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CHAPTER III
CHURCHES AND
MEMBERSHIP
Both
Universalist and Unitarian denominations have congregational polity,
consequently local churches are of paramount importance, are autonomous and
have the final authority. It is the delegates from the churches assembled
in national business meetings who determine the major policies and
direction of the denominational organization. Relationships between
churches and denominational headquarters are voluntary. Headquarters can
request, but not demand data and churches cooperate fully but each year a
significant number do not. Churches often have no regular practice of
keeping rolls up-to-date, sometimes they do not conform to the definitions
for statistics furnished by the denominational headquarters. Consequently
there are ever-present weaknesses in denominational statistics which go
back to the inadequacies and inaccuracies of church reports.
The analysis of
churches and memberships, nevertheless, must depend on the statistics which
are available. In larger denominations various types of inaccuracies tend
to cancel each other out; in smaller denominations, however, this is less
apt to be the case. Just what the inaccuracies are is not simple to
estimate. It must also be remembered that the spirit, vitality and
usefulness of a church may not have any relationship to its size or growth.
Not all large churches have outreach and growing edges, but without these
may serve well the needs of their members and are harmonious and
cooperative; on the other hand, not all small churches are simply
struggling to keep from closing their doors permanently. It is necessary,
nevertheless to take account of stock and to find the direction of the
changing patterns. Comparisons must be made with care and trends
interpreted for directions more than distance. This chapter presents the
most accurate picture which can be drawn from the facts provided.
CHURCHES
The data about
the Universalist and Unitarian Churches have been analyzed to show the
changing numbers of churches and their membership, the relationship of
size of church to size of community, the federated churches, the
fellowships, the active local units and the location of churches.
Changing
Numbers
Table 1 gives
the comparison of the Universalist and Unitarian churches and their
membership as recorded in the U.S. Census of Religious Bodies.
TABLE 1 —
Number of churches and size of church membership of the
Universalist and Unitarian churches according to the U.S. Census of
Religious Bodies for 1890, 1896, 1916, and 1926. *
*Census of
Religious Bodies, 1926, Washington: Government Printing Office 1928;
Universalist, Table 2; Unitarian, Table 2.
In 1890 there
were two and one quarter times as many Universalist as Unitarian churches,
hut the membership in Unitarian churches was more than one-third larger. In
both denominations, churches were growing fewer but larger though the
Universalist churches have been consistently smaller.
Table 2
compares the number of Universalist and Unitarian churches with data from
the denominational records for more recent years in activity categories.
Reports use the term active to mean a church ordinarily having a settled
minister. Whether this definition was applied consistently in each of the
years is unknown
TABLE 2 —
Number of Universalist and Unitarian Active, Inactive, and Summer Churches
in 1935, 1945,
1958.
*
Denominational reports.
a
Special count in June, 1958.
b
Includes 14 of the 29 Universalist-Unitarian federated churches and
36 Universalist-Other Denomination federated churches.
c
Includes 46 dormant and 16 dropped churches which are held on
denominational rolls awaiting instructions from State Conventions; only a
Convention can drop a church from the roll.
d
Includes 15 of the 29 Universalist-Unitarian federated churches and
22 Unitarian-Other Denomination federated churches.
For a time,
both denominations showed a decreasing number of active churches, although
the Unitarians showed a gratifying upturn between 1945 and 1958. For many
years the number of Universalist churches exceeded those of the Unitarians.
How many in each denomination were preaching stations is not known. The
reasons for the continuing Universalist decline are not known altogether.
In part it may reflect changing methods of securing and using
denomination-wide statistics although there is little likelihood that this
possibility accounts for any significant part of the diminishing numbers.
The difference in the patterns of change in the two denominations can
probably be ascribed to the fact that the Unitarians faced and met their
problems through a very comprehensive study in the 1930’s and which the
Universalists similarly faced and are meeting theirs in the late 1950’s.
Size of Church
and Size of Community
The
distribution of the churches of the two denominations by size and the type
of community in which they are located are given in Tables 3 and 4.
TABLE 3 —
Distribution of Active Universalist Churches by Membership Size-Groups and
Size-Groups of Communities: 1958*
*Legal members.
All federated churches excluded.
Includes 19 Summer Churches.
TABLE 4 —
Distribution of Active Unitarian Churches by Membership Size-Groups and
Size of Communities: 1958*
*Legal members.
All federated churches excluded.
Includes 6 Summer Churches.
