Christmas Eve Candlelight Service with story, music, and song.

The evolution of Christmas from an outlawed and unfashionable affair into the American commercial extravaganza we have today—and every day from mid-November through early January.

“From Callithumpians to Pajama-Clad Tykes”

The Christmas Season is upon us: Decorations, advertising campaigns, Santas collecting for the Salvation Army. And a host of familial obligations that require forethought and the extension of considerable effort. Many people love Christmas. Many love it, but also find it overwhelming. Clergymen know that it’s a time when a lot of people become depressed and lonely. Every year December is a time of an above average number of pastoral crises…and 2018 is no exception.

Many people who complain about the modern-day commercialization of Christmas may be surprised to discover that dissatisfaction with the way the holiday has been observed is by no means new. Indeed, few realize how the celebration of Christmas has changed over the decades. This morning I want to share some of the more significant of those changes.

At the dawn of the early modern period—roughly five hundred years ago—Christmas was still closely tied in with the seasonal cycle of an agricultural society. December was a time of leisure and a season of plenty—plenty of food and drink. It was a time when consumption—over consumption—was expected. Late fall and early winter were a time to gorge on the best food and drink—not just bread and beer, but “cakes and ale.” It was a time to splurge, until the hard freeze of winter, and with it the constraints of ordinary existence, set in once again.

In New England for the first two centuries of European settlement most people did not celebrate Christmas. The celebration was systematically suppressed by Puritans during the colonial period and largely ignored by their descendants. It was actually illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.

Why? Why this strange hostility? The Puritans themselves had a simple reason: there was no Biblical sanction for Christmas. True, the Gospel of Luke tells the familiar nativity narrative, but nowhere in this account is there any indication of the exact date or even the season on which “this day in the city of David” fell. It was only in the 4th century that the church officially decided to observe Christmas on December 25th. And the date was chosen because it coincided with the winter solstice, an event celebrated long before the advent of Christianity. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston, for example, accurately observed in 1687 that the date was chosen, not for religious reasons, “but because the Heathen’s Saturnalia was at the time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones].”

But the Puritans had another reason for suppressing Christmas. The holiday, as it had been celebrated for centuries, involved behavior that they found offensive—and many of us would as well—rowdy displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive betting, and the invasion of wealthy homes.

Nowadays, we think of the Christmas season as going from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. In early modern Europe (roughly the years between 1500 and 1800), the season was even longer, running from early December through “Twelfth Night.” It was a time to let off steam—and to gorge. It’s kind of hard for us, with the ready availability of healthy food, to understand what seasonal feasting is all about. But in those years few people ate good food at all. Late summer and early fall were the season of fresh vegetables, but December was the season—the only season—of fresh meat. Animals couldn’t be slaughtered until the weather was cold enough to ensure that the meat wouldn’t go bad, and any meat saved for the rest of the year would have to be preserved (and rendered less palatable) by salting. Decembe

An attempt , first, to weave together notes on Hanukkah, Christmas, and breakthrough moments of deep insight engendering total esthetic synthesis: what the French poet Charles Baudelaire called synesthesia. And secondly, a little something about the Unitarian poet ee cummings as preface to excerpts from his play, “Santa Claus”, enacted by members of the congregation.

(with the play “Santa Claus” by ee cummings)

December 9, 2018

My remarks this morning will be brief; more of a homily, than a sermon. I want, first, to draw the somewhat disparate elements of this service into one piece, if possible. And secondly, read from and speak a little bit about ee cummings, so that the little play we’re about to enact will be somewhat more understandable.

For the last several years, apparently, ESUC has been celebrating a Solstice celebration every year (as we will here on Friday evening, December 21). That service will acknowledge the common beauty and many common forms in the many winter solstice celebrations from across the world. I want to try something different this December, beginning by focusing on the two most widely known of these wintertime rituals: Christmas and, more briefly, Hanukkah. Hanukkah is basically a celebration of political freedom. The Hanukkah story lauds the courage, brains, and chutzpah of a Second Century B.C. Jewish family—the Maccabees—who managed to expel Greek imperial overlords from Judea and reestablish the orthodox faith of their ancestors.

