The Dissidents

Unitarians crave a creed like a hole in the head. It is their boast that no member of their Association (they do not call it a church) could ever be tried for heresy. But Unitarians sometimes find that their cautiously passionate belief in free thinking does not accent the unity in Unitarianism.

In Washington, D.C. last week, 352 Unitarian ministers and laymen assembled for the eleventh General Conference of their tiny (69,000 members), creedless sect. Dressed according to their fancy, in everything from sporty tweeds to clerical collars, they met in the ivory-paneled auditorium of All Souls' Church for three busy days of resolution-passing.

Delegates were mindful of the recent fracas in Unitarian ranks over the ousting of Pastor Stephen Fritchman for following the Communist line too closely in his editing of the monthly Christian Register (TIME, May 26). There had also been critical murmurs from "theist" Unitarians against the ultra-humanist views of President Frederick May Eliot's administration. But the agenda proved too crowded for these controversies. Indeed, there was too much to say and too little time in which to say it. Once as many as five delegates contended for the microphone.

Keynote of the conference was unity--and its opposite. One young pastor reported that new ministers were increasingly hard to get for a church "forever racked with internal wrangling." The conference's moderator, portly Dr. Winfred Overholser, warned: "We, as Unitarian religious liberals, have always prided ourselves on our right to our own views and on the right to follow the dictates of our own consciences; but there have been indications in some circles in recent months that . . . dissidence ... is well on its way to becoming a fetish."

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