“Where we have come from, as well as where we are going. . .”
On Monday we heard from the Rev. A. Powell Davies, a formative figure in the history of Unitarian Universalism. What some may not realize, is that at the side of such prophetic, successful, figures is usually a partner, and helpmate - in Rev. Davies’ case, his wife Muriel A. Davies.
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Davies continued his work, most notably serving as the organizing director for the River Road church in Bethesda, Maryland. This church now has over 600 members, and on November 19th, 2007, Mrs. Davies’ 100th birthday, the congregation ordained her as a Minister Emerita:
“There was no minister in the beginning and for 18 months she was the sole staff person,” said the Rev. Scott Alexander, minister of River Road. “She contacted the families, and then got the church school going. And she did all this from an office in her home.”. . .
“It was wonderful,” said Davies, contacted later at home. “The day and the ordination meant a great deal more to me than I can say. My connection with River Road is very important to me. I went through a very hard time when my husband died in 1957. The church really changed my life. It gave me self-confidence and I became a different person through that job with the church.”
There aren’t many works by Rev. Mrs. Davies on the internet, but I was able to find a jewel of a sermon that she gave on May 17, 1998, the occasion of the 90th Anniversary of the Unitarian Church in Summit, New Jersey. Enjoy.
90th Anniversary Presentation,
by Muriel A. DaviesIt means a great deal to me to be here this morning, to participate in your 90th anniversary. The 11 years my husband and I lived in Summit were very happy ones. We had discovered Unitarianism, to our great joy, just a few years previously, and found there the answers to our long journey from the Methodism of our upbringing. Summit was our first Unitarian church, and we could not have had a better introduction. We found here a wonderfully stimulating group of people, deeply committed to liberal religion. My memories of those days are precious ones.
Anniversaries are occasions for looking back at the past. It is important to remember where we have come from, as well as where we are going. For more than 60 years, I have been privileged to observe, and some of the time, actively participate in, the vicissitudes of our denomination — first Unitarian and then Unitarian Universalist. Probably I am one of the dwindling number of people whose memories go that far back, and this is where I would like to begin this morning.
Sixty years ago, Unitarianism was very different from today. It was still basically a New England-dominated religion. I recently reread a book by Van Wych Brooks, written in 1937, entitled The Flowering of New England, and it refreshed my memory of how widespread Unitarianism was in that part of the United States — almost a state or regional religion. I remember, many years ago, being driven around Boston by the Rev. Rhys Williams, and as we passed the many churches in that city, I was amazed as he told me how many had originally been Unitarian.
George Marshall, in his excellent biography of Powell Davies, has described those times, and I quote: “The American Unitarian Association, incorporated in Massachusetts, was required by state statute to hold its annual meetings in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Boston power brokers were anxious to maintain statutory control of policies. Many western Unitarians were never able to send delegates to Boston for the annual meetings, thus assuring New England control. Many of the churches in eastern Massachusetts were the old first parishes of the Puritan establishment of colonial days, turned Unitarian in 1815-25. It was part of the poetic and traditional heritage of these New England Unitarians to hold the anniversary meetings in May in Boston to celebrate the first landings in the Bay Colony.” Is it any wonder that there was a saying, current at the time, that Unitarians believed in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Man, and the neighborhood of Boston!
In the early 1930s, shortly after we came to Summit, a group of young ministers in the New York-New Jersey area, of whom my husband was one, began a campaign to change this. They believed, rightly as it turned out, that this expression of liberal faith would have a much wider appeal if only it was more visible and explicit. They took their views to the officials at headquarters in Boston and urged a program of promotion. They were met with adamant resistance. The thought of anything remotely resembling advertising filled the hierarchy with horror. Also, it was insisted, no statement of belief, in any shape or form, was possible, because this was a creed-less religion. But a dedicated group of laity and ministers persisted, and eventually the Unitarian Board of Trustees reluctantly agreed to appoint committees to work on this. My husband was chair of the Ministerial Committee, and Hamilton Warren, an active member of this church, chaired the Lay Committee.
It was not an easy task. I remember many meetings in our living room here, going far into the night, as they wrestled with wording which would express the principles of our faith, without turning it into a creed. I also remember my husband saying, in a moment of frustration, that it seemed as though the only thing Unitarians could agree on was planned parenthood! But this movement, which became known as Unitarian Advance, did succeed in drawing up a statement called “Unitarian working principles,” which was approved, with faint praise, by the board for consideration in local churches.
A pamphlet, entitled “The Faith Behind Freedom,” was eventually published in 1943. The Unitarian Laymen’s League had become interested in the cause of promotion and had produced an advertisement which some of you may remember — “Are you a Unitarian without knowing it?” This was used in local newspapers in many communities around the country, and produced good results. It was a time of rapid growth in Unitarian churches. My husband and I, by this time in Washington, were very much involved in this growth, as new congregations began to organize. Over and over again, we heard people say, “This is what I have long been looking for.”
George Marshall has pointed out that this was an historic moment in the life of the denomination, because what was really at the heart of this controversy was the question “Is Unitarianism just a liberal branch of ecumenical Christianity, or is it a universal basic faith?” And on that answer depended the future of Unitarianism. To digress for a moment — it is interesting to me that British Unitarians remained a liberal branch of Christianity and have not experienced the growth we have seen here.
A major event took place in 1961 when the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association merged and became the Unitarian Universalist Association. I believe that the Universalists added not only strength in numbers, but created a kinder, gentler, more inclusive denomination.
Well, so much for the past. Looking at where we have been brings us to the question of where we are going. I have recently been participating in the anniversaries of several of the churches in my area and everywhere I have been quoting David Bumbaugh. I don’t have to do that here! But I so thoroughly agree with his emphasis on the “universalness” — if there is such a word — of our message, and his belief that we have a religion which is relevant to the 21st century.
Karen Armstrong, a British theologian, in the introduction to her book A History of God, writes:
“My study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that homo sapiens is also homo religiosis. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human. They created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces: these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seems always to have been an essential component in this beautiful, yet terrifying world. Like art, religion can be abused, but it seems to be something we have always done. It was not tacked on to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests, but was natural in humanity.”
Armstrong points out that history shows that all religions have had a definite life span. As a culture grows and changes, its religious beliefs eventually become irrelevant. They lose their power to motivate behavior and to provide guidance for living, and eventually they are discarded and superseded.
It seems fairly obvious that we are at such a state in history today. For 2,000 years, the Judeo-Christian ethic provided the moral underpinning of the Western world. It was a standard accepted even by those who flouted it. This is no longer the case. In spite of the desperate attempts of the Religious Right to turn back the clock, it has lost its power. People feel adrift. This is why we are hearing so much about getting back to God, to family values etc., and mindless suggestions such as that putting prayer into the public schools would solve our problems. It is a cry of despair. It bespeaks the real need people have for guidelines, for something in which they can believe, something which motivates their lives. It shows in the increasing sale of books which deal with the inner life, with the spiritual, with meaning.
I think we Unitarian Universalists have a great opportunity today, if we cease putting obstacles in our path — obstacles of vocabulary, of narrow identification. In a conversation with a friend who had attended the most recent General Assembly, I was saddened to hear that there is still apparently controversy between humanists and theists and anxiety about splinter groups such as Unitarian Pagans. These conflicts can even split congregations. We have a message which supersedes these differences. I submit that our message, as stated in our seven principles, is one to which we can all subscribe, whatever our religious preferences in expression are. Surely, whether one chooses to use the word God or adheres to a humanist or scientific approach, we can unite in covenanting to affirm and promote the inherent worth of every person; justice and compassion for all; acceptance of one another; the search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience; the goal of world community, and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
In a culture which is becoming increasingly global, there is need for a religion which is relevant to an expanding world. If we can focus on our basic message, I believe we can make a significant contribution to this new world. Our religion looks to the future. In a world of intolerance, where religious, ethnic and cultural differences are tearing people apart, we offer a religion which is inclusive, from which no one is excluded except, as William Ellery Channing once said, “by the death of goodness in his or her own soul.” In a world of rigid sectarianism, we offer a religion which finds wisdom and insight from many sources, past and present, thus linking us to the whole human experience. We affirm our belief in world community with peace and justice and liberty for all.
Systems of belief, of course, cannot be invented. They have to evolve, and it will probably be a long time before some moral standard or religious faith will arise to take the place of the old beliefs. But perhaps we, as a denomination, and in our individual churches, can be a bridge to the future.
In closing, I would like to quote something my husband wrote 40 years ago, but which still speaks to today:
“We are the consummation of thousands of years of religious history. We are thousands of years that have stripped off superstition and battled with tyranny; thousands of years that struggled to take fear out of religion; thousands of years that have marched, sometimes joyfully, sometimes in agony, toward spiritual emancipation. We are indeed the consummation of something. Yet in this world of blood and sorrow it is scarcely important, hardly worth mentioning, unless in addition we are the beginning of something, unless our religion is new — the religion that has always been new in every prophet who died rather than forsake it; the religion that has been buried over and over again in creeds and rituals and sacred sepulchers and yet has always come to life; the religion that today is new all over the earth, stammering itself into utterance in every language known to humankind. The religion that says freedom; freedom from ignorance and false belief — freedom from spurious claims and bitter prejudices — freedom to seek the truth, both old and new, and freedom to follow it — freedom from the hates and greed that divide humankind and spill the blood of every generation — freedom for honest thoughts — for equal justice — the religion that says humankind is not divided except by ignorance and prejudice and hate — the religion that claims an end to all exclusions and declares a brotherhood and sisterhood unbounded. The religion that knows we shall never find the fullness of the wonder and glory of life until we are ready to share it, that we shall never have hearts big enough for the love of God until we have made them big enough for the worldwide love of one another.”
A new beginning — a new century — a new challenge! So this is my message and hope this morning, that in the years to come, we Unitarian Universalists will proclaim our faith more widely and clearly, so that people will be drawn to us, as they were 40 years ago, and find here a life-affirming religion which will provide a source of strength and a sense of community as we approach the 21st century.
Source: Rev. Muriel A. Davies, 90th Anniversary Presentation, Unitarian Church in Summit, May 17, 1998.
Tags: A Powell Davies, evolving faith, growth, Muriel Davies, outreach