Much has been written about these events, but today, suffice it to say that the orthodox state established by the Maccabees was hardly what we would call freedom in any democratic sense. Minority rights were in no way protected. Nor was the right of individual conscience. These two elements—minority rights and the individual right of conscience—are the hallmarks of true democracy. Everything else is just majoritarianism.

Although it is never secure and demands our constant vigilance, we are lucky, here in America, to enjoy a semblance of political freedom. However, political freedom is no guarantee that—in fact—we are free. The blessings of political freedom merely offer us the opportunity to become free. To actually live as a free person requires courage and integrity and responsibility. It is this courage and responsibility that ee cummings is concerned with.

Christmas is the story of a miraculous occurrence: the incarnation. The idea that God (or, shall we say, the creative forces of the universe) became incarnate in the body, and heart, and mind of a little child. Indeed, in every child and every person—if one has the eyes and heart to see it. That, in essence, is the Christmas story.

Over the next two weeks Christians across the globe will share and act out the myth and ritual of Jesus’ birth. The Christmas myth, like all myth, is basically a series of narrative metaphors; a poem. An imagery with which we make sense, perhaps, of the world. In this way no myth can really be called “false,” or “untrue.” Only affective or (as the case may be) not affective. Ritual is the acting out of myth, so that we know it—or  rather, experience the myth—with our whole bodies and central nervous systems and not just our heads.

When it works (i.e., when it’s affective) the use of myth in this way can engender the intuition, maybe even the experience, of genuine wholeness or connection to the creative sources within; the divine inner Self.

This experience, this insight, according to ee cummings, is real freedom. And, as I have said, it’s no mere head-trip. Rather, it’s the total psychic and physical experience of integration—with others, and paradoxically, with our deepest Self. There may even be, in the words of William Wordsworth (one of

What, if anything, does the story of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving tell us about the emerging America, both of 1621 and of 2018: nearly four hundred years later but confronted with many of the same seemingly intractable issues. Reverend Furrer, descended from four of those who were there, preaching. After 11:00 a.m. worship we will join together for a potluck lunch.

Thanksgiving is America’s longest celebrated holiday. Christmas and Washington’s Birthday have longer standing as “official” holidays, as Thanksgiving was not declared a holiday until during the Civil War when Lincoln and the Northern Republican-dominated Congress pushed through the required legislation.

Before 1863, however, Thanksgiving had been celebrated throughout the North and intermittently declared nationally, the first time being in 1796 by George Washington. After 1800, however, with Thomas Jefferson in the White House—followed by a succession of Southerners and their allies—the tradition languished. There was no national proclamation until the Civil War. Since then—1863—until today the President has proclaimed it every year: 155 in a row.

It is helpful, I think—indispensable really for a free people—to know the true story of how things came to be the way they are; to know, that is, the tribulations and blessings out of which our traditions have been born.

The story of the original American Thanksgiving begins almost 400 years ago in the winter of 1620-21. The original Pilgrims were a mixed-up lot. About half of them were referred to—by themselves—as Saints. These were the Protestant dissenters: idealists who, having tried and given up on Holland, made their way to the New World in search of religious freedom. The others, whom they (the Saints) called Strangers, had come in search of economic opportunity. There was a great deal of suspicion and distrust among the two groups. They had only two things, really: their faith (in God, on the one hand, or in a better life). And they had each other.

Now, as I said, both the Saints and the Strangers harbored suspicion and genuine distrust of each other…initially. The passage across the Atlantic, however, changed all that. The weather was extremely rough. The Mayflower, mind you, was only 100’ long. In such tight quarters, and upon extremely high seas, the Saints and Strangers started talking to each other. Had they not come together—been reconciled to their separate ways and separate motivations—they never would have prevailed against the ordeal now beginning. By collectively facing up to their common endeavor they eventually—quite quickly really—became close and intermarried. And their descendants, like all of us, I suppose, were a genetic mix of idealists and adventures, wags, and strivers, heroes and horse thieves.

