On
Turning 60, Part 2
Unitarian
Universalist Church of Augusta
August 3rd
2014
This morning we
have a special occasion to celebrate. After last Sunday’s Camp Meeting service,
I wanted to pick music that would be relevant to our mature 60 years. In May I
gave the first part of this sermon On Turning 60 about myself, so I figure I
know what it feels like to be 60…and so some of the hymns we could have sung today for our 60th
are:
Go
Tell It on the Mountain, But Speak Up
Just
a Slower Walk with Thee
Nobody
Knows the Trouble I Have Seeing
It
Is Well With My Soul, But My Knees Hurt
(http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/jokes/jokes_over60.htm)
Well, maybe 60 isn’t so old, especially when I
think of the congregations I visited in England earlier this month: Leeds
Unitarian Chapel had its first services in March of 1674, and York Unitarian
Chapel in 1693.
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| Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel, Leeds |
Closer to home, Unitarianism
arrived in South Carolina in 1787. The Charleston church is the oldest
Unitarian Church in the South.
But even though our
congregation is 60 years old, the first
Unitarian congregation actually formed in Augusta in 1826 (http://studio205.tv/redrobotfoods/unitarian-universalists-in-atlanta-100-years/).
A meeting house
was built in 1827 and a minister was called in 1830. Until 1837, the Rev. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, whose
father had designed the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, was minister to
the Unitarian church in Augusta.
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| Rev. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch |
But by 1837 Rev. Bulfinch was gone, and the congregation
dissolved because of three reasons: internal conflict; conflict with the
American Unitarian Association over its anti-slavery stand; and severe
criticism from the Augusta community for the Unitarians’ liberal Christian
beliefs. Following these disagreements the
church, like others in the South, closed
in 1840. Rev. Bulfinch later wrote a
novel that was a thinly veiled commentary on his struggle with slavery, which
many of his parishioners supported; soon he left the Unitarian church and
became a Christian minister.
A Unitarian Church
formed in Savannah in 1830 but it also experienced the same problems as the
group in Augusta and by 1859 it had disbanded. The experience was so
disheartening to Unitarians that, when a brash young minister of the Savannah
church suggested in 1854 that a Unitarian denomination-sponsored mission group
be established in the Atlanta area (specifically in Marietta), he was soundly
rebuked by one of the founders of the Augusta congregation and a pillar of
Unitarianism in Georgia. Dr. Richard Arnold
wrote to the young minister saying,
“No, no, Georgia is too new a country, in that section of it, for Unitarian
Christianity. A few from the land of steady habits may carry it thither with
them, but if it were strangled in Augusta, I have no hopes of its reviving and
flourishing in Marietta, Cobb County, which twenty years since was an Indian
Hunting ground. . . ” (http://studio205.tv/redrobotfoods/unitarian-universalists-in-atlanta-100-years/).
That’s the Unitarian
experience; there were more small, active Universalist churches than Unitarian
churches in Georgia before the war, but no congregations remained active
afterward. (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/unitarianism-and-universalism) And so for more than 100 years, until 1954, there was no
Unitarian presence in Augusta.
Now, last night we
had a dance to celebrate our 60 years, and Tracy Craig and Alan Totten gathered
dance music from every decade since UUCA was created. And while I was looking
at some of the titles, I thought some of them would explain some important points
about this church that I picked out of Lyn Dennison’s paper on the first 50
years of this congregation (Lyn Dennison, History of the First Twenty Five Years of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta, Augusta, GA, 2004).
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| Savannah Riverwalk, Augusta |
The first title is
from a Bruce Springsteen song from 1979, “The River”. The Savannah River is a
vital part of our history. The roots of our congregation as we know it today
were planted in Aiken in 1953 with the founding of the original Unitarian
Fellowship of Aiken. The Augusta Fellowship was founded in 1954, one year after
the Aiken Fellowship was founded. These early
Unitarians mainly were here to construct and operate Savannah River Plant, at
that time the newly opened plutonium production facility. To begin with in
Augusta, services and meetings were held at a local Jewish Reform temple, the
Congregation Children of Israel.
The Unitarian Fellowship
of Augusta, is of course, now the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta.
After the Aiken Fellowship dissolved many Aiken UUs traveled back and forth
across the Savannah River to Augusta for years, actively participating in the
Augusta congregation.
In the year 2000,
a Unitarian Universalist fellowship was organized in Aiken, with the help of the
Augusta minister Dan King. (aikenuu.org)
David Bowie’s song “Rebel
Rebel” from 1974 is another appropriate song title, because it wasn’t long
after the fellowship formed that the small group of Unitarians began to make
waves. In the 1950s and 1960s, the UU Church’s attitude towards racially
integrated congregations was locally controversial. The church received phone
threats when its members made statements about racial politics in the local
media. This congregation was also in the 10 % of rebels who voted ‘no’ to the
proposal to consolidate Unitarians and Universalists in 1961 – mainly because
it had experienced growth as a Unitarian fellowship and was afraid to lose the
momentum of increasing membership.
Being counter-cultural is
another way of being rebellious. The Augusta UU congregation voted in 1999 to
become a designated Welcoming Congregation, way ahead of its time in being a
place of worship that was LGBT-friendly. (http://www.pluralism.org/profiles/view/73450)
Unlike most other churches, over
the years we have made alliances with other progressive houses of worship, and
we’ve developed interfaith relationships at a time in the world when it is more
important than ever to pursue dialogue and not conflict.
Now the congregation is about
to embark on another cutting-edge project, beginning its work on becoming a
Green Sanctuary congregation, bringing environmental awareness to our own
members and the wider community. The word Rebel in the South sometimes has a
different meaning, more associated with the ‘War of Northern Aggression’! But
there is no doubt that this Unitarian Universalist community has long been
known as a bunch of upstarts who defied the status quo, whether it is race
relations, LGBT rights or the lack of a Bible-belt mentality.
Augusta’s own Godfather of
Soul, James Brown, sang “It’s a Man’s World”. The Augusta Unitarian Fellowship
was founded in an era when women were beginning to speak their own truth to
power. Women from our congregation led a small group in 1961 to start Augusta’s
first integrated preschool, Open Door, which still exists on Walton Way.
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| Open Door Kindergarten |
And nationally, after the
consolidation of Unitarians and Universalists, UU women took on the sexist
language of church hymnals. Hymns for the Celebration of Life, the UUA’s 1964 hymnal, had sections titled “Man,” “Love and
Human Brotherhood,” and “The Arts of Man.” Their work resulted in Singing
the Living Tradition in 1993, which uses more inclusive language.
Another change that
also has impacted this congregation was the rapid increase in women UU
ministers—from about 5 percent in 1977 to about 50 percent today. (http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/23905.shtml) So maybe the Aretha Franklin song “Sisters Are Doin It for
Themselves” sums up these developments.
And speaking of women
artists, Tina Turner sang, “What’s Love Got to do with It?” So far the history
has been interesting, but underpinning the existence of this congregation is
its commitment to love. Love for its members, for its friends, for the
community, the wider world. We see examples through the years of how members
and friends have gone about building what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called
the Beloved Community…and they have done it together, loyal to each other and
to this covenantal congregation.
Love has a lot to do
with it, Tina, and within that, relationship, as in the Beatles song “With a Little Help from My Friends” and James
Brown’s “I Feel Good - I Got You”. And we do make the CSRA feel good when we
add to its cultural life; we have well-respected musicians like Rob Foster and
Joe Patchen, our music director, and singers in music groups like the Augusta
Choral Society; we have members like Bea Kuhlke, a well-known artist whose
current exhibition is getting rave reviews; we have a jazz concert series
beginning next Friday that has resurrected Chamber Jazz, in this sanctuary
which used to be the venue in the 1990s for jazz concerts.
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| 4 Seasons Chamber Jazz Concert Series |
In fact, maybe the only known Unitarian
Universalist miracle occurred here at the Augusta Jazz Project series during
that time! Here’s a little bit of history I only found out when I did a radio
interview with Brenda Durant on yesterday’s Arts Weekly. Brenda told me that
she used to come to the concerts here, and that one night after the concert was
over all the men left before putting the room back to its normal configuration;
so, even though she had a neck and shoulder problem that she’d been receiving
treatment for, she and a friend picked up a piece of heavy furniture and moved
it. As soon as she put it down she felt a click and her neck felt fine, no pain
at all!
So, where do we go from here?
Will the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta celebrate 60 years from now?
Will those children who sang Happy Birthday this morning be here in 60 years as
the elders of this congregation? And just as importantly, how will we spend
those 60 years?
Woody Allen once said, “I don’t want to
achieve immortality through my work: I want to achieve immortality by not
dying.” I think this church should work on both…and when I think of what has
made us successful, and what could cause this church to remain a vital force
that draws people from all over the area and across the Savannah River, a rebellious
and counter-cultural beacon of liberal religion, an inclusive community, a
beloved community, a church that opens itself and gives of its values and
talents to the wider world – well, I believe it comes down to risk-taking, to
courage, and to a tough skin. And when I read Rev Tony Larson’s post in the
Etext library this week – which I’ve posted on our UUCA Facebook page – I knew
that it would form part of my anniversary wishes to each of you in this
congregation:
“You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you don't like getting
offended. If you haven't been offended yet, it’s only because you haven't been
around long enough. In trying to sermonize on some of the issues in our lives
today, I'm bound to hit some raw nerves and you'd better be ready for it. At
least you know it's not personal. I care about you - and the fact that we
disagree at times in no way takes away from that.
You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you're a Christian who
doesn't think atheists belong here. You should not be a Unitarian Universalist
if you're an atheist who thinks Christians don't belong here, or Buddhists, or
psychics, or pagans, or spiritualists. Remember the criterion for membership
here is humane living. The rest is a matter of individual choice.
You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you want all the
answers, because we don't even know all the questions.
Finally, you should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you can't
stand name calling. You are likely to get it by staying here. When you tell people
you're Unitarian Universalist, some of them will seize on the more sensational
aspects of this church. "Oh, you're that atheist church." or "You're
the people who worship flowers."
Labelling is a price that you pay and a risk you take in belonging to
this church. Some people who use to be members here, decided not to take that
risk. Then there are others who decide that those who label and name-call
reveal more about themselves than about this church. There's bravery in the
decision to stay. There's courage in not running out when you're under fire.
And, if it's any consolation, Unitarians and Universalists have had a long
history of being labelled and vilified - and of responding with courage that
comes from faith in the human race, from the days when UU's fought that
respectable institution called slavery, to their battle for women's rights to
vote and their struggle for civil liberties.
You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you don't like
diversity, and you should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you can't stand
the name calling that will inevitably result from being a diverse church.
My thanks to all of you who have stuck it out!” (http://downlode.org/Etext/why_not_unitarian.html)
And my thanks to you all for being here today to
celebrate the wonderful legacy this church is building for the next 60 years!
Blessed Be, Amen.
Gaye W. Ortiz
8/1/2014