Two striking
facts are revealed by comparison of the data in Tables 3 and 4. Over half
of the Universalist churches (56.6 per cent) have less than 100 members
while half of the Unitarian churches are twice as large or larger (10.7% +
15.1% + + of 51.7 or 25.8 - 51.6%). The reason for it is that 59.5 per cent
of Universalist churches are in communities of less than 10,000 population
and 56.2 per cent of the Unitarian churches are in communities of over
25,000 population. The model size of Unitarian churches is in the 200—300
size group. Two per cent of the Universalist churches and 10.7 per cent of
the Unitarian churches are above the 500 membership mark.
Whatever the
cause of these differences and they are probably in part historical, in
part economic, in part sociological, and perhaps even theology enters in,
there appears to be a tendency of Universalist churches to serve people in
small places and of the Unitarian churches to serve people in more urban
places. These seem to be clear complementary aspects of the two
denominations.
Federated
Churches
Besides the
regular Universalist and Unitarian churches, each of the denominations is
involved in federated churches. They represent 13.4 per cent of all types
of churches in both denominations. Altogether, there are 87 federated
churches: 29 Universalist—Unitarian churches or Uni—Uni, 22 Unitarian—Other
denominations, and 36 Universalist—Other denominations. These are
distributed by membership size and by size of community in Table 5.
TABLE 5 —
Distribution of Federated Churches by
Size of
Membership and by Size of Place
of Location
According to Affiliation: 1958.
The Uni-Uni
churches follow very much the same pattern of distribution as the regular
active Unitarian churches. The
other churches federated with other denominations tend to be small (88 per
cent under 300 membership) and located principally in places of under
10,000 population (63 per cent).
Fellowships
In addition to
churches, each denomination has another type of local unit known as the
fellowship. These are always accounted separately in both denominations.
It is hoped that most of the fellowships may attain church status, but
there is recognition that there are situations in which by reason of
preference on the part of the members of the fellowship, or because of
other factors, the attainment of church status is not feasible. Most do,
however. Fellowships serve a distinct need and are economical in that they
afford an opportunity to experiment with meeting the needs of liberal
religion in a community before making any heavy capital commitments for
buildings and equipment.
In the A.U.A. a
staff member of the Department of Extension gives most of his time to
promoting, organizing and helping local groups of people to maintain
regular meetings and other activities on their own initiative. Regional
Directors are expected also to service these groups as they can.
Occasionally very small amounts of money are given to groups for special
purposes. As of June, 1958, there were 245 Unitarian fellowships.
The U.C.A. has
regarded fellowship work as “church gathering” or to put it another way,
this has been the plan for developing new churches. A likely place is
selected where some interested people are known to live, a minister is
employed with Department of Extension funds to develop a fellowship and
subsequently a church. This method has proven expensive and slow to develop
new churches. The U.C.A. department is undertaking a new fellowship program
similar to the A.U.A. plan, beginning in the Fall of 1958. At present,
there are nine fellowships in full affiliation and others in various stages
of development and negotiation.
The
distribution of fellowships by membership size and size of place of
location in Table 6 shows that characteristically fellowships are between
15 and 44 in size and are found in medium-large cities. The distribution is
of wide range, however, except for those over 100 membership which is the
point when they may become churches.
TABLE 6 —
Distribution of Unitarian and Universalist Fellowships According to
Size
of Membership,
and Size of Location: 1958.
Many Unitarians
justly feel that the fellowship movement is most promising in current
Unitarian advance. The change in fellowship policy among Universalists
should produce important results.
Active Units
A comparison of
the number of all local active units of the two denominations is shown in
table 7.
TABLE 7 —
Comparison by Numbers of the Various Types of Active Local Units of
the Unitarian and Universalist denominations: 1958.
*
Does not
include 23 occasional churches.
Location of
Churches
It is very
interesting to observe that Unitarians and Universalists in the United
States have stayed out of each other’s “territory” to a considerable
extent. Although according to the 1956-57
A.U.A.
Yearbook and the special June, 1958 count of Universalist churches
395 and 297 cities or places are represented, respectively, there are only
33 cities or places in which one or more regular, active church of each
denomination is found. There are two other cities where one regular, active
Universalist church and one A.U.A. fellowship are found. While no special
tabulation of metropolitan areas was attempted due to the fact that no list
of the places and their populations within each metropolitan area is issued
by the U.S. Census Bureau, observation and general knowledge of such areas
leads to the hypothesis that such areas would d contain many A.U.A.
churches and a goodly proportion of
U.C .A. churches.
Charts 1 and 2
indicate the general distribution of the churches and fellowships of each
denomination. The numbers of churches and fellowships shown in the charts
are of Spring 1957 and consequently differ slightly from the numbers used
in the tables of this report. Although both movements were originally New
England religio—cultural phenomena, the maps easily suggest that New
England is no longer the geographical center of either denomination.
