On Sunday, Judie and I decided it was time to go and visit a Unitarian Church. There are only a few in London and, when we had dinner with Craig Hirshberg, she recommended New Unity Church on Newington Green, which is where her daughter goes. So I checked and figured out that there is a bus from Finsbury Square ( a 10-15 minute walk) right to Newington Green, which is nearby, but not to be confused with, Stoke Newington. (You have just got to love English place names. Between railroad stops and London Streets, I think you could find every strange Raould Dahl name that you thought he had just made up.) So we took the 25 minute ride up to Newington Green, getting there way too early for the one 11:00 service.

It was enjoyable. The theme of the sermon was forgiveness and atonement, as it was close to Yom Kippur. The minister, who was originally Jewish and From New York set the right tone, the choir was tiny but spirited and the music was quite good. The service would have been familiar to any UU from Montclair, although there were many little differences. Of course, one of the big differences is that is a much smaller congregation, with slightly over 100 members. There were around 40 there when we went, plus 10-12 kids who trooped off for Religious Education. A significant percentage of the congregation appears to be American, which makes sense because, while the UU faith is not terribly strong in the US, it is far more significant than it is here. In fact, according to what I subsequently read, Unitarians almost disappeared completely around 2000 in the UK and are now making a very, very slight comeback. One of the leading lights in this comeback is the Newington Green Church, which was down to around six members at one point before being revived by a student minister and then the current minister, Andy Pakula. He is at the forefront of the efforts to grow Unitarianism over here. (If you are interested in reading more on this topic, you can check out this article from UUA World.)

Like seemingly everything in England the Newington Green Church has a long history. Newington Green was the home of the nonconformist movement and the Church was built there in 1708. It’s peak in influence or at least fame may have been in the late 1700’s when its minister was Richard Price, a radical and republican, who supported the French Revolution and believed America’s rebellion to be justified. He was visited by John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin while they were in England and welcomed Joseph Priestly, discoverer of oxygen and a founder of British Unitarianism, when Priestly was driven out of Birmingham for his views. His most famous congregant was Mary Wollstonecroft, perhaps the original feminist, who wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” in 1792. There is long Wikipedia article on the history of the Church, which is pretty good reading if you are interested.

I’m quite sure that we will be back. Judie is interested in joining their choir. And we need to find a community of like-minded folks. What better place?