The ABCs of UUs: U is for the Unitarian Universalist Association
The month of May this year will mark the 60th anniversary of the merger of the American Unitarian Association (AUA) and the Universalist Church of America (UCA) . However, rather than exploring the growing pains and continuing evolution of the organization, for the scope of this article I will be considering the events leading up to and the birth of the UUA.
After over a century of concurrent development, clergy cross-pollination (see earlier articles on Thomas Starr King and Sophia Fahs Lyons for examples), and complimentary belief systems, in 1961, during an organizing conference from May 10-15th in Boston, Unitarians and Universalists combined their two liberal religions and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was born. Why then did it take so long, and how much opposition was there to this merger?
After literally decades of discussion about the possibilities of merging the two religious traditions, the AUA and UCA created a Joint Merger Commission in 1956. Already the two groups shared a hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit (1937), held joint biennial conferences, and their Youth movements had been united since 1953 under the name Liberal Religious Youth. The Information Manual for the Commission put the case for merger this way: It is no accident that for one hundred years various rapprochements between the two denominations have been made. There is an affinity between them of which there is a growing awareness. The manual went on to suggest that some individuals and churches have already taken it for granted that merger has been accomplished.
Citing the faith of liberals as the growing edge of any society, the Commission pointed to the shared historical focus of both faiths: throughout their history, the Unitarian and Universalist Churches have had a considerable role in inspiring and sustaining the liberal currents of though and action so basically important in American society.
Despite these assertions, opposition to the merger came from both sides. Walter Donald Kring, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City and at the time secretary of the AUA, wrote to oppose the merger in 1959, suggesting that proper analysis of the implications would take the energy of most people in both churches for a full two years, at a time when good growth was being experienced in the Unitarian pews and would be hampered by the effort. Defending his position Kring adds a characterization that is familiar to those involved in UU activity today: You are aware as I that never will any considerable group of Unitarians feel that any subject will be discussed adequately. This is the problem of a highly literate and vocal group. On the other side of the fence, Albert Q. Perry, minister of the First Universalist Society of Cincinnati, worried that Universalist love-centered, inclusive theology would be lost in a merger: Universalism does not make sense unless one believes certain things about the purposefulness of creation, the direction of the cosmic process, the nature of man, and the destiny of the human spirit. To Perry, Universalism was not an intellectual movement, and had its foundation in the inspiration of love rather than the pursuit of truth and reason (which to him characterized the Unitarian church.)
Yet by 1959, the Constitution of the “Unitarian Universalist Association” had been written, published by the Joint Merger Commission in a book called The Plan to Consolidate. (Abandoned was the possible name for the group the “Liberal Church” in favour of one that named both traditions directly.) In October, a joint assembly of the two denominations was held in Syracuse, New York. Each group was tasked to vote separately on the constitution. The Unitarian delegates voted 518 to 43 in favour, the Universalists 238 to 33. A further vote in 1960 at the congregational level saw a 90% participation rate and overwhelming support for what was now called a consolidation rather than a merger. A final vote was help at a Joint Assembly in Boston in 1960 and the consolidation was complete. All that remained was for the organization to be granted corporate status by special acts of legislature in Massachusetts and New York and the formal organizing meeting held in Boston from May 10-15, 1961.
Yours in Service,
Tim