The Mayflower arrived in Plymouth with 101 passengers. Close to half died in the first three months. By spring, the fifty-one who remained alive crawled out of their makeshift shelters badly shaken but still resolved to make a go of it. When you are open to it, help can come from the most unexpected places. The hyper-religious “Saints” found their salvation in the “Strangers,” (comparative secular humanists of their day) just as the Strangers were amazed—but no less grateful—for those among the religious zealots who helped keep things together and worked with them to carry on through the dark and difficult days they all encountered.

Our modern sensibilities about nature are very different than those of the first European settlers. There was a time, centuries earlier, when rural Europe was a pillared and leaf-domed shadowland inhabited by bears, wolves, and tribespeople who held the forest sacred. Those witch- and fairy-infested treescapes evoked so vividly by Shakespeare and the brothers Grimm once actually existed, but by 1620 they

Recognizing that all oppressions are connected, Rev. Furrer will preach this morning about one in particular: racism. The Unitarian Universalist Association has made a committed effort since 1992 to study how race has effected our movement—and us as members of that movement—and to take concrete actions to heal its corrosive effects. Our Developmental Minister will try—i.e., make a serious effort—to share with you some of the thinking of some of our Unitarian Universalist leaders as our denomination has struggled, and continues to struggle, with this issue. He will also share some of his own thoughts and feelings.

Our world can be an intimidating place. Indeed, we all live in a hostile environment: classism, racism, heterosexism, ableism: we swim in a sea of isms. Racism is but one of many forms of oppression permeating our lives, both our social and inner psychological lives.

Audre Lorde names herself as “a black feminist lesbian mother poet,” Suzanne Pharr as “a community organizer and strategist, political educator, trainer, speaker, writer, and political handywoman.” Both defend the view that there is no hierarchy of oppressions. Sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, anti-Semitism, and ageism are each terrible and destructive—and all connected. To eliminate any single oppression successfully, both Lorde and Pharr write, a movement has to include work to eliminate them all. Otherwise success will always be limited and incomplete.

Recognizing that all oppressions are connected, I want to talk this morning about one in particular: racism. The Unitarian Universalist Association has made a committed effort, since 1992, to study how race has effected our movement—and us as members of that movement—and to take concrete actions to heal its corrosive effects. I want to try—make a serious effort—to share with you some of the thinking of some of our Unitarian Universalist leaders as our denomination has struggled, and continue to struggle, with this issue. I also want to share some of my own thoughts and feelings.

From 1492 to today racism has had a central place in the American experience, our own personal experience, included; every person, from Columbus and the Arawak-speaking natives he first encountered down through you and me. Everyone.

My earliest memories of race include driving into downtown Cleveland in my maternal grandfather’s Oldsmobile: “Lock your doors,” he’d say as we crossed 105th Street—and the faces suddenly became all black. There were images on TV and in the movies and in sports, from Stepin Fetchit to Jackie Robinson. Beginning at nine years old, I became very involved in YMCA swim meets, some against all black teams in poor all black neighborhoods.

I remember, too, my father telling dialect jokes. Lover of wordplay that he was, he told them in close to a dozen voices: Louis, Manfred, Juan, Gunter, Molly, Luigi, and of course Rastus. Ethnic and racial stereotypes were reinforced. And I have to admit, with shame, we often laughed.

There were other memories, too. Mom’s abhorrence of her father’s and her sister-in-law’s racial epithets led, eventually, to her telling them off—and their cessation. Her decision, in the mid-sixties, to go back to work as an inner-city librarian had considerable racial dimensions. I also recall how every year my Dad helped Bessie, our once-a-week housekeeper, with her taxes. They’d choose a night when he was going to be in town, spend the evening sorting through all her papers together and complete her return. After they’d finished, he’d drive her home. One year—this was the early 60’s and I was twelve or thirteen—I was invited to come along. Deep into Hough—Cleveland’s ghetto—we drove; it was pretty run down and impoverished, but nothing was said, with Bessie in the car, about locking the doors. Pulling up to her rundown row house, Dad escorted her in as I waited outside. Wh

The Hindu holiday of Diwali provides a lens through which to view and contemplate the many salient issues at play in the upcoming election on November 6.

