Weekly Message from T. J.

Decision Division

This past weekend I preached at Central Union Church. It was a wonderful experience to share worship with one of my good friends and colleagues on the island. And it was a wonderful experience to share some of what our community thinks about, what our community is concerned with, with our neighbors. In my sermon (which you can see here at 11:00 or so if you so choose), I explain that once upon a time the congregational church was united, Unitarians and congregationalists. But what I don’t talk about is the break-up.

Like all horrible divorces, our break-up landed in court. The Massachusetts Supreme Court case Baker v. Fales (1821) tells the tale of First Church in Dedham, MA and the group that left that church when they didn’t like how a vote turned out. Back then, local taxes supported the local church in each parish (or town). Separation of church and state was interpreted differently then. And the parish actually got the final say over calling a minister, not the church. Usually only a smaller, more conservative set of parish residents actually attended the church. And in Dedham, there was a vote on which minister to call, and the parish majority outweighed the church majority, so a liberal, Unitarian minister was called.

A group from the church broke away, indignant at this decision. And they took with them much of the valuable property of the church, including the valuable communion silver. The decision ordered the breakaway group to return the silver and announced that the church that called the Unitarian minister was indeed the rightful church of the parish. And the case came to an end officially…in 1969, when the communion silver ordered to be returned in 1821 was donated to the Dedham Historical Society, which granted the Boston Museum of Fine Art a permanent loan of the silver. Some grudges are so good they belong in a museum.

Over the past weeks, and I suspect in the coming ones, winning and losing will be a big part of a lot of discussions, thoughts, and fears. Majorities of one part of a country might not like what majorities in other parts are doing. And final decisions about winning and losing might land in court. And it might feel scary. I’m sure it was scary to a lot of those in Dedham in 1821 (except the one who squirreled away the silver). But the Dedham decision became the turning point for a young nation to stop compulsory support of a single religion. It also led to the creation of Unitarianism as a separate denomination, thereby helping to found a strand of our shared faith.

History is so much more than a day, it is so much more than one decision. History is the spooling of threads to bind the quilt that warms the world. Two centuries ago two faiths separated over the call of a minister, and today ministers visit and enliven their neighbors. Today we share in the care of our youngest members with the Our Whole Lives program. Today we are able to see how much more unites us than divides us. Today we deny forces that sow division, so that tomorrow might hold the hope that history offers, even if we have to go to the Museum of Fine Art to see it.

Many blessings, friends.
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org