A Church Name Change?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Madelyn Campbell on March 4, 2010 at 11:01pm

I think it is crucial to maintain the Universalist in our identity. It was a long time getting it added in the first place. We used to be just 'The Unitarian Church of Arlington," but that denies the whole Universalist side of our denomination, and the two merged in 1961. The Universalists fought hard to make sure that there would be no hyphen, that is to say, that Unitarian would be the modifier in the name of the denomination. I think it's very sad that so many people simply choose to drop the Universalist when they speak, but it is an important element nevertheless.

I also think it is important to keep the name "Church." We are a church. We cannot be all things to all people. If using the word "church" pushes people to explore their comfort zones, I don't see that as a bad thing.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Corsoro on March 5, 2010 at 12:12pm

It would be difficult to not include either "Church" or "Congregation" as part of our name. The definition for both describes accurately what we do and are. Most of us do feel some sense of spirituality although not necesarily believing the sacred story of the three Abrahamic traditional faiths. Jefferson and Emerson et al would have no issue with either term, although those who are more secular, humanist, agnostic, or atheist might prefer congregation to church. What about the name "Arlington Unitarian Universalist Congregation" - would that capture our essence?

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Permalink Reply by Bill Fogarty on March 5, 2010 at 12:49pm

Such great comments! I continue to ponder the possibilities. How about "Arlington All Souls Church, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Arlington, Virginia"? Imagine the dialogue with a friend or neighbor --- What church do you go to? Arlington All Souls Church
- What is that? It is the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Arlington. Let me tell you more about us (segue into your Elevator Speech)

And we could end up with great signage out at the corner of Route 50 and George Mason Drive:

ARLINGTON ALL SOULS CHURCH
Providing Community. Working For Justice.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Corsoro on March 5, 2010 at 3:17pm

I like it Bill. I like it a lot!

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Hanclich on March 6, 2010 at 10:27am

I would love to see us change the word "Church" to the word "Congregation"--this was done at River Road a couple of years ago and at many of the area's other congregations as well. Being raised Jewish, I often joke with people that it is a good thing my grandparents are dead or they would die if they knew I was afiliated with something called a "church." (These were people who once yelled at me for humming "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" when I was a child.) While I certainly don't expect a UU house of worship to be a synagogue, the word "church" carries a distinctly Christian orientation to those raised outside the Christian faith. Although I have made some peace with the many compromises I have had to make between my heritage and the UU beliefs I want to live by, the name "church" is an easy one to fix, and would make our community that much more welcoming to those for whom the word "church" carries huge historical baggage. There are many, many religiously mixed couples like Chuck and me out there who have found UUism a theologically acceptable meeting place--this would be a fine way to open our doors further to these families. Thanks for listening!

(BTW, Lori wrote this--not Chuck--I'm just logged onto to his account--never got mine set up--sorry!)

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Hanclich on March 6, 2010 at 10:28am

BTW, Lori wrote this--not Chuck--I'm just logged onto to his account--never got mine set up--sorry!

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Permalink Reply by Judy King on March 7, 2010 at 3:34pm

How about keeping the name as is and referring to it in the ways that come natural to us individually. If someone asks my religion, I say
"Unitarian". If they ask where I go, I say "Arlington Unitarian".
If they want to know what UUCA stands for, I tell them. If they're
still standing around, I give them a pamphlet. If they like the pamphlet, I bring them to church.

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Permalink Reply by Catherine Melton on March 10, 2010 at 5:53pm

I am a lifelong Unitarian and grew up in Arlington, and am proud of the name of the church, and it's history and meaning in the local community.

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Powell on March 11, 2010 at 11:35pm

When an organization changes its name, it always makes me curious, or even suspicious. Is this done to clarify its purpose and activities, to emphasize its worldview, or perhaps in the hope that a new name will make people forget something? Might some of the people we’re trying to induce to join us perceive a name change in this same negative way?

The clever Philip Morris executives changed their corporate name to Altria, which sounds a bit like altruism. I suspect that they hope folks won’t remember that they were and still are death merchants.

Washington has countless think tanks and foundations with high-sounding names that are often intended to obscure their real purposes and sponsors. Many are hollow fronts for the lobbying and propagandizing campaigns of narrow special interests. When one of them is occasionally publicly revealed as such, it changes its name to something that sounds even more patriotic, public-spirited, and innocuous.

In contrast, during the years since I joined our church in 1974, it has made only two changes in its name. Both were straightforward and practical. The first was formal. It recognized, rather belatedly, the 1961 merger of Unitarians and Universalists. The second was informal. It added “VA” to “UUCA” online to distinguish us from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Atlanta.

Our two acronyms recall those of the federal agency where I worked for more than 33 years. It was established in the early 1950s. Functions and staffs were extracted from three existing departments and combined to form the new, independent United States Information Agency. Orally, its acronym was always spelled out – USIA. It became the Washington headquarters for the public affairs sections of American embassies throughout the world. These sections had been established much earlier. For years, they had been called the United States Information Service. Orally, their acronym was always pronounced as a word -- USIS. All those concerned thought it best to continue this well established, universally recognized usage.

Like USIS, our church’s online acronym has the virtue of being suitable to serve as a gracefully pronounceable neologism – UUCAVA. Perhaps we could use it as our name for informal conversation, to span the widely divergent opinions about word meanings, connotations, and usages that this cyber discourse has revealed.

Diversity in this case threatens to result in discord and division. It recalls the comment of an observer about one of the many breakdowns in the protracted Korean War armistice talks at Panmunjom more than half a century ago: “Matters were approaching a point of dangerous over-clarification.”

When asked about our religious affiliation, we could simply say (not spell) “UUCAVA.” Using it as our informal name would offer several advantages:
- brevity, instead of an overly descriptive name as long as a sentence;
- mystery, an almost irresistible segue into our elevator speech;
- comity, enabling us to avoid imposing the word choice preferences of one, a few, or a majority upon the whole;
- continuity, requiring no changes in our formal name, constitution, signage, or stationery; and
- inclusive ambiguity, allowing us individually to explain to an inquirer what “UUCAVA” means to us using whatever words each of us feels most comfortable with. Those for whom “church” evokes the Spanish Inquisition or the Thirty Years’ War could use “community” or “congregation” as what the “C” in “UUCAVA” stands for. Those who eschew “Universalist” might use “United” for either letter “U.”

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Permalink Reply by Janice Morris on March 12, 2010 at 9:07pm

This is my first visit to this discussion, which I think is a good one to have, whereever it leads us. I would love to see a name change personally, mostly because I think UUCA is not reflective of who we are - and including words like "All Souls" and community provide greater insight. I am on the side of remaining a church, because that is how I feel I am connected - UUCA is my spiritual (or religious if you prefer) home. I like the concepts behind the words unitarian and universalist - could we combine/simplify them some how into "United" or "Universal"? Arlington All Souls United Church? Bottom line, calling myself a "UU" is inexplicable to me - and to others I try to appeal to to give our church a try.

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Permalink Reply by Jaakko Helleranta on March 16, 2010 at 5:36pm

Interesting discussion.

My two thoughts:
* A dear child may well have many names
* Don't fix it if it ain't broken

The only thing that's broken in the church name, in my opinion, is the acronym (of the website). UUCAVA is long. And while I'm fine with living in Virginia - I don't feel that it's strongly enough for lovers that I'd feel fully comfortable in identifying myself with anything *VA. It's ok, if it has to be - but I'd try to get rid of it over some period of time (as used in the website name.

I very much like the Unitarian Universalism as a pair. It embodies the unique historic path that is the roots of the Unitarian Universalism. And that's important. I don't consider myself Unitarian. I don't consider myself Universalist. But I do consider myself a UU. I understand the comments made to be "only" unitarian or All souls - but they don't resonate to me.

I think the thinking behind the comments about church vs. community vs. congregation is good. Not only in spirit but they're also convenient as they all have the same first letter.

But back to the dear child of ours: Our spiritual community.

_U_niversal
_U_nitarian
_C_hurch/Congregation/Community/... of
_A_rlington
or
Arlington Unitarian C*
... to me these are all the same.

But UUCA is still the most compact/convenient "name" for the community's/congregation's/church. Especially for the website / web usage.

To drop off the VA, I reserved UUCA.us (as in UU C* of Arlington "R" us) over two years ago. So, if we want to use that then let's "simply" change the website + emails to @uuca.us and start using that in other materials.
... Would this cause too much confusion with the UU Church of Atlanta (uuca.org) - I don't think so. Making links from both to each other would solve the problem, if there was a problem.

The result:
* A more grassroots/community oriented name (... "are us" idea of the .us TLD - aka. top-level domain)
* getting rid of VA in the name
* Making the acronym two characters shorter, and in the time micro blogging and mobile
- making the whole domain 3 characters (or 30%) shorter

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