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The Christian Register
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A weekly Unitarian newspaper first issued April 20, 1821 in Boston under editor David Reed, four years before the American Unitarian Association itself was founded in 1825. Within a year of the AUA's founding its own executive committee had taken over the paper's conduct, and from 1826 to 1957 it stood as the denomination's own leading weekly, publishing William Ellery Channing, Henry Ware Jr., Andrews Norton, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks and Edward Everett among its contributors. Renamed The Unitarian Register in 1957 as it grew "less and less focused on Christianity," it merged with the Universalist Church of America's own Universalist Leader in 1961, the same year the two denominations themselves merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association.
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Production
Publication YearSourced to the subject's own accountFirst issue April 20, 1821. The American Unitarian Association's own executive committee took over conduct of the paper the following year, per the AUA's own 1826 annual report; the paper continued under AUA publication through 1957, renamed 1957, merged 1961. AuthorSourced to the subject's own accountDavid Reed, founding editor; published by the American Unitarian Association from 1826 1 Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own account FormatSourced to the subject's own account Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterSourced to the subject's own accountThe American Unitarian Association's own doctrine, church news and liberal Christian theology, published for a denominational readership by the denomination's own executive committee for 131 of the paper's 136 years. 1 Scholarly ReceptionSourced to the subject's own accountRecognized as the AUA's own leading institutional publication across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; its 1961 merger with the Universalist Leader continues today as UU World, the Unitarian Universalist Association's current quarterly magazine. 2 Learn More
A Newspaper Four Years Older Than the Church That Ran It
The Christian Register is older than the organization most people would call its publisher. David Reed put out the first issue on April 20, 1821, four full years before Boston area liberal ministers ever sat down to organize the American Unitarian Association. The paper was already running when the AUA was born, not the other way around.
What happened next is the part that matters. Within a year of its own founding, the new association's executive committee took the paper over. Its own 1826 annual report says so directly: the committee had "undertook the conduct of the Register at the commencement of the present year." From that point the Christian Register was not merely sympathetic to Unitarianism from the outside. It was the AUA's own weekly, running the words of William Ellery Channing, Henry Ware Jr. and Edward Everett among others, for the next 131 years.
The paper only stopped being the Christian Register in 1957, renamed The Unitarian Register as the denomination grew, in its own words, "less and less focused on Christianity." Four years later it merged with the Universalist Church of America's own newspaper, the Universalist Leader, in exactly the year the two denominations themselves merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association. A publication founded before its future publisher even existed ended up outliving that publisher's separate identity by exactly as long as it took the two churches to become one.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Americas directly: "A weekly Unitarian newspaper first issued April 20, 1821 in Boston under editor David Reed, four years before the American Unitarian Association itself was founded in 1825."
Boston, Cities This source names Boston directly: "first issued April 20, 1821 in Boston under editor David Reed, four years before the American Unitarian Association itself was founded in 1825."
This source names William Ellery Channing directly: "own leading weekly, publishing William Ellery Channing, Henry Ware Jr., Andrews Norton, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks and Edward Everett among its contributors."
Belongs to Tradition
Published under the American Unitarian Association's own executive committee from 1826, one year after the AUA's own founding, through 1957: the tradition's own institutional organ for 131 of its 136 years, not an outside account of it.
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