On Whitsunday we remember and celebrate the event that is often called the birth of Christianity. Prior to this it had been the Jesus community, a group of men and women who had followed Jesus in Galilee and then come with him to Jerusalem where, as the Apostles’ Creed puts it, he “Was crucified, dead and buried.” But the Christian Church as a distinct movement did not yet exist. The Jesus community was a sect within Judaism and, without its leader and inspiration, didn’t look likely to be even that for very long. But then, the story goes, the dispirited disciples – gathered together in Jerusalem at Pentecost – underwent a remarkable experience. They were, as Luke puts it in the Acts of the Apostles, “all filled with the Holy Spirit”. And that was the point at which the disciples were stirred into action and began to preach – initially to the astonished crowds in Jerusalem and then further afield. And as Christianity – which it later came to be called – spread across the Roman Empire and beyond, communities were formed which, with varying degrees of success, sought to embody that same Holy Spirit and, with it, the Divine Love which Jesus had proclaimed and lived. A man who must take the credit for much of this was Saint Paul, for whom the Christian community was and is the Body of Christ. It is the physical Resurrection. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “Now you are Christ’s body, and each of you a limb or organ of it” (I Corinthians 12: 27). And as he also told them, whatever spiritual gifts they had received, the greatest is love. Each of them had different parts to play in the community, with distinct talents to contribute; all of them suffering, flourishing and rejoicing together in mutual loving concern. And that is the model, the ideal, which Paul set before those early church communities – and which remains the model for a community such as ours, despite our failures to fully realise it. And it was a model that changed the world, providing ideals and values that have inspired and sustained millions.
Sometimes talk of the gifts of the Spirit is associated with various exotic and dramatic manifestation such as “speaking in tongues”, and although Paul did not dismiss such things entirely, he very clearly did not think a great deal of them. He wrote, “if what you say in tongues yields no precise meaning” – and the phenomenon known as glossolalia never does – “how can anyone tell what is being said? You will be talking to empty air.” Rather the gifts to be “eager for”, wrote Paul, are “those which build up the church” (I Corinthians 14: 9,12). That is to say, the important thing is to build a community where love dwells.
I wonder how many of us get to experience such a community? One hopes, of course, that this is such a community, but today I’d like to recall another community of which I was once a part and which set my life on a course it has remained on ever since. It was a community which I joined when I was fifteen, in 1962, and remained active in for about ten years – years which were to lead me into the ministry and are the reason why I am standing here today. It was called the Unitarian Young People’s League: a fully independent organisation of young people run for young people by young people. It was founded ninety years ago in April 1934, and it dissolved itself, after fifty years of active life and service, forty years ago today on 19th May 1984.
***
I don’t intend to tell the whole story of the UYPL today – although I have written it – but I’d like to share a few things that convey something of what it was and why I regard it as having been a true community of the Spirit. As you might expect of a youth organisation, we could be irreverent and we enjoyed ourselves – which sometimes earned us the disapproval of some – but we served the Unitarian movement and its churches in many ways, and continued to do so, although our numbers are now dwindling with the passing years! The tone was set in March 1934 by a young minister named Henry Cheetham, who wrote in a letter to the ‘Inquirer’, “Let us unite to form a youth movement desirous of serving the General Assembly and the cause of Truth, Liberty and Religion.” One of the League’s early National Presidents, Arthur Vallance, wrote a year later, that it had brought together “young people from widely separated districts” in a variety of activities, “and has lifted up their hearts in joint worship of the Eternal Spirit.” Arthur himself, then a young minister, wrote a hymn to mark the League’s foundation and it became the UYPL Hymn for the next fifty years. It is number one in our green hymn book.
As the League grew in the 1930s it had to consider whether “youth should make vigorous protest against the evils of the modern world” and in particular “the cruelties of Nazi Germany.” When the Second World War came, the League faced many problems, but National President Joan Hartley had this message for its scattered members in April 1942: “…when you come back you’ll find things changed…You’ll be changed too…You’ll have seen the world and have stories to tell…but when we come together again the old happy understanding of YPL will still be there.” And so it was – although sadly not everyone came back. Life in League branches was kept going by members too young to serve in the forces or to go away on war work, and it was a struggle at times. I like the story of the four girls who sheltered under a vestry table in an air raid to rehearse a play! Something of the League’s beliefs can be heard in words from a leaflet produced at this time. Among its “Essential Aims” were the strengthening of “the religious life and the spirit of service of its members”, and giving “youth an avenue through which the essentials of the Christian Faith…may find expression.”
