The Name Change Steering Committee invites your participation this Sunday, Sept 20th in our after-service coffee chat. Please make time for this important contribution. Your input is valuable.
We will be focusing on your preferences for our “noun.” (review Dan’s earlier website posting on how other churches choose names) Do we want to be a church, society, community, fellowship, congregation or possibly no noun? We’ll also be discussing adding “Universalist” to our new name. Technically, we are a Unitarian Universalist congregation).
Please read the following notes from Rev. Kathy on background information on Universalism as well as an annotated list of some possible nouns.
CONSIDERING UNIVERSALISM from Rev. Kathy:
As congregants reflect on whether or not to add Universalism to the name of the church, alongside Unitarian, it may be helpful to be clear on what that particular name means at present.
Like Unitarianism, Universalism had its roots in the Christian tradition and emerged from that tradition over certain disagreements with elements of belief. Universalism took issue with some traditional teaching that portrayed God as a relentless judge of human wrongdoing, bent on punishment and more than willing to consign unrepentant humans to everlasting punishment. Early Universalists argued that such a God was not a God anyone would even want to believe in, and that the image of God as angry judge who could be eternally unforgiving of human wrongdoing did not jibe with the message of Christianity preached by Jesus who envisioned (and himself experienced) God as endlessly loving, ever willing to forgive and allow humans to try again. Universalists insisted that God never gives up on us and is so bent on human redemption that, in the end, all would be saved (which is where the term universalism came from, this vision of salvation for all).
Just as Unitarianism has traveled far from its beginnings as a disagreement over the Trinitarian doctrine of God, so has Universalism traveled far from its initial concern with the doctrine of salvation. At present we see our Universalist heritage in our desire to be inclusive and welcoming to all, excluding nobody (just as the first Universalists insisted nobody would be excluded from being saved) and in our first principle’s affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of all (again, the latest version of that first Universalist claim that all will be saved and nobody is too bad to be unsaved).
So to add the name “Universalist” to the church would be a way of emphasizing these present understandings of who we are as a church where everyone is honored, everyone is welcome, everyone is good enough to be part of us.
More About Nouns:
Here is some information about the origin of the nouns we might choose to use in our name, including the words’ origins, and what might be implied by their use in the name of a UU congregation. These meanings can be very subjective, and there is room for more or different ideas than what we have laid out here. What these words mean to us is more important than what is written here, and more important still is what these words will mean to those who hear about us for the first time.
Church
Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) – “assembly”, or “those called together”. In Greek translations of the bible, ekklesia was used for the Hebrew word קהל (qahal), which also means “assembly”.
A building dedicated to the purpose of Christian prayer, worship, or other religious activity. Though its origins are broader, “Church” implies a connection to our roots in American Christianity. It may imply associations with traditional religion such as the Sunday morning service, as well as broader concepts such as the beloved community or the intentional inspiration to greater morality.
Fellowship
Old Norse félagi – “fellow, companion, associate, shareholder, colleague”.
This may imply origins or current status as a small Unitarian or UU congregation without a minister, but its more recent use is not necessarily tied to this association. From UU World: “Between 1948 and 1967, the main growth strategy of the American Unitarian Association (AUA) and its successor, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), was to plant small, autonomous, lay-led congregations just about everywhere ten or more religious liberals could be brought together. … Thirty percent of the UUA’s current congregations—323—started as fellowships during those two decades.”
Congregation
Latin congregō – “to herd into a flock”. Itself used as a Latin translation of the biblical Greek ekklesia above.
The people in a religious community. The English word congregation is used to describe a group of people of most any religion. When used as an adjective in a name, “congregational” may imply a connection to the Congregational Church – a predecessor of the Unitarians and Universalists, and a common ancestor we share with today’s United Church of Christ. Or “congregational” may refer to the congregational form of church governance, which we use. This is governance by a polity of congregation members, as opposed to presbyterian governance (by an assembly of elders), episcopal governance (by a hierarchy of bishops), or similar.
Society
Latin socius – “comrade, friend, ally”.
When used in the name of a UU congregation, this may imply the congregation was at one time Quaker – the Society of Friends (the same being true for “Meeting House”). Others may have used the word “Society” in order to draw a distinction between the group of people and the building (church) or area (parish).