Oldham Unitarians

NEWSLETTER

October – December 2007

Planning Oldham's New Unitarian Chapel
Old building makes way for redeveloment

Oldham You are invited to our
Christmas Service...
led by the Reverend Dr David Doel
on Sunday 23 December at 2:00pm
followed by a party for everyone.
Be there!

Dates for your Diary …

Sunday Services 11.00 - 12.00
Please note: Scheduled special services 1400 - 1500

October
07 Harvest Special Service conducted by Dawn Buckle
14 Service conducted by Reverend Dr David Doel
21. Visit to New Chapel Denton for service at 11.00 (Oldham Chapel will be closed)
28. Service conducted by Hilary Ellis (11.00 - 12.00)

November
04. Rev Dr David Doel (11.00 - 12.00)
11. Danny Crossby (Remembrance Sunday) (11.00 - 12.00)
18. Ken Howard (Anniversary Service) (11.00 - 12.00)
25. Bob Pounder (11.00 - 12.00)

December
02. Special Service Advent 3-6pm Special Service*
09. Judith Haughton (Lay worship leader URC) (11.00 - 12.00)
16. Rev Dr David Doel (11.00 - 12.00)
23. Special Christmas Service Rev Dr David Doel (14.00 - 15.00)
30. Bob Pounder (11.00 - 12.00)

Traidcraft Lunches & Shop, Thursdays 12.00-14.00
Please note that there will be no traidcraft lunch or shop on Thursday 27 December 2007.

Looking Back
by Phil Jackson
Secretary of Oldham Unitarian Chapel

I can perhaps now claim to be longest standing member of the congregation still attending Chapel. It is not an achievement about which I am very happy, but time and tide wait for no man, so they say.

The Rev. J.A. Williams was Minister at Lord Street during my early years, and officiated at my christening.

My parents were both lifelong Unitarians. They met and married at the Lord Street Chapel in 1918 and I believe my maternal grandparents, Charles & Mary Rye, were also married there around 1880. The family connection is even closer because my great grandfather, Squire Ashton, was head of the contractors, Ashton Brothers, who built the Chapel in Lord Street.

My father was Chapel treasurer for many years. Also on the Committee with my father was my mother's aunt Miss Agnes Dornan JP, one of three maiden aunts all of whom attended Chapel regularly, were vegetarians, resided together in a house in Coppice Street and survived well into their nineties! Aunt Agnes was quite a character. She was a prominent Liberal in Oldham, a founder member of Oldham Coliseum and a supporter of womens' rights. She had been closely associated with the Suffragist Movement, which she always emphasised was not the same as the Suffragettes, being non-militant. Aunt Agnes herself was however quite militant and one of my earliest memories is of my father returning home from Chapel Committee meetings in a state of some agitation, having had to contend with my great aunt's forceful personality for an hour or so.

The entrance hall at Lord Street had stained glass or coloured windows, through bits of which one could peer into the Chapel if arriving late for a service and judge the right moment to make one's entry. We were frequently late, as I recall, and consequently peered quite a lot.

My sister was married at Lord Street on 1st February 1946, when I was 13. I was a groomsman and one of my duties was to inform the organist, who operated behind a curtain, when the bride arrived at the chapel door. I do not recall who the organist was, but at all events, my signal was misjudged and given prematurely so the bridal march from Lohengrin resounded throughout the Chapel with no bride in sight. I cannot remember what my sister said to me in consequence of that gaffe but I am quite sure she was not well pleased with her little brother's performance that day! Again, the Rev.J.A. Williams officiated. My parents always thought very highly of him.

I recall some of the Ministers who came to Lord Street afterwards, including Mr. Ewbank and Mr Kenneth Sherratt. I also remember the Rev. Tom Nuttall whose son Colin of course was married to Marian. As well as being a Unitarian minister, he did sterling work on behalf of pensioners in those far off days. I wonder what he would have thought about the way many pensioners have been treated of late. There were also other ministers, Mr Roberts and Mr Johnson but they were the incumbents at a time when I had little connection with Chapel and I do not have many memories of them. Afterwards came the Lathams but that is recent history so I will hold my fire, although I liked them both very much.

As some of you may know, I was educated at a Quaker school in York. My parents as Unitarians felt an affinity with the Friends, something which initially I did not share.

