the Unitarians; years ago I published a Universalist report from the same commission in 1927. And now I want to see what else they reported out.

Some loose thoughts:

  1. I’ve heard it suggested that the relative size of the Congregationalists would have made organic union an absorption, rather than a merger.
  2. It makes the later, if minor, Universalist participation with the “continuing” Congregationalists make more sense.
  3. There are words the joint statement that echo in the 1935 Universalist Washington Declaration, namely in the second paragraph. “The kingdom for which he lived and died” for instance.

I hope this sparks interest in the history of Universalist polity…

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The sermon fit for reading

There is a practical take-away from this historical episode; keep reading.

Abigail and John  Adams, the departing ambassador to Great Britain, and John Murray, the Universalist minister, sailed together back to America on the same vessel, the Lucretia, in the spring of 1788. Unitarian Universalists today recall Abigail Adams’s recollection of Murray’s preaching, as recorded in her journal.

This is Sunday 27 April. Mr. Murry preachd us a Sermon. The Sailors made them-selves clean and were admitted into the Cabbin, attended with great decency to His discourse from these words, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.” He preachd without Notes and in the same Stile which all the Clergymen I ever heard make use of who practise this method, a sort of familiar talking without any kind of dignity yet perhaps better calculated to do good to such an audience, than a more polishd or elegant Stile, but in general I cannot approve of this method. I like to hear a discourse that would read well. If I live to return to America, how much shall I regreet the loss of good Dr. Prices Sermons. They were always a delightfull entertainment to me. I revered the Character and Loved the Man. Tho far from being an orator, his words came from the Heart and reached the Heart. So Humble, so diffident, so liberal and Benevolent a Character does honour to that Religion which he both professes and practises.

We usually think little of the Dr. Price in this passage, the Unitarian minister, Richard Price. At that time, he preached to the now-defunct Gravel Pit Chapel, but had previously preached to extant Newington Green congregation. He was followed at the Gravel Pit Chapel by Joseph Priestley, and was celebrated in his own right.

So we have two preaching forbears in this passage, but they have very different preaching styles, each with their own appeals. I suppose I’m more like Murray, feeling that the physicality of preaching can be harmed by the close preaching from a manuscript.

I do use a manuscript, but I use it as a preparation of what I plan to say, including any quotations I need and to keep me from failing if I freeze. I also include notes on how to preach the sections of the sermon. In short, if you read what I wrote, it would not be what you hear, and certainly not be “a discourse that would read well.”

And I doubt I’m alone.

The takeaway? I hate converting my eccentric preaching notes into a printed article. While often requested, it’s really a different art and a different work. At best, I might create an impression of the sermon that reads well. But it takes time; it’s not a matter of reformatting a word processor document.

Please consider that before making such a request of your minister. That time is probably better spent in other ways, or, at least allow funds in the church budget for a transcriptionist and a proper editor.

 

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"The Poetic Expression of Unitarianism"

I’m going to meditate on the tradition of “lyric theism.” But first, some documents to give some context.

From Modern Words of Religion, edited by Carlyle Summerbell (1915)

THE POETIC EXPRESSION OF UNITARIANISM

The representative expressions of the Unitarian habit of mind are not to be sought in the fields of theological scholarship or Biblical learning, but in a lyric utterance of singular significance. “It is not an accident,” said one of the best interpreters of Unitarianism, “that out of a religious movement which is supposed to be a movement of sheer rationalism and dissent there has grown up the most clearly defined type of religious poetry which our country has produced. It is not an accident that the lyrics of Longfellow and Lowell and Holmes and Bryant and Emerson proceed from lives bred in the rational piety of the Unitarians. And when we pass from the great masters it is no surprise that from a group of minor poets of the same tradition — Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson and Hedge and Hosmer and Gannett and Chadwick — there has proceeded a strain of lyric theism whose music penetrates many a church, the doors of which are closed against the poets. That means that beneath the vigorous rationalism or the sincere dissents of the descendants of the Puritans there is this deep movement of religious life, a consciousness of God that only a poet can express, a spiritual lineage that unites this little fellowship of free people to the whole great company of the witnesses of the real presence of God.

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So, here's that clever order of service I described

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a set of nicely-formatted orders of service/bulletins from First Church (Unitarian), Boston, that I found in the archives at the Andover-Harvard library. They were preserved in a file about coordinated opposition to the consolidation of the Unitarians and the Universalists because the minister’s message in them. But I recognized its good taste and yet was hesitant to post the photos of the order of service. Unless something is plainly public — websites and reported statistics come to mind — or of historic interest, I won’t discuss the business of a congregation. Is this too recent? We are talking about 1960: the matter is old (and decided) news and it’s very clear that I’m not going to get around to making a mockup of it.

So here are the photos. Click through to see enlargements. Lean but elegant stuff, this.

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Unitarian worship resource for Union soldiers

This small 1865 American Unitarian Association assortment of rousing songs and Bible readings (arranged for unison or responsive reading, and with headings like “Those who turn from Holiness are condemned”) isn’t explicitly for Union soldiers, but songs like “Arise, New-England’s Sons!” and “The Massachusetts Line” weren’t likely to appeal to Johnny Reb.

The Soldier’s Companion: Dedicated to the Defenders of Their Country in the Field by Their Friends at Home.

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Historical Unitarian church accounting!

I ran across an American Unitarian Association booklet “Church finance and accounting” — undated, but having internal examples suggesting 1914 — that makes for fun reading.

On the one hand, some things were very different then. It includes a review of the proprietor (pew owner) and pew rental system, and deprecates both to the free-pew (not that we call it that) system we have today, “the most modern and democratic way of financing a church, and is the system adopted in most new churches.” I can’t imagine the first two options today.

On the other hand, more seemed very familiar. I’m a member of Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington and we had a congregational meeting last Sunday. We reviewed financials that were more like those suggested than not.

The booklet was also full of candid advice. One good example:

Business-like methods in the financial administration of a church are of vital importance to the welfare of the society. Inefficient administration, hand-to-mouth ways of raising money, carelessness or tardiness in the payment of bills, usually indicate low vitality in a church, and are a constant source of danger and invitation to financial calamity.

Sample collection envelope text
And also a set of worked examples with charming fictitious churches. I might have to revive a couple for my own work:

  • Church of Our Father, Hope City, Colorado (a mission church)
  • Unity Church, Winterboro, Mass.
  • All Souls’ Church, Washington Square, Oakwood, N. Y. (obviously old and wealthy)
  • All Souls’ Church, Canterbury, Mich.
  • Unity Church, New Boston, Oregon