“Divine Dawali”

I want to preach this morning on the upcoming election. The New England divines who more or less founded our faith all preached regularly on the state of national and global politics; it’s a well-established tradition. Don’t worry, I won’t endorse any candidates and threaten our 501 (c) 3 status. But I do want to preach on the national election. I want to approach the subject is the roundabout way: via Hindu mythology. I want to help you understand how I think, by using one popular Hindu myth as a lens through which to get a better view of what’s happening in politically, right now, in our nation. In other words, I want to offer this morning a mythic analysis of our current national (and global) political situation and to do so in metaphorical language and imagery found in the Dawali myth.

Dawali is an annual Hindu festival celebrated this year this coming Wednesday, November 7th. On Diwali Indians across the subcontinent make and light beautifully colored lanterns, put them all around their yards and houses, and also set them afloat down the Ganges River as part of their celebration.

The idea behind Dawali is to reenact and commemorate the mythic triumph of Prince Rama, the Indian Lord of Light, over Ravana, the god of Illusion. That is, the triumph of Light over Darkness and of Order over Disorder. The age-old legend being reenacted goes like this: Rama’s father, the King, gets drunk one night and in a rage banishes Rama and his lovely wife, Sita, from the capital. For the next fourteen years they wander through the forests of the south, the Land of Illusion. Throughout this time Rama goes hunting daily with his bow and arrows while Sita keeps their camp. Whenever the prince left to go hunting he’d draw a wide circle around the camp and warn his bride not to venture beyond it. This was the circle of concentration or place of yoga: the mandala.

But one day a visitor came in a wonderful flying machine: Ravana, the Lord of Darkness or Illusion. Quickly Ravana takes the form of a deer and leads Rama off in pursuit. After leading our hero far away from the mandala circle, Ravana again changes his form, becoming a poor mendicant begging for alms. Approaching the camp, he cleverly shames Sita into venturing outside the circle. (It happens to be very bad form in India to ignore a beggar, so Sita was easily tricked into disobeying Rama’s order and leaving the mandala.)

Once Sita leaves, of course (i.e., once she looses her concentration), the Illusion God kidnaps her and runs off to his stronghold on the island of Ceylon. Far off in the forest, Rama Immediately senses that something is wrong. He runs back to their campsite, but it’s already too late. The whole area is empty and still. He cries; he’s totally disconsolate. But before too long he regains his composure and sets off on a quest—a very long quest—to find his partner and bring her home.

In his epic search Rama meets many allies and many distractions, but eventually he connects with Hanuman, the leader of the Monkey Kingdom (and symbol of our primal, animal nature—if, like our hero, you want to break through illusion and back into the circle of awareness, start by trusting your instincts, your intuitive animal nature, not your disembodied head, to lead the way…). Quickly Hanuman and Rama become allies. The Monkey King sends off thousands of his little monkey subjects in every direction to search for Princess Sita. Before long all the monkeys return—except for those who’d been sent toward Ceylon. So it was that Rama, Hanuman and the remaining monkey army, figuring that this meant Sita was on Ceylon, set off to find her.

The ensuing battle was hor

Four diverse members share why they think ESUC has a bright future…. and what they’re doing to ensure it does.

“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative processes…music is [an] entrance into a higher world of knowledge which comprehends [humankind] but which humankind cannot comprehend”. – Beethoven

Music is indeed magic – it can weave any number of spells and changes in consciousness over its audience. It is the vast, inherent, common language of our humanity. With such deep and subtle power to invoke meaning, music is a natural, integral fit to any form of spiritual ceremony. For music captures, renders and shapes EXPERIENCE. It IS the thing it represents, and as such connects immediately and inherently with any receptive audience.

And so it is no surprise that the health of our spiritual communities and of our spiritual practice is reflected in and nurtured by the music it invokes. In community, music helps us express our common purpose, inspire us to action, or sometimes just helps share our simple humanity together through our voices and songs. In spiritual practice music can inspire a deeper, higher order of consciousness, express the inexpressible, and help to complete our understanding and experience of deeper truths.

Unitarian Universalists have the advantage as well of incorporating any of the musical styles of world history into our worship and musical vocabulary, as we can do with written materials. On any given Sunday you can – and usually will – hear an eclectic mix of music weaving through the theme of the service. Music itself serves and furthers our aims of inclusiveness, sharing of spiritual truths as well as our multi-cultural history and interconnection.

East Shore proudly boasts a long tradition of musical excellence. The Kechley musical family inspired and guided our congregation for 57 years. We’ve been fortunate to attract many talented performers within our congregation to share their gifts with us and help us all grow through their music. Hundreds of musicians and musical events have graced our sanctuary and community. And we had the luck and wisdom to bring onboard a creative and passionate new musical director just this year.

As a professionally trained musician raised as a Unitarian East Shore has been both a haven and an opportunity to serve since I walked in the doors in fall of 2004. I clearly remember that first ‘shopping trip’, sitting in the middle, in the back, with my 5 year old son Adam, looking for two things: the MESSAGE and the MUSIC. To the right Peter Luton was dealing out a clear and compelling vision of liberal religion. To the left Bob Kechley and the choir were putting out music with passion and purpose. I was IN – the music sold me on the church as much as the message, and as you may suspect I have a pretty high bar.

The music here has been varied and robust. We’ve funded Hurricane and Tsunami relief through benefit events. In 2006 we had multi-cultural youth concerts here featuring groups from SEVENTEEN different faith and musical traditions – all in the same day! The church has had dances, jazz concerts, open mic nights, coffee houses, special plays and shows by the congregation, and always the choir and meaningful music in service. I’m proud of the five year run we’re having with our East Shore Live concert series. We should not take any of this for granted.

It’s hard to imagine East Shore, or even one of our services, without some form of music included. So the next time you hear music you like here, or feel yourself lifted or touched in some way, reflect on the precious, powerful gift of music our congregation, and our faith tradition, gives to us.

I’ve also benefited from participation in multiple church visioning activities, helping to hone my personal understanding of my own core values, My p

Día de los Muertos is a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and the people of Mexican heritage elsewhere. Congregants are encouraged to bring pictures and favorite articles of their friends and family members who have died to be put on a colorful makeshift ofrenda in the sanctuary.

Even after 2000 years, vestiges of paganism still permeate Christianity and Western culture. The word “pagan” derives from the Latin “PAGANI” meaning country-dweller—that is, rural people whose religious conservatism caused them to cling to old beliefs and practices even when Christianity was well established in cities and among the aristocracy.

Rural people and those living close to the Earth—in olden times and in modern times—have always paid close attention to the annual cycle of the seasons. Ceremonies and celebrations were held on the equinoxes and solstices—and also at the halfway points between them:

February 1, May 1, July 1,

And the first of November—a few days from today. Through the first half of the Christian era paganism was overt and more or less acceptable. Christianity and paganism existed side by side in uneasy proximity long enough for Christians to take over as many pagan deities, holy places, customs, and holidays as possible.

Noting that the people wouldn’t accept Christianity unless it could be considered an extension of their paganism, Pope Gregory the Great (who served from 590 to 604 and for whom “Gregorian Chants” are so-named) directed that all pagan feast days be Christianized.

Indeed, it could be said that paganism and Christianity co-exist today, as many aspects of Christian worship, sacraments, and theology come from the pagan heritage.