At age 14, I found their Meetings rather lacking in excitement..We attended the hour-long meetings every Sunday morning for four years in term time and the only thing I remember is when a stray dog got into the gallery of the old Meeting House at Clifford Street (sadly now demolished to make way for a hotel). The dog advertised its presence by racing round and round, pausing every now and then to snuffle and bark and scratch itself. Finally, someone cornered it and removed it, probably not in a particularly peaceful manner and quite untypically for a Quaker. The school was generously endowed by the Rowntrees, one of whom was Chair of Governors named, I think, Arthur or Arnold, I do not remember which. Whoever it was was also head of the cocoa works down the road, a man of impressive height and girth, whom we boys christened Chocolate Jumbo. Seriously, though, the Quakers do much good work both in the community and internationally, without ostentation. Their record in such areas as prison reform is second to none.

I also attended a prep school at Arnside. The choice there on Sunday mornings was between C of E, R.C. and Methodists. I was sent to the Methodists and absolutely loved it. They always had the most marvellous hymns. I still possess my Methodist Hymn Book from those days, presented to those of us in the school choir who occasionally sang in their Chapel.

The Chapel at Lord Street lost many of its congregation during the war of 1939/45 and I do not think really recovered numerically afterwards. With the reduced numbers and old families disappearing there was a serious diminution in revenue and it became a struggle to maintain the Chapel & Sunday School which fell into partial disrepair. Eventually, the Local Council decided to build a Swimming Pool and Sports Centre on the site and compulsorily acquired it. The compensation was insufficient to build a new chapel on anything like the scale of the old. The present building at King Street was the result and, although fine for the purpose, did reflect the diminution in the Chapel's fortunes compared with pre-war.

In conclusion, I should like to express the view that when we succeed in procuring new and attractive premises as a result of the Council acquiring our present site, we will hopefully attract more members and have the means and the will to continue. I certainly hope so, and would not wish to be the last of my family to experience the Unitarian witness in Oldham.

Phil Jackson.

As you can see, the newsletter is now being produced on a quarterly basis. I have however, added an extra four pages, and the calender, of course, takes us right up to the end of the year. We continue to make progress in terms of addressing outstanding areas of required work in the chapel. Not the least of this work is the need to improve the look of the premises even though we are set to move into a new building some time within the next two years. We started painting in August and intend to have that and the planned improvement work completed by Christmas.

The coming months will also see further involvement with the Oldham Town Churches and our own programme of events that will require active participation and a commitment not just to keep Unitarianism 'alive' but to show that we can be a bigger, and more vibrant, worshipping community.

As we go to press we are still waiting for Oldham council to inform us of any site within the town centre area that may be suitable for the re-building of our new chapel. We are also looking forward to visiting Denton New Chapel on 21 October, to share in their service and to meet afterwards with members, officers, and committee members.

Denton New Chapel is an impressive and modern building. The first service there, was held on Easter Sunday 2003. We look forward to learning how the congregation made their transition from the old Wilton Street Chapel to their superb new building.

Our challenge is to make our own transition as positive, and to build our congregation.

Bob Pounder

FLOWER COMMUNION:
Collection Raises £140.00
for Khasi Hills Appeal

A special service conducted by Rev Lynne Readett on16 September raised £140 for the schools of the Khasi Hills in Northern India. The cash was forwarded to John Hewerdine who has a long standing connection with the Unitarian people of the Khasi Hills (and is now in that location as we go to press). John has very kindly provided a picture of Margaret Barr who led the initial work in the Khasi Hills. He wrote: "The picture shows Margaret Barr in 1967, shortly after I first met her. We travelled together from New Delhi to Assam in my old ambulance, for which I had paid the princely sum of £35! It took me six months to get from London to Shillong by road. In two weeks time, we will make the journey in about eighteen hours."

While Frances and I were on Vancouver Island we went whale watching from Telegraph Cove. We were lucky enough to see a medium/large pod of Transient Orka Whales, on this trip we also saw humpback whales, one in particular was leaping out of the water as if full of joy. Kaylyn, the marine biologist with this trip pointed out that no-one knew for sure why they jumped out of the water like this and that although there were many theories none were conclusive. Kaylyn was full of information about the many creatures that inhabited the ocean around Vancouver Island. She also let us listen through hydrophones to the whales singing/talking to each other and we were able to listen to the different pods in the area and compare each pods individual songs/voices.