In the later 1940s the League recovered its strength with membership rising as high as 1250 – or 1500 according to some estimates. There were also changes and innovations. One was adding the word ‘Unitarian’ to ‘Young People’s League’ so that it became the UYPL. Another was the introduction of the Drama Festival, first held in a snowbound Rochdale in the terrible winter of 1947. The Drama Festival became an extremely successful annual event, continuing throughout UYPL’s subsequent existence. Ipswich branch came second in 1964! The 1947 AGM saw the adoption of new objects, including this one: “To advance a religion which unites reverence for the past with adventurous faith in the future.”
Throughout its existence, UYPL addressed all manner of issues relating to war and peace, and to such things as the plight of refugees, to nuclear weapons, to Apartheid in South Africa and to racism here in Britain. It played a significant role in calling for changed attitudes on homosexuality, holding an important conference on the subject at Great Hucklow in 1972 which helped put our movement ahead of the game on LGBTQ+ issues. And religious and social issues featured not only in discussions but in worship, which was always a central activity in UYPL.
UYPL services, such as those held in the Old Chapel at Great Hucklow (UYPL’s spiritual home) during the regular UYPL gatherings there, were remarkable for their spiritual depth and exuberance. As one former National President, David Shaw, commented after a service in 1976 (“when a choir of six” sang “ ‘Hosanna’ and ‘Tomorrow is a Highway’, with Eric Sharp on his guitar”) “To me Hucklow would just not be Hucklow without morning service at the Old Chapel.” In April 1957, when UYPL held a highly-praised “inter-racial” weekend conference at Great Hucklow, the Sunday service was “inter-religious”, with representatives of different faiths and ethnicities taking part – something virtually unknown at the time.
UYPL worship could be reflective too. At the annual September Weekend in 1952 an open-air candle-light service, with the theme, ‘The Glory and the Grace of the World’, was reported in ‘The Inquirer’: “It was moving to see the wide semi-circle of candles and lit faces in the darkness, to hear the readers’ voices on the still air, and to feel the intense silence.” UYPL’s National President in 1962, Martin Davies, having criticised most worship in our churches as being “unhelpful, sometimes meaningless, and always archaic,” urged UYPLers “to create new forms of praise and meditation, not gimmick or trickery but rather simplicity in worship.”
UYPLers regularly led worship in local churches too, often in an attempt to liven up services that were still stuck in the 19th century. Their efforts were usually appreciated. After a service led by visiting UYPLers in Godalming, the chapel newsletter reported that “They entirely re-arranged the chapel furniture…which enhanced the feeling of fellowship. Each of them took a distinctive part in the service. An impressive occasion…and we look forward to seeing them all again.” After a UYPL-led service in Aberdeen, one senior member of the congregation commented, “…something at long last happened. Our survival as a congregation seemed more than ever secure…when we reached the end of that memorable service provided by the UYPL.” A comment by one young person after a UYPL-led service in Newcastle is intriguing. “It worked,” for the congregation, she said, “and made them think” – adding, which “was something of an achievement”.
Perhaps the most notable UYPL act of worship took place during the General Assembly Meetings in London in 1963. Devised and conducted by a group UYPLers led by Martin Davies, it was entitled ‘No Thought of the Harvest’ and drew on various musical and literary sources – not least the poetry of T. S. Eliot – to explore young people’s attitudes to issues like violence, money and human relationships. It made a deep impression on those attending in Lewisham Unitarian Church, leading one visiting American minister to write, “The service was presented with professional artistry, yet without becoming mere performance…I have never witnessed anything in America to touch it.” One of those taking part was Ernest Baker, one of a number of UYPLers who went on to become ministers. About this time he wrote an article attempting to summarise what UYPLers believed at that time, calling the position “Theist-Humanist”. He wrote, “while man chooses his destiny himself, there is a strong sense of a divine presence which guides the world…in some way.” He summed up,“…in UYPL we ‘do our best’ guided by the divine presence we feel…”
Service to the Unitarian movement was always one of UYPL’s objects, and leading worship in our churches was one way of doing it. Another way was to support and fundraise for Unitarian causes such as the Send-a-Child-to-Hucklow Fund and the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow. There was also fundraising for other causes too. UYPL raised money for Czech refugee children in Prague (and then the UK) before and during the Second World War, supporting the work of Unitarian minister Rev. Rosalind Lee and Nicholas Winton of Kindertransport fame. UYPL also raised funds in World Refugee Year in 1959/60, which prompted a UYPLer called Dawn Buckle to write a poem (‘Refugees’) that, sadly, is not out of place in today’s world.