Halloween, and its Mexican counterpart, “Dia de los Muertos,” is a perfect example. The pagan idea used to be that crucial joints between the seasons, and also right in the middle of each season, opened cracks in the fabric of space-time, allowing contact between the ghost world and the mortal one. So, following Gregory’s dictum, paganism’s mid-autumn celebration was

renamed “All Saint’s Day.” The ancient beliefs and practices were overlaid with a veneer of Christianity. But the bottom line—that at this time of year CRACKS in our normal-waking sense of space-time enabled communication between the living and the dead—has remained for hundreds, indeed thousands, of years.

This morning we here at East Shore Unitarian Church celebrate this ancient Christian-Pagan tradition in the manner that has evolved over the last four and a half centuries in Mexico. As we live in a country that with greater and greater Hispanic people, this makes good sense. And it has been a tradition in many of our Southwestern Unitarian Universalist congregations for many years.

For people of all faiths and in every tradition the process of grieving begins with shock or denial, and then releases a rush of feelings that can include depression, confusion, panic, or even guilt or anger. Most cultures recognize the need to vent these feelings in a ritualized setting. We don’t need protection from these feelings as much as we need a safe space and safe context in which to face them. And a supportive community with whom we can express them.

This is what the Day of the Dead is all about: facing our grief and sharing it openly; that by having the courage to grieve we grow also in our capacity to love.

In this spirit I invite each of you to again recall to your memory a loved one who has died. Perhaps you brought a picture of this person; or if not, picture them in your memory; then write their names on the butterfly shape or ask someone sitting near you to write the name for you.

And now, if you wish: bring the any pictures of mementos or names written on paper butterflies forward as a special ritual of remembering…. Amen.

Rev. Furrer’s second chapter on our ESUC history, focuses on the acquisition of our current property and, in particular, on the old farmhouse at its heart: Holly House.

In order to understand Holly House, and the emotional significance it holds for most East Shore members, we have to go way back—back to the beginning. And that would be back to the time before Europeans from the Hudson’s Bay Company first arrived in this area in 1832. The native people were known as the Sammamish, closely related to the Duwamish tribe, and have often been considered a Duwamish sub-group as part of the Xacuabš (“People of the Large Lake”) who lived near Lake Washington. Numbering about 200, the Sammamish had several permanent and seasonal settlements roughly coinciding with the area making up present day Issaquah, Redmond, and Bellevue.

As pioneer families immigrated to Washington, the ancient villages of the Sammamish evolved into homesteads, farms, mining settlements, and logging camps. Next came small, subsistence farms, every one of them hewn from forest. The removal of stumps left from forested old growth trees required farmers to clear up the debris, remove the stumps, and plow up roots before fields were suitable for cultivation. Since many early farmers in this area leased for five years, by the time the land was properly cleared they had to move on and start anew. In time, the land was cleared and modest homesteads were established. Among them, despite facing considerable racism, were several enterprising Japanese and Pilipino family properties. Strawberries and fruit trees were the favored crops.

Over the decades, land was cleared and cultivated out from Bellevue Square and later down along Factoria. As the Seattle suburbs began to bloom following the First World War, Lake Washington’s depth made access to the Eastside difficult; this area remained pastoral and rural. It wasn’t until 100 years ago that the area around the church was productively cleared. Holly House was built—quite solidly and quite clearly for family use—in 1921. Strawberries and fruit were raised on the modest parcel throughout the ‘20s and ‘30s. Some of the fruit trees still remain. By the early ‘40s, innovative engineers conceived of a concrete pontoon bridge connected to underwater pilings with cables. With the ending of the Second World War and the G.I. Bill—offering low cost loans to veterans (to white veterans) what had been farmland became housing developments. Mercer Island and the rest of the Eastside began to grow—continuing unabated to the present day.