There was however some very disturbing information from Kaylyn. Firstly that dead Beluga whales are considered toxic waste, and that it takes just 5 days for chemicals released in Japanese waters to wash up on West Canadian shores. It takes less than 5 days for toxins/chemicals to cross to the east of Canada from England and Europe! She pointed out that each individual can do something - recycle, re-use, reduce our use of environmentally unfriendly chemicals in our everyday life e.g. washing powder, household cleaners etc., go organic. This set me wondering about chapel we have for a long time insisted that people who use our Chapel for events use only fairly traded products, is it time to extend this not only to our lets but to ourselves. Do we use organic, environmentally friendly cleaners etc., in our chapel and perhaps more importantly do we want to?

I found it quite distressing to hear that the life span of these wonderful creatures is shortened by our poisoning of the oceans. These poisons are passed on to the unborn calf during pregnancy and lactation thus affecting the whole species and perhaps in time adversely affecting the genetic structure of the marine life in our oceans.

I know this has made me consider what else I can do I already use environmentally friendly cleaners and washing powders, my use of plastic bags has diminished, but I still need them for dog waste. I have a compost heap, I recycle plastic, glass, tin, unwanted and old items and I think now I am going to make a great effort and start growing my own vegetable again. What about you?

On our first Sunday in Vancouver Frances and I went to the Unitarian Church. I went not only to enjoy the service but to see if we could learn anything from them.

They have a large and welcoming congregation and there is always somebody on the door ready to welcome newcomers with information about Unitarians and including a printed sheet enabling everynyone to understand and participate in the service.

The next thing that caught my attention was the worship area. Apparently, music for meditation is played from about half an hour before the service starts for people to come in and sit quietly and enjoy the music and the silence. Talking is for outside the worship area. I thought this an excellent idea. The music doesn't have to be live, it doesn't have to be classical, in fact in Vancouver they quite often play suitable pop music from 60's, 70's etc., I think the important thing is to create a worshipful space for people just to be at peace with their own thoughts and yet with others.

I also enjoyed the children's section of the service. When it was the children's story they all went to the front and congregated around the adult telling the story. They didn't leave during a hymn but after the story when the whole congregation sang them out. The song chosen was from Singing the Living Tradition, which is available from Essex Hall .

It appears that most Sundays the congregation stay on for lunch. "What a good idea!" thought Frances and I - we wouldn't have to look for a restaurant before getting the ferry over to Vancouver Island! Alas this was the one Sunday where lunch didn't happen, but we stayed for coffee and chat!

This meant that Frances who, having nagged me not to forget to pack my anorak (and then left hers behind at home), had the chance to look for one from their thrift store.

All in all we had a very enjoyable with Vancouver Unitarians I found them welcoming but not pushy and so very pleased to have us there.

AS WE GATHER around the illuminated Christmas trees we are sharing a ceremony – older than Christianity – with the Romans, the Greeks, the Syrians, the Persians, the Minoans, Sumerians and the Egyptians.

At the Winter Solstice, when the Sun's downward plunge is arrested people celebrated the occasion as the birth day of the sun god – the luminous divine child. The cry: "The virgin has brought forth! The Light is waxing," echoed in various tongues across the centuries. One of the oldest pictures of the Virgin Mother with her holy child upon her knee comes from Mesopotamia some three thousand years before Jesus was born. It was in the fourth century AD that the birth of Christ was declared by the western church in Rome to have happened on 25th December – the day of the Winter Solstice as reckoned by the Julian Calender. The stories gathering around the nativity are rich in myth from long ago. The silver star, which we are told the Magi saw, is none other than the pole star of the Axis Mundi as the Tree of Life, one more manifestation of the widespread belief that the birth of highly significant people (including Roman emperors) was accompanied by the birth of a star.

The Nativity stories are a wonderful form of poetry or myth, rich in symbolical significance. People who treat the stories as if they were historical fact – either to affirm or to deny – miss the profound truths in the Nativity symbols. Every child born into the world is a Christ Child, and every mother is the Virgin Mary. We tend to overlook another great festival between Christmas and New Year, Holy Innocents Day, recalling the fury of Herod at the threat the child would be to his authority. Joseph and Mary flee for safety to Egypt, the tradional Land of Bondage.

The Christ Child, symbol of our amazing inner potentiality, is quickly alienated and banned to a world where His glory may not illuminate the darkness of the world of our conditioning.

The Massacre of Innocence tells us how we all lose touch with our inner divinity and become victims of the conditioning influences, which our parents, family and society unwittingly represent. Christmas asks us to give our hearts and minds to the Christ Child, in which pledge lies the hope and peace of the world. But not in any narrow sectarian sense, in any exclusive fashion, but in the recognition of how much of the darkness and destruction of our world arises because we do not value each individual, every single person, of whatever creed, race, colour, status, as the very Child of God.

The Road Show descended on Manchester at Cross Street Chapel on Saturday September 15th noon to 4.00pm This was the first of six or seven road shows to be held throughout the country.

Disappointingly, there were only about fifteen attendees. This caused some anger from one participant who only heard of it earlier that week. However, it was pointed out that the Road Show had been publicised twice in The Inquirer and once in The Unitarian. It was acknowledged that a different form of publicity was required. All that being said, I thought it was a very useful, informative meeting with relevant questions raised and many points of view discussed.

The Rev. John Midgley welcomed us to Cross Steet and Sir Peter Soulsby in his opening words introduced his fellow members. Present were: Jen Atkinson, Dawn Buckle, the Chief Executive Rev. Steve Dick and Jim Corrigall, communications consultant.

The meeting took the format of a Power Point presentation outlining what the Executive had initiated and what had been achieved in its first eighteen months, i.e. a much improved website, Youth Officer services ensured, production of a new loose-leaf file for all our Congregations "Help is at Hand", improved administration of our Trust Funds and general finances. Executive Committee members have taken responsibilty for specific tasks. This took us to the lunch break after which the afternoon was devoted to the questions posed below:

Is there any significant issue the Executive Committee can identify? Peter Soulsby suggested understaffing but to offset that, volunteers, expertise and enthusiasm. They (the committee) had found the workload huge, bigger than they anticipated, almost a full time job.

Could the annual General Assembly meetings be made more accessible and affordable?
Could those delegates who pay their own way, because their church/chapel cannot afford to send anyone, be subsidised?
Communications - on line- format needs to be much more targeted?

How do we make ourselves more known to the wider public?

Do you think the panels and commissions draw more to the centre rather than to the Churches and Districts, where it should be.

Do we have lack of control of how our ministers are trained?

Finished with "Where is growth going to come from?"

Answers: Web Site, Example, Us, Depends what you mean by growth?

All the questions were fully discussed.

Jen Atkinson closed the afternoon with an epilogue.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A four-week celebration of community spirit and culture across the Oldham Borough saw an explosion of colour, music and dazzling costumes as the Rainbow Pride Parade stepped into some rare summer sunshine on Saturday 28 July.

This was a welcome break from weeks of drizzling rain and the two hundred participants were in high spirits for Oldham's first ever Lesbian and Gay carnival. The procession was led by Oldham's senior police officer Chief Superintendent, Caroline Ball, and council dignitaries.

Supported by Oldham chapel's Wynne Simmister and the Manchester District Association President, Marian Nuttall, local Unitarians added a splash of colour and proclaimed support with their own distinctive banner.

The Larger View: Unitarians and World Religions amongst other things, is a compact publication, a capsule history of Unitarian thought and development, presenting notables such as Theophilus Lindsey and James Martineau through to Unitarian Pagans and the American Unitarian Universalist Margot Adler a 'prominent witch' and author of 'Drawing Down the Moon' (1979), the most celebrated book on American neo-paganism.

The Reverend Dr Marshall writes: 'The challenge of the British Unitarian movement is to decide where it now stands in terms of its theological position.' It seems that this may be easier said than done given that what he describes as: an avowedly Christian denomination that has become a home for individuals who seek their inspiration from whatever religious tradition speaks to their theological condition.'

Vernon's own journey of faith began in the late 1970's and early 1980's from a position of wishing to retain the Unitarian Christian heritage. However, his experiences of interreligious activities, his embracing of feminist theology and his studies of Comparative Religion for a Master of Philosophy degree has brought about fundamental change in his perspective. He now sees himself as part of British Unitarianism's shifting theological focus.

The origins of Unitarian thought, its rejection of the Nicene Creed and thus The Trinity, its interpretations of the scriptures and its ability to throw up new generations of radical thinkers, has meant that Unitarian theology would always be in flux; more so than in any other denomination.

James Martineau, for example, the most significant Unitarian thinker of the 19th Century placed an emphasis on reason and freethinking that led to the view that the underlying truths of the Bible were hidden by 'dogmatic concepts'. Nevertheless, Martineau remained a committed follower of Jesus and thus saw himself as a Christian. Martineau died in 1900 but his views prevailed. By the beginning of the 20th Century Unitarians were starting to see the identification with Christianity as cultural rather than doctrinal.

'In The Larger View' Vernon produces in such a short space, an impressive chronology of Unitarian scholars who at various times and for different theoretical reasons immersed themselves in the studies of other religions. For example, in 1860 a Unitarian minister, William Rounsville Alger had published, 'A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life". Essentially, Alger believed in a 'universal religious experience'.

In the same period, Joesph Estlin Carpenter a Unitarian minister and former Principal of Manchester College Oxford shared this view. Carpenter believed that each religion represented a different stage of evolutionary process. He further believed that Unitarianism represented the most advanced stage of the time. It was felt that the ultimate outcome would be a religion that would encompass or unite all of the world's religions.

But the ideals and optimism of continual human progress and the convergence of the world's religions were scotched by the experience of the World War 1 and its attendant slaughter. It was an irreversible blow. The matter of convergence from then on became sidelined in favour of dealing with issues of ethical and social justice. From today's perspective Marshall writes, 'There are certainly no signs of a growing organic merger of the religions.'

This is not to say that exposure to the ideas of other religions had ceased to impact on Unitarianism, far from it. In 1959 a minister and soon to be general secretary of the Unitarian General Assembly warned: 'We must be aware of attempts at devising a synthetic religion made up of elements of the great faiths.' From the 1960's change gathered apace as the secular virtues of civil liberty and religious tolerance were replacing religious beliefs. Or were they? By the 1980's a new group, the Unitarian Renewal Group were laying stress on theological diversity, breaking with the belief that Unitarians 'were members of the historic Christian church.' More radically the emergence of the Unitarian Neo-Pagan Network affirmed a Pagan spiritual perspective as being, 'fully compatible with the human quest for selfknowledge and ultimate meaning.'

In 'The Wider View' the Liberal Christian position is seen as 'historic' rather than contemporary, evidenced by survey and a research questionnaire that is an integral part of Dr Marshall's work. For example, only twenty-five out of eighty responses to his questionnaire from ministers and lay leaders, considered themselves to be Liberal Christians. Further, reference is also made to a separate survey, in 2001, involving more than a thousand Unitarian women. Only forty percent considered themselves to be Christian based.

Decades if not at least two centuries of enquiry and searching have left British Unitarianism exposed to a myriad of influences. It seems therefore that the purpose of 'The Wider View' is not simply to inform or to reflect on the past and the present. Rather, Vernon clearly seems to be seeking a consolidation, taking all he has said in the round, of a new position in which to face the future and move forward.

He appears to wish to retain the advantage of religious status in creating a movement, a new religion that could become a spiritual a centrepoint for all faiths and perhaps none. At the same time he envisages that this new religion could have a distinct and 'thereby equal distance' from all other religions. It would be a new religion that would be 'creative' without the baggage of the past and without the 'negative connotations associated with the other religions.' The author declares that there would be a price to pay for this reformulation.

Ultimately, 'The Larger View' is a cogently written positional document inferring a sense of the inevitable. In Vernon's scenario, however, it is the Liberal Christian tradition that becomes the casualty. This is the price that would have to be paid. But, if according to him, the non-Christian based section of the movement has no coherent tenet to hold them together, we might reasonably ask if it really is a price worth paying? Only time will tell.

RP

Celebratory lunch at the White Hart Inn, Lydgate, with the newly enrolled Reverend Lynne Readett, 19 August.

On the occasion of the Hungarian Music Concert which took place on Friday 21 September at Oldham Unitarian Chapel. The concert was in aid of the Sharpe Scholarship Fund and raised £150.00. From left to right seated Rev Csaba Todor of the Unitarian Church Homorodszentpai, Romania, with daughter Estzer and wife Eva.

Oldham Unitarian Chapel
founded in 1813

is open to all who wish to worship
with an open mind,
in a spirit of freedom, reason and tolerance.

We do not all hold the same beliefs,
rather each person is encouraged
'to develop his or her faith
in a continuing search for truth.'

President: Mr R. Pounder
Treasurer: Mrs K.M. Pearson
Secretary: Mr J.P. Jackson

Unitarian Chapel
Connaught Street / King Street
Oldham
OL8 1 EB
Tel: 0161 620 1810

Lettings Officer: Mrs M. Nuttall – Tel: 0161 287 3371

Registered Charity No. 1111295