Great Hucklow also benefited from one of UYPL’s favourite ways of serving the Unitarian movement, namely, ‘work-camps’. At Great Hucklow UYPLers re-decorated the Old Chapel several times over the years and also did some heavy physical work in the grounds. And other Unitarian places of worship were particular beneficiaries of UYPL and it was a work-camp in Hudddersfield in 1962 that brought me into UYPL. Decorating, repairing, digging and clearing overgrown churchyards were the sort of tasks undertaken at what were always popular events.
The Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House was the scene of three such work-camps. The first was in 1955, with the stated purpose of cleaning up what was then a very run-down building. A contemporary report described how, “The floor was swept and pews and galleries washed.” This last bit involved “an efficient method of throwing wet rags”, which “eliminated water problems” for those working upstairs but also “caused acute anxiety and much discomfort.” Fortunately all the woodwork was afterwards given a good polish! The UYPLers involved came from other churches as it was not until the 1960s that there was an Ipswich branch. In 1963 and 1964, though, Ipswich UYPLers were joined by young Unitarians from London and the North in two more work-camps at the Meeting House, which involved, amongst other things, “treating dry rot and renovating the floor”, according to the ‘Evening Star’.
One way in which the wider Unitarian movement benefited from UYPL was indirect, the result of UYPL’s self-governing independence. The focus on worship, for example, led quite a number of UYPLers into the ministry and the lay-leadership of congregations. But UYPL also taught young people skills that they would later use as officers, committee-members and trustees in congregations and, in time, on denominational committees and commissions and as officers of the General Assembly. UYPL undertook training in such work both formally and informally, something which also benefited people in their later lives. David Shaw, UYPL’s National President in 1977/78, went on to become a teacher and a minister. He later recalled, “I learnt so much from UYPL about organisation,… how to lead, agendas, minutes, writing reports, handling issues, etc. I was never taught anything like that studying to be a teacher.”
But what about the spirit of UYPL, what about the Spirit in UYPL, the factor that made it the community that it was? While not pretending that it was without fault or that things sometimes happened which shouldn’t have, I would say that it was a truly loving community – accepting, understanding and generous. It was UYPL that really made Unitarians of its members, whatever their previous background, giving them experiences that would always benefit themselves and others. It was a truly spiritual community, without any of the po-faced pretentiousness that sometimes goes with such words. UYPL was serious when it needed to be, but it was also a lot of fun! Some words by the Beatles in 1967’s ‘Summer of Love’ have always seemed appropriate for UYPL: “With our love we could save the world, if they only knew.” (‘Within You, Without You’, on ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’)
One leading UYPLer who served two terms as National Secretary, Richard Varley, wrote in 1975, after ten years of membership, that “I find a unique quality in a lack of any underlying or dormant bitterness or jealousy”, rather there was, “warmth in mutual trust and understanding”, which facilitated “co-operation and working together.” UYPL embodied and expressed a spirit – the Spirit – and something of that endures in those who shared it over its fifty years of existence. Various theories have been advanced for UYPL’s eventual ‘decline and fall’, which I won’t go into now, but although Unitarian youth work continued and continues, nothing has ever really replaced it. Today, on the fortieth anniversary of its passing, I would like to quote some words spoken at that last celebration by one of UYPL’s fifty former National Presidents, Alan Curren: “We give thanks and remember with great affection all that UYPL has been, has meant, has given to us and to the Unitarian Movement. The Movement is poorer for its passing. We are richer for its having been.” To which, as another of those fifty former Presidents, I can only say,
‘Amen’.
Cliff Reed,
19th May 2024
(CMR100524)
Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House 