By January 1950 East Shore Unitarian Church was officially organized and chartered. They rented space at a funeral home on Bellevue Square, hired a Minister—Chad Spring, after whom Spring Hall is named—and began raising money and looking for place to build. The site selected was a seven-acre parcel “way out in Factoria with almost nothing around it” owned by ESUC members Lester and Christie Henderson. In little over a year they built this building. When the Hendersons moved two years later, they offered three adjoining acres, which included their nine-room residence. We purchased the 1921 farmhouse and the ¾ acres around it. As a gift, distinct from the purchase of the house, the Henderson’s deeded a glen to the north of the church: today’s lower parking lot. Almost immediately the children named the farmhouse Holly House, because of the large holly trees around it. This was in the summer of 1956. So it was over sixty-two years ago that Holly House became part of our community.

It’s been close to the heart of our collective life ever since. And it has served the congregation in a variety of ways, both practical and visionary. Initially, according to Dorothy Hopper, wife of one of our longest serving and most revered ministers, Leon Hopper, it housed the custodian. Meanwhile, Sunday school was crammed into the North and South Rooms—but th

Part 1 of Rev. Stephen Furrer’s History of ESUC will focus on the state of Unitarianism in the years immediately following World War II and how Rev. Lon Ray Call (ESUC’s first Minister) launched this congregation—and over a hundred others across the USA.

“The Fellowship Movement”

Between 1946 and mid-1967 the Unitarian Universalist Association designed and ran the most effective outreach/missionary program in its long history, the Fellowship Movement. (On July 1, 1967 the “Fellowship Office” was folded into the Growth & Extension Office). ESUC was organized (“gathered,”) and certified in the midst of the Fellowship Movement. The way (the process by which) ESUC became a congregation, though unique, was similar in many ways to hundreds of other UU groups that came to birth in that era… and it’s worth knowing about.

One of the principal tasks that interim and developmental ministers are encouraged to undertake—i.e., key focus points—is Heritage; i.e., helping the congregation become familiar with and appreciate its history—both the high points and the low. But to understand ESUC’s history it’s also important to understand its pre-history: the context out of which it arose. Ergo, today’s sermon.

1946: ½ Unitarian Congregations were East of the Hudson River

AUA was short of money and short of ministers

President Frederick May Eliot and Minister-at-Large

Lon Ray Call proposed a radical new extension

policy: lay led groups (WA connection – his 2nd

wife was from Spokane. AUA Minister at large

’41-‘51)

Origins:       “house churches” – Early Church

Non-established churches during the Reformation

Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses: no professional clergy

1793 – the Unitarian Joseph Priestley

19th century – the Universalist Quillen Shinn –

started churches throughout the South

Lon Ray Call remembered how several small KY churches “had been kept going for years on end by laypeople without benefit of clergy.”

1945 – Newly created Fellowship Office at AUA

Monroe Husbands (born in Spokane)

Gathered CLF clusters

Ran ads: Unitarianism anyone? (Ulbrich p. 12)

1946:  Boulder, CO (Stillwater, Beaumont, San Gabriel Vy, Ames)

Focused on college towns and out West

____________________________________________________

Spin-offs (DC, Vancouver, Asheville, LA, Denver, Dallas)

Splinters

Monroe Husbands’ travels (Johnny Appleseed of Unitarianism)

Growing Pains:

Suitable space

RE

Worship services

600-800 fellowships started between ’46 & ’67

____________________________________________________

Early in this period—1948-1950—this congregation was born. Many of the fellowships established in the late ‘40s and ‘50s were, from the get-go was caught up in political concerns.

In1950 an amendment to the California state constitution was proposed that would require all religious institutions to sign a loyalty oath or lose their tax-exempt status. The demand for a loyalty oath already applied to all California public employees, but this was the first time in the history of the United States that a government imposed such an oath on a religious group. It was passed by referendum in 1952. Most churches signed the oath, but the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley and a few other Unitarians, Methodist, and Quaker congregations refused to sign. Their tax-exempt status was revoked, until 1958 when the California Supreme Court declared the oath unconstitutional. Many western Unitarians worked for major defense contractors and were signatories of the same oath at their workplaces, so the issue was pretty much by-passed wherever possi