William James Potter from Convinced Quaker to Prophet of Free Religion

About the Book

William James Potter’s name is virtually unknown to contemporary Unitarian Universalists, even by many of those who consider themselves scholars of this liberal religious movement. Why forgotten? He was a founder and the mainstay of the Free Religious Association, an organization whose members radically transformed American Unitarianism and had a significant influence on American public life. He was the president of the Index Association and, later, editor of that influential journal of religious and social commentary. Few remember that association or the journal, still fewer, Potter. Coming of humble origins, shy and withdrawn by temperament, he did little to put himself forward. He preferred to let his organizational skills and his brilliant and powerful writings do his talking. In the New Bedford, of his thirty-two year ministry, he was a major public figure, universally respected for his integrity and his commitment to the community, especially to the disadvantaged. He initiated many major programs and organizations. But he shied away from assertive leadership, preferring to initiate and then move on. With his congregation he was awkward in personal relationships, avoided parish calling, and only agreed that he would be available when needed. Respected more than loved! His immortality is in his quiet, but progressive and profound influence.

About the Author

When Richard Kellaway, in 1960, moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, from the Harvard Divinity School to begin his first ministry; he unconsciously began to replicate a ministry that had begun there a century earlier. William Potter, an earlier Divinity School scholar who never bothered to graduate, had also moved from Cambridge to New Bedford. He was ordained and installed as minister of the First Congregational Society at the end of December in 1860; Kellaway did it at the beginning of January in 1961. He consciously chose to be ordained to the Ministry of Religion, not the Unitarian ministry. Potter had refused to call himself a Unitarian and created the controversy that led to a radical reconfiguration of what it meant to be part of a liberal religious movement. While actively involved for many decades in what became the Unitarian Universalist Association, the holder of many leadership positions, Kellaway has always resisted attempts to tightly define membership. As with Potter before him, he had championed the idea of liberal religion being a movement and has been eager to welcome and include all those who wish to be associated. He is a graduate of Antioch College and Southern Illinois University, where he did his master’s thesis with and about Henry Nelson Wieman, a renowned philosopher of religion. His theological degree is from the Harvard Divinity School. He has also served congregations in New York City and Sarasota, Florida, as well as working as the Associate Director for United States Programs of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and as the North American Coordinator for the International Association for Religious Freedom. His publications include a Unitarian Universalist Association Lenten manual, The Trying Out, and numerous papers and articles. His New Bedford ministries span a period of nearly forty years.