MEMBERSHIP
The problem of
counting individuals in any population, geographical area, institutional
membership, kind of people, etc., is not as simple as it sounds. Mistakes
of many kinds can creep in and those who find the results in disagreement
with their expectations will put great emphasis upon the errors. In large
populations, errors tend to be proportionately small and to cancel each
other out to some extent. In small populations, however, errors and
omissions tend to be relatively more significant.
When it comes
to counting membership, and this is especially true in churches of all
kinds, there are special problems: what is a member, how long is one kept
on this roll when his activity ceases, can the institution afford to lose
prestige by registering too small members, is it important to take the time
to fill out report blanks accurately with up-to-date statistics? In
compiling denominational statistics all of these difficulties are
multiplied many times. It is interesting to note, the years when the
Census of Religious Bodies was made, the census report indicated more
churches and more members than the respective denominational reports of the
Universalists and Unitarians. The reasons for the differences are not
clear.
In the final
analysis denominational reports provide the data which are available, the
errors are usually much less than is generally thought, and whatever
errors there may be, they are not of great importance if the statistics are
used for general analysis rather than specific accounting.
Trend Patterns
Looking back to
Table 1 and adding the data presented in Table 8 a general picture of trend
patterns can be seen. The Universalist churches reached the peak of
membership around 1906, then gradually lost membership until the total was
a little more than one-third less at the bottom in 1955 with about 41,000
members. The Unitarian churches did not reach their peak of membership
until about 1916 from which they dropped more than a quarter in about a
decade then started up to reach an all-time high in 1957 of 95,590. Both
denominations are now on an upward trend though the Unitarians have a long
head start having gotten their house in order in the 1930’s, a job which
the Universalists postponed until 1955.
TABLE 8 — Legal
Membership in Universalist and
Unitarian
Churches 1935, 1945, 1957*.
*Data from
denominational reports.
Although a
definite part of church organization and program, church schools and their
memberships are usually counted separately. Some data are included here to
give an idea of the number and collective memberships of church schools in
each denomination.
TABLE 9 —
Number of Unitarian and Universalist Church Schools and Members,
1905 to 1957.
* NA
— Not Available
a — Data
Incomplete
It will be seen
that for a time the number of Universalist church schools and their
collective membership exceeded
those of the Unitarians. Only
in the last decade did the Unitarians catch up and pass the
Universalists in this activity.
Collective
Membership
An accounting
for all memberships in churches, in fellowships, and in the Churches of the
Larger Fellowship of the two denominations together is given in Table 10.
TABLE 10 —
Total Memberships of Churches, Fellowships and Church of the Larger
Fellowship in the Unitarian and Universalist Denominations: 1958.
a April 30,
1957, A.U.A. Yearbook
b June 15,
1958, U.C.A. General Secretary
c April 30,
1958, A.U.A. Director of Fellowships
Thus the
Unitarians total membership picture exceeds that of the Universalists by
approximately 63,900 persons or 149 per cent. Putting it another way, there
are 2.5 Unitarians per Universalist. Collectively there are less than
150,000 persons who have a legal membership status in Unitarian and
Universalist churches. If Sunday School children who are not legal members
and all others who attend but do not join churches were included, it is
probable that the total number would be in excess of 225,000 persons.
In bare
outlines, the main statistics as to churches and other local units and
membership of the two denominations are shown in Table 11.
TABLE 11 —
Total Number of Local Units and
Membership of
Unitarians and Universalists a
a
Dormant or inactive units omitted
b
Excluding 23 occasional churches
What the
ultimate size of each denomination may attain is a matter of conjecture.
Any institution has selective factors which tend to place a ceiling on its
growth. What these factors may be in the case of either denomination cannot
now be ascertained, but it is safe to assume that Unitarianism and
Universalism will continue to grow but not indefinitely at their present
rates. Of course, any marked changes in the cultural pattern or major
changes within either denomination will change the selective factors and
consequently the pattern of development.
Conclusion
This chapter
has endeavored to present a comparative picture of the numbers, sizes and
locations of the churches and fellowships of both denominations. No effort
was made to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each church and
fellowship since time and expense would not permit such a monumental task.
Suffice it to say that both denominations have some strong and also some
weak churches and that collectively, according to general opinion, the
Unitarians exceed the Universalists in the matter of relative strength of
churches, although the degree of difference on a national basis is not
known. It is hardly to be expected that all denominations would register
equally on any scale devised to assess the collective strengths and
weaknesses of their individual local units. All of this is a matter of
relativity and in the absence of conclusive data on the basis of adequate
yardsticks, the situation must be weighed by individuals concerned on the
basis of their own knowledge and experience.
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