The Bicentennial of the American Unitarian Association and Congregational History

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the American Unitarian Association, please join us for a virtual talk with Dr. Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School and editor of A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism (Skinner House Books, 2017).

The founding of the American Unitarian Association in 1825 was the culmination of a generations-long family quarrel within the Congregational churches of Massachusetts. Many Unitarian Universalists today remember it as the beginning of a theological journey that would lead away from both Congregationalism and Christianity as a whole. But the Unitarian founders understood themselves as custodians of the best traditions of their puritan forebears. They hoped to spread the puritan values of learned ministry and congregational independence across the United States, while paring away the excesses of Calvinism and revivalism.

And even as their theology diverged, their organizational habits ran in parallel with those of their more orthodox siblings. Both groups were prolific founders of schools and reform societies that transformed their nation, even as both groups lagged behind their Baptist and Methodist cousins in the struggle for hearts and minds. This bicentennial is thus an opportunity to reflect on the shared legacies of Congregationalism.

Email any questions to programs@14beacon.org.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Dan McKanan is the Emerson Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, where he works closely with students preparing for Unitarian Universalist ministry and with scholars of Unitarian Universalism from around the world. He is the author of six books, including Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition, and the editor of the two-volume Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism.