A Statement: On the Future of This Church | Page 7

I would now make announcement to you, that I have left, or
am planning to leave, the Unitarian denomination, and propose not
much longer to be known specifically as a Unitarian minister. The
reasons for this change in my life, I shall make plain at another time;
this morning I content myself with stating the fact. Almost a year ago I
resigned the office of vice-president of the Middle States Conference of
Unitarian churches, which have held ever since I came to New York.
Two months ago, I resigned from the Council of the Unitarian General
Conference. Two weeks ago, I resigned my life-membership in the

American Unitarian Association. Next May, when the new list is made
up, I expect to withdraw my name from the official roll of Unitarian
clergymen, and thus sever the last strand which holds me to the
Unitarian body. Of course, I shall join no other denomination, and in
[15] this sense shall be independent. But to me this action means not
isolation, but entrance into that larger fellowship which I so long to
share. No barrier will then separate me from those Episcopalians and
Baptists and Methodists and other men, who are my real spiritual
brethren. I shall be at one with all men everywhere--at home with the
family of mankind. I shall not so much cease to be a Unitarian, as to
become a Christian. This matter is of course personal; and it thus
affected only incidentally the problem which was before our meeting
last Monday night. It is easy to find precedent for the occupancy of a
Unitarian pulpit by a minister not a Unitarian. At the time of the
famous Year-Book controversy, Mr. Potter of New Bedford, Mass., and
several of his colleagues, withdrew from the Unitarian body, but
continued to hold their Unitarian pulpits. The latest instance of which I
chance to know was called to my attention by the death last week of
Prof. George A. Foster, of Chicago University. Dr. Foster was born,
bred and ordained a Baptist; and yet last year was called to fill the
pulpit of the First Unitarian Church church in Madison, Wisconsin; and
died in the service of this church, a Baptist.
Even in orthodox churches, the denominational tag is losing its
significance. Thus, when the City Temple London, the most famous
Congregational church in the world, sought a successor to Dr.
Campbell, it chose Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, of Iowa, a Universalist.
We are getting sensible enough these days to recognize that the
essential thing even about a minister is not his name but his manhood.
Nevertheless, my contemplated change in denominational status might
well be regarded as a part of the whole problem before us, and I
therefore made careful mention of it last Monday night. Secondly, and
more important, I stated my desire that the church which I should serve
tomorrow, might itself be undenominational, at last to the degree
implied by my conception of what I have called the community church.
By this I meant that the church should proclaim [16] as its primary
interest and aim identification with, and service of, the people of its

community, to the subordination, and, if necessary, the ending of its
connection with persons of various and scattered communities who
have no other bond of union than that of a single denominational
inheritance. Was I wrong when I ventured the assertion at the meeting
of our Society, that in this church we have already moved far in this
direction? Unconsciously, in the last dozen years, it seems to me, we
have been moving out of the denomination, into the community. Nearly
every interest in this parish is a community and not a denominational
interest. Our natural affiliations as a church in this city have not been so
much with churches of our own denomination, as with churches of
various denominations distinguished like ourselves as predominantly
civic, or community, institutions. This congregation is an independent
congregation. If the Unitarian name adheres to it at all, it is to the
embarrassment of those whose Unitarianism is their pride, and to the
confusion of those who, not Unitarians either by birth or conviction,
desire to join us in spirit and active work. For years, like "the
chambered nautilus," we have been outgrowing our denominational
shell, and seeking "more stately mansions." Is it not time, now, that we
left this "outgrown shell," and became at last the full and free
community institution of which I speak? Should we not at least clear
ourselves of ancient entanglements to such degree that we may invite
people openly and honestly to come into our portals not because they
want to profess themselves Unitarians, but because they want to
confess themselves lovers and servants of mankind?
Again, I stated at last Monday's meeting