What's in a Name?

By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
November 8, 2009

What’s in a name? What meanings are conveyed by the names we choose for people and organizations. And what difference do our names make?

First of all, there is history in a name. It comes from somewhere. Maybe from our parents who named us. Maybe from the founders of an organization or a company. Or sometimes a name just happens. The basketball player, Magic Johnson, wasn’t named “Magic” by his parents. But his skills on the basketball court as a 15-year-old led a sportswriter in Lansing, Michigan, to call him magic, and the name stuck.

Which brings us to a second quality a name brings. It tells something about the person or organization or company that carries the name: Who is it? What is it? What does it do? What does it stand for? Even the name of a person tells us something. Like mine for example: Bruce Marshall. “Marshall” is a common name among those of Scotch and English descent and also among African Americans. But I’m mostly German so in my case, the surname doesn’t tell you a lot. But my given name, “Bruce,” enjoyed a spurt of popularity after World War II before fading back into obscurity. So my first name places me in the early postwar baby boom—identifies me as a baby boomer.

An exception to this pattern is found among African Americans for whom the name “Bruce” has enjoyed some more recent popularity. I’ve met African Americans named Bruce, but they’re all younger than I am. When I lived in Cleveland, I was on the staff of an African American newspaper. I wrote features profiling leaders and ordinary people in the black community. (The newspaper I worked for was owned by African American Republicans in Cleveland—that must be just about the definition of a minority: African American Republicans in Cleveland.) So I would contact people to do an interview, I would leave my name, cite the publication—and the people I contacted would make some assumptions. Then I would show up for the interview: not what they were expecting. That leads us to another feature of a name: it can be misleading. Every once in a while, someone upon first meeting me, will say, “Oh, you’re not what I expected from your name.” I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’m just left with a vague sense that—for some people, at least—my name doesn’t quite fit.

A name not only describes, it can influence what we become. I had a friend in college whose name was Eugene. But nobody ever called him Eugene. We called him, “Jeep,” (as in the military vehicle). This was a family nickname that dated back to his early childhood. As a pre-schooler, Eugene ran around the house in a way that reminded people of a Jeep, hence the name. My friend Jeep was older than most of his classmates because when he graduated from high school, he didn’t go directly to college. He joined the Marines. We have to wonder if someone who had not been called “Jeep” would have been as likely to take that path.

Because of the influence a name can have on what we become, we sometimes find names that express a hope or an aspiration. That is, the name is more about what people would like to be than what they currently are. An example of a name that was more aspirational than descriptive: the United States of America. When that name was chosen, the parts about “States” and “America” were accurate enough, but the “United” part represented more dream than reality. After the American Revolution, the early states were anything but united; they were spread out geographically with different populations and different cultures. A major concern for the new nation was that the individual states or configurations of states would break away to form their own countries—as the South sought to do when it established the Confederacy. This name, “United States” expressed a goal. And stating that goal in the name probably helped make it real.

Here at Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church, we are engaged in a year-long visioning process: thinking about who we are, what we have been, what we wish to become as a congregation. As part of that process, the question of our name inevitably comes up. Does it express who we are? Does it give a sense for who we strive to be?

In this sermon I would like to offer some thoughts on those questions. One more thing I should say about names: there are emotions attached to them. So by raising this issue in a sermon, I am treading on dangerous ground. It’s the kind of thing that naïve young ministers take on, only to find themselves surprised by all the explosions that occur. So why am I doing this?

Maybe I’m trying to relive my youth and rediscover my naivety (which is never far from the surface.) But I’m also hoping that I can offer some perspective on the issues involved, keep this from being a purely emotional discussion. What I will not do is take sides. This is your congregation. I don’t know what it should be called. I’m just aware of some of the issues involved in choosing and living with a name.

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So: Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church. Let’s take a look at each of these five words. Each has meaning, each has implications.

We will begin in the middle. The word in the center of this name, nestled between two on each side, is Unitarian. That seems like it should be obvious. If you’ve got a Unitarian Universalist church, then you’d want that word Unitarian in there somewhere, wouldn’t you?

But not all Unitarian Universalist congregations feature “Unitarian” or “Universalist” in their name. A few examples of those that don’t are Peoples Church, First Parish, First Parish Church, Channing Memorial Church, First Religious Society, Nauset Fellowship, Inc., the Dover Church, and Follen Church Society. In Boston, the center of the Unitarian Universalist universe, there are five UU congregations: not one of them has the word “Unitarian” in its name. These are Arlington Street Church, Church of the Larger Fellowship, First Church in Boston, Kings Chapel, and the Community Church of Boston.

