Back in 2010, Scott Wells came up with a list of congregations that claimed an affiliation with both Unitarian Universalism and some other religious tradition. 15 years later, we’ve seen many small congregations close, so I decided to revisit Scott’s list and see how many of the congregations in his post were still in existence.
Below is my list, grouped together by U.S. state, and in alphabetical order within each state grouping. Except where noted, I’ve given religious affiliations as garnered from