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Editor’s Note: Honoring 200 Years of the American Unitarian Association
May 26, 2025, marks the 200th anniversary of the chartering of the American Unitarian Association, which played a key role in social justice movements, including abolition and women’s rights.
Theologically, the AUA was distinct from other Christian denominations for its unitarian—rather than trinitarian — understanding of God. And those who worked and worshipped as part of the AUA are the spiritual ancestors of Unitarian Universalists.
As we celebrate this milestone, we honor the AUA’s legacy of liberal faith and progressive values that live on through the Unitarian Universalist Association and in UU congregations. This story from the Spring/Summer 2025 edition reflects that history and reminds us of the continued relevance of the struggle for collective liberation.
With gratitude to Rev. Dr. David B. Parke, who published the full minutes of a historic meeting that shaped the future of the American Unitarian Association, what follows is a one-act play retelling of a dialogue that took place 200 years ago. The playwright (that’s me) paraphrases a great deal, takes ample artistic license, and offers a number of clarifying stage directions.
The Setting:
Forty-four white men gathered in a rather chilly room in Boston on January 27, 1825. They have been charged to discuss “the practicality and expediency of forming a Unitarian convention or association, to consist of clergymen and laymen, to meet annually or oftener.” The vibes resemble the average congregational annual meeting. Some of the men have not yet had lunch. Many wonder how long this whole thing will take.
Dramatis Personae:
The Parliamentarian: reader of resolutions, speaks in a stentorian voice, has good posture.
Andrews Norton: Harvard Professor of Sacred Literature. Known to friends and enemies alike as “the Unitarian Pope;” means business.
William Ellery Channing: the father of American Unitarianism. The one guy in the room everyone wants to impress.
Henry Ware: the younger, not the elder. (These guys tend to recycle names like the royal families in Game of Thrones.) Young, organized, possessed of many ideas.
Judge Jackson: an esteemed member of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which is kind of a big deal.
Rev. Dr. Pierce (of Brookline): a gentleman who is having a bit of trouble containing himself.
Mr. George Bond: a Boston merchant of some renown. Has skipped breakfast.
Marking the AUA’s 200th Anniversary
Find more stories at uuworld.org/aua200.
The Scene:
Parliamentarian: Having duly chosen a moderator and a secretary, this meeting is called to order.
(clears throat, affects a change in posture that appears to make him taller)
Resolution the first: It is desirable and expedient that provision should now be made for the future meetings of the Unitarian and liberal Christians generally.
Resolution the second: That a committee consisting of nine members be appointed to consider with what degree of frequency such shall be held and to form a plan upon which they shall be conducted; to report to this body at an adjourned meeting.
(Hands go up with a halfhearted feeling throughout the gathered company. Parliamentarian continues.)
The motion having been made and seconded, discussion may commence.
Andrews Norton: While some have professed that Unitarianism is to be propagated slowly, silently, and without organization, I have heard that both the Quakers and the Methodists have formed organizational structures to promote their respective faiths. Having done so, it seems that neither the Quakers nor the Methodists have fallen entirely into the abyss. Unless united in some way, we Unitarians fail to protect institutions and organizations like theological schools, including the one that writes my paycheck. Basically, we need to get it together.
(low rumble of uncertain approval, followed by a collective sharp intake of breath as the granddaddy of them all, William Ellery Channing, shifts noticeably in his seat)
William Ellery Channing: As to the subject of an association, let it be known that I prefer to call it a convention. You know that the naming of things is difficult. Also, it is my professed opinion that the purpose of such a convention should be the actual propagation of our actual religious views, which cannot be done, as they say, slowly and silently.
“I am opposed to all of this tomfoolery and believe it is not becoming nor in any way helpful for Unitarians to band together in an association, a convention, or any other kind of party-planning committee.”
Judge Jackson: As an esteemed member of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, you may have heard of me. I am opposed to all of this tomfoolery and believe it is not becoming nor in any way helpful for Unitarians to band together in an association, a convention, or any other kind of party-planning committee. Nay!
Rev. Dr. Pierce (of Brookline): Indeed, the entire enterprise of founding any such organization is dangerous to all of Unitarianism and to me personally, and I suspect—though I have not asked—that if you polled the seventy-five rural parishes in the interior of the state, pretty much everyone would agree with me. I have heard from unnamed persons that they really don’t like this idea.
Henry Ware: But …
(Mr. Ware is rapidly cut off by his interlocutor, quite unable to contain himself and unwilling to wait in line at either the pro or con microphone. Wait … wrong era. But you get it.)
Rev. Dr. Pierce (still of Brookline): I have it on good authority! People are talking! No, I won’t tell you their names—that’s what anonymous means!
Henry Ware: But …
Judge Jackson: I suspect that the founding of an association would just give people a distant object of opposition causing them to spend all of their time fighting about issues far away from the concern of local parishes.
Henry Ware: But, sirs, I was just trying to get a word in edgewise to say that the distant parishes have in fact been polled, and while not uniformly in agreement, have weighed in with their general approval. So maybe all of that anonymous feedback wasn’t really helpful, good sirs. I’m sorry, sirs. But I’m right, sirs. I’ll sit down now.
Mr. George Bond: I believe this measure to be both expedient and wise. Unitarians have not done as much as they should for benevolent purposes, and an association—or convention, whatever—would allow us to be of greater use in our communities. Also, I move that discussion be adjourned so that everybody can go have lunch.
(Striding to center stage, affecting a knowing stance and rather less rigid posture, the Parliamentarian breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience.)
Parliamentarian: The motion to adjourn did not receive a second. Discussion continued. One must assume that Mr. Bond remained hungry.
A letter from a certain Mr. Willard was read approving the proposal. A Mr. Dwight of Springfield said his friend Mr. Howard (not present) favored the object, as did he. Rev. Dr. Pierce rose for the third time to express his fervent opposition.
A letter cautioning prudence from the Governor of Massachusetts was read into the assembly. The text of that letter is not included in the source material, though one must naturally assume that it was full of vague guidance offered at a great institutional distance.
(Parliamentarian recedes into the wings, leaving the audience to wonder if this is some sort of experimental play.)
Mr. Norton: Like Mr. Bond, I am in fact a bit peckish. Perhaps adjournment is not such a bad idea. I move that a committee be appointed to invite a larger number of gentlemen into this conversation and all of us here gathered take this up over a light repast.
(Parliamentarian again takes a place at center stage, now dressed in khaki cargo shorts, Birkenstock sandals, and a T-shirt with a large flaming chalice. He once again breaks the fourth wall.)
Parliamentarian: The motion was seconded and passed. Membership of that committee was set at nine members. Those nine members were selected. The meeting was adjourned. Presumably, lunch was obtained.
As if these events were not thrilling enough, the really interesting part came sometime after the minutes were concluded. Are you ready for the twist ending?
The committee they spent so much time planning for—it never met. Those nine appointed gentlemen never came together. After all that, nothing happened. The subject was deemed too hot to handle, the general discord too great to be efficiently resolved.
“After all that, nothing happened. The subject was deemed too hot to handle, the general discord too great to be efficiently resolved.”
And yet, four months later, on May 25, 1825, an energetic group of younger ministers led by James Walker, Henry Ware Jr., and Ezra Stiles Gannet, all of whom had been present for that historic debate, went rogue. They arrived at the Berry Street Conference in Boston and personally presented their own plan for a new convention of Unitarian clergy. Met with affirmation from certain members of that body, on the very next day—May 26, 1825—they chartered the American Unitarian Association.
That is how it started.
END SCENE
Author’s Note:
Exactly 200 years ago this spring, coincidentally on the very same day that the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was chartered an ocean away, that is how it started.
So often, we discuss history from a safe distance. Our forebears in faith, when mentioned, are referenced with sharp rebuke or vaunted respect, as if all the words they said were written in indelible ink, and everything we are today was somehow predestined by the leadership of those who came before.
But the larger truth is both stranger and more comforting. Namely, that we are not alone in our stumbling efforts toward a liberal and liberatory faith. They were not so perfect, either. Their struggles are our struggles. Their story is our story. Their imperfect past is a part of our own evolving future. In our own imperfection and limitation, whether every meeting we plan ever happens or not, may we be worthy of both their legacy and our living tradition.