The first Unitarian congregation in our Washington region was established in 1821. The founding members were an illustrious group including a future president, John Quincy Adams, a world-famous architect, Charles Bulfinch, two future mayors of the city of Washington, and a future Vice President of the United States, John C. Calhoun, who was a Southerner and a segregationist—that’s a whole other story that we’ll get to at another time. The name these founders chose was First Unitarian Church of Washington. That seems unremarkable. What else would you call the first Unitarian church in Washington? Except that at the time, most Unitarian churches did not have the term, Unitarian, in their name. In Baltimore, whose Unitarian church was organized four years earlier in 1817, they chose the name, “First Independent Church.” They didn’t get around to calling themselves “Unitarian” until 1909.

Often the lack of the word, Unitarian, in a church’s name was a matter of inertia. Churches that became Unitarian in theology retained names chosen in pre-Unitarian days. But among early Unitarians, there was also a reluctance to be labeled. They saw themselves as serving their whole communities, not simply an expression of one denomination. The willingness of Washington Unitarians to use the name reflects a dawning realization that Unitarianism was gathering a specific identity. It also stems from the presence of English Unitarians among the founders. In England, Unitarianism had a longer history, it was a more commonly-accepted name. Indeed, the first minister of First Unitarian Church of Washington was an English Unitarian named Robert Little.

First Unitarian Church of Washington struggled for most of its early history. There were famous members, but the congregation wasn’t good at maintaining the institution. In 1877, after flirting with the possibility of joining another denomination or closing altogether, the congregation re-organized under a new name: All Souls Church. The reasons for the name change are not entirely clear to me, but one factor was to reach out to a larger constituency than just Unitarians. And it worked. Where First Unitarian Church of Washington was constantly on the edge of disbanding, All Souls Church has prospered.

Today, an advantage of having the word, Unitarian, in your name is that Unitarian Universalism has become a recognizable brand. Many people know what a Unitarian organization stands for, but an entity called a community church or a peoples church or even All Souls Church is vague. Indeed, congregations that call themselves the “community church” of whatever the area, run the theological gamut from mainline Protestant to Unitarian Universalist to right-wing evangelical.

A disadvantage to including the name, Unitarian, in the title is that in some areas, it might be limiting. If the church sees its mission more in terms of relating to and serving the religious needs of a specific community than in being the local expression of Unitarian Universalism, then the name might keep away some of those you seek to attract.

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The fourth word in the name of Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church is Universalist. By the 1950s, when the national Unitarian and Universalist organizations were still separate but working seriously on merger, Unitarianism in Washington was thriving. Washington Universalism, on the other hand, struggled. By the late 1950s, there were at least 10 Unitarian churches in the Washington area but only two Universalist churches: the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington and the Universalist Church of Silver Spring.

It is interesting that both the minister of the Unitarian Church in Washington—All Souls Church—and the minister of the Universalist Church in Washington opposed the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists. The Unitarian, A. Powell Davies, felt that the Universalists would be a drag on what he considered to be the more progressive Unitarians. The minister of the Universalist National Memorial Church, Seth Brooks, feared that the Unitarians would overpower the Universalists.

What actually occurred is different and more complex than either anticipated. At the time of the merger in 1961, Unitarianism and Universalism represented similar but distinct approaches to religious faith. What’s happened between then and now is that Unitarian Universalism has taken on a character different from that of either the Unitarianism or the Universalism from which it is descended. Today’s Unitarian Universalism is related to what has come before, but has assumed a character that is more inclusive, less of an intellectual faith than 1950s Unitarianism was, and more of a universal faith than 1950s Universalism was.

I have said that I was not going to take a position on the name issue, but here I’ll depart from that pledge. If the word, Unitarian, is in your name, then I think Universalist ought to follow. The “UU” name has become so commonly used that to be only a “U” would be confusing at best. It would also symbolically cut off a connection to a part of our tradition that has become vital to who we are.

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So let’s move on to the first word in our name: Davies. Davies refers to A. Powell Davies, minister of All Souls Church in Washington from 1944 until 1957. A. Powell Davies was, I think without question, the most important Unitarian or Universalist leader in the history of religious liberalism in Washington—from the beginnings up to the present. There isn’t anyone who comes in even a distant second.

Today, A. Powell Davies is best known for his role in establishing a ring of Unitarian churches in the Washington suburbs, which then became Unitarian Universalist churches. As a result, among urban areas of this country, Washington is second only to Boston in the concentration of Unitarian Universalists. I would make the case that since the 1950s, Washington Unitarian Universalism has been more important than the Boston variety in developing the faith that is practiced in most parts of the country (by the way, you did not hear me say that—just in case anyone from, say, Boston should ask).

But the contributions of A. Powell Davies run deeper than simply organizing congregations. Let’s go back to the 1930s for a moment. At the time, American Unitarianism had run out of steam. What had once been a radical religious option had become a lukewarm liberal Protestantism that didn’t seem to stand for much of anything. Faced with the prospect of slowly diminishing fortunes, a few young Unitarian leaders stepped up to re-conceive this faith. Among these was an English Methodist minister who had come to this country in search of greater religious freedom than was available in his home country. This was A. Powell Davies who became acquainted with Unitarianism while serving Methodist congregations in Maine, and made the decision that his own faith was best represented by Unitarianism.

The Unitarianism of A. Powell Davies was less exclusively Christian—more welcoming to those of a variety of backgrounds, firmly grounded in humanistic values, with social justice as an integral part of the work of the church. It was a more public faith with churches engaging issues of the larger community. So in his first Unitarian church—the Community Church of Summit, New Jersey—A. Powell Davies took on the issue of family planning and became one of the first clergy to actively support the work of Planned Parenthood.

When he moved to All Souls Church in Washington, he assumed a national pulpit that he used to advocate for the issues he believed in. He was among the first to criticize the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. He sounded alarms of the post-nuclear age, when annihilation had become a distinct possibility. He spoke often of what he called the “foolish walls” that keep people apart and sought to find ways to bridge them.

I spoke with someone recently who had been a member at All Souls when A. Powell Davies was minister, and I love the description he gave. As this man put it, “He spoke quietly, with a Welsh brogue, and though the sanctuary was packed, everyone listened so intently that you could hear a pin drop.” Not only was sanctuary full but so was the social hall, where the service was piped in for those who hadn’t come the hour or two early that was necessary to get a seat. That same sermon was broadcast live to the new suburban churches where their Sunday services featured A. Powell Davies speaking from All Souls Church. As I understand it, the Washington Post assigned a reporter to cover services at All Souls so that what A. Powell Davies said on Sunday often appeared in the Post on Monday. Three Supreme Court Justices were regular attendees: William O. Douglas, Harold Burton and Chief Justice Earl Warren—as well as a steady stream of senators, congressmen and Washington decision-makers. In our current era when the influence of religious leaders has declined, it is hard to conceive of the kind of clout A. Powell Davies possessed.

Let me just mention one issue in which his influence has been crucial: race relations. When A. Powell Davies arrived in Washington in 1944, it was still a Southern segregated city, with only a few exceptions, All Souls Church being one of them. A. Powell Davies squarely faced the issue of racial justice, and I think we can follow his influence in a straight line from his efforts to desegregate restaurants and public facilities in Washington, to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, to the gathering strength of the Civil Rights movement, to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, to the Unitarian Universalist participation in the March on Selma, to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, to the election of Barack Obama as president. Particularly given this congregation’s commitment to racial and cultural diversity, A. Powell Davies is a most appropriate person to honor.

But—and this is the other side—A. Powell Davies is not well known today. Among Unitarian Universalists, some have a vague impression that he was an important person in our history, but most could not tell you why. For those just getting involved and those visiting us—the people who will be the next generation of Unitarian Universalists—my guess is that very few know who he was, let alone why he should be honored in our name.

Hence the dilemma. If the name, Davies, is retained then at the very least we should have a publication prominently featured addressing the question, “Who was A. Powell Davies and why does he matter today?” But since most people now visiting this church won’t know who A. Powell Davies was, is this enough? Should the name be more expressive of the congregation’s current vision?

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The word following Davies in the name of this congregation is Memorial. Davies Memorial.

On September 27, 1957, A. Powell Davies suffered a heart attack and died. He was only 55 years old. His sudden and unexpected death sent shockwaves throughout the Unitarian community, the Washington metropolitan area and, indeed, the nation. The Washington Post, writing in the sexist language of the era, observed, “Scholarly and learned, yet earthy and pragmatic, Dr. Davies was at once the spiritual leader and goading conscience to his congregation and to the whole community....All men who believe in human dignity and brotherhood, are the poorer for the passing of this courageous, fiery and yet gentle spirit.”

At that time, one of Unitarian congregations recently established with the help of A. Powell Davies was meeting for Sunday services at the Anacostia Temple in Southeast Washington. The fledgling congregation went by the name, Southeast Unitarian Center or SEUC, which dated its beginnings back to an organizational meeting held on April 18, 1954. At that time, many members of All Souls Church were living in Southeast Washington and Prince George’s County. The 60 people who attended that meeting authorized initial steps be taken to establish a congregation in that area.

For the first several years, the new congregation moved from site to site for its services and religious education, and it continued to be a mission of All Souls Church. In January of 1958, just a few months after the death of A. Powell Davies, the congregation filed papers to incorporate as a religious body in the state of Maryland, since by that time most of the members lived in Maryland, not Washington.

Four potential names for the congregation were proposed.

          1. Davies Memorial Church (Unitarian)
          2. Prince George’s Unitarian Church
          3. Jefferson Unitarian Church
          4. Southeast Community Church (Unitarian)

The first vote of those present split between Davies Memorial Church and Southeast Community Church. The second vote between the two finalists went to Davies by a vote of 14 to 10. It was also agreed to move the name, Unitarian, from the parentheses at the end and add it to the official name. Hence this new congregation became Davies Memorial Unitarian Church.

The challenge to any congregation with the term, “Memorial,” in it is that it be more than a memorial: that it be a living expression of the faith it represents. This is not impossible. One of my favorite churches is Methodist and located in New York City, Greenwich Village. Its name is Judson Memorial Church. I have no idea who Judson was and why he or she was memorialized, but the church has established itself as an active presence both in the arts and social witness. Whatever “Judson Memorial” originally meant, it has now come to represent an innovative church in New York City.

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The last word in our name is church: Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church. I have already been through one big controversy over the use of the name, “church.” This was in Huntington, New York, on Long Island, where several people raised the question of whether we should ever be referred to as a church. The odd thing was that this congregation wasn’t called a church—never was. It has always used the name fellowship. The view being expressed was that we were not a church and so the term, church, should never be used in reference to us.

Amidst this controversy, we had a visit from a delegation of Russian factory managers. Actually, this was in the final days of the Soviet Union so these were Soviet factory managers. It fell to me to explain, through a translator, what kind of an organization we were. They attended our Sunday service, they sang hymns with us in deep beautiful Russian voices, they milled around during the coffee hour, each of them at one time or another snuck outside for a cigarette or two or three. But what exactly were we? I later learned that the best the translator could come up with to describe us was “club.” One of the Soviet factory managers was heard to say, “We like this club you have.”

Well, isn’t that the problem right there? If we call something a church, then we have a general idea of what it is. If we call it something else, we introduce an element of uncertainty. But that uncertainty has both negative and positive implications.

In the Huntington congregation, many of the members were Jewish. They said they would not be able, emotionally, to be a member of any organization called a church. The phrase, “ancestors spinning in their graves” came up sometimes. Others who came to Unitarian Universalism after unfortunate experiences in church also spoke out against the use of the word. But there were still others who considered their move into Unitarian Universalism a natural development in their faith journey which began in Christianity. For them, “church,” was a reminder of where they had come from and, to them, was not limiting. These were only a few of the arguments. Believe me, there were more.

“Church” is a term with a Christian history. Most congregations called “church” are Christian, and there is an assumption that if you are a church, you are in some way Christian. Historically, both Unitarianism and Universalism have roots in Christianity, while Unitarian Universalism has developed into a more universal faith. So there has been a slow movement among Unitarian Universalists toward the word “Congregation” instead of church. Whether that is the wave of the future, or will at some point become just too many syllables, I don’t know.

I do know that the question of whether to use this term “church” goes deep to the heart of our identity as religious communities. Even though the answer to me is not obvious, the discussion is worth having.

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One more thing. I’ve been doing a historical survey and a consideration of the meanings we might find in the name, Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church. But names acquire a unique set of associations which go beyond their history or theology.

I have heard people from both inside and outside the congregation speak with affection for Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church. “Dear old Davies,” is the phrase I remember. The name elicits a warm and familiar feeling that has nothing to do with A. Powell Davies or a memorial to him or whether the name includes “Unitarian” or “Universalist” or “Church.” It’s a meaning that has been acquired through years of experience and that probably represents today’s reality more than any of those five words in the official name.

So that’s another factor to take into account: the feelings that have become attached to this name. They might not have much to do with the meanings of any of the actual words, but they elicit strong feelings nevertheless.

After all this, then, I’ll repeat what I said in the beginning. I do not know what you should name your congregation. But I do believe in the process. Last week when I addressed the topic, “What Do I Trust,” I noted the long standing Unitarian Universalist adherence to a process of consideration, discussion, comparing views, reaching toward a solution together. I trust that process in addressing this question. But I would add one more thing. Here I’m quoting a member of the congregation who said that she hopes this will be a conversation conducted in love. That is, with respect for each other and each other’s feelings and the validity of each person’s experience.

Because whatever name you choose, what matters more is how we treat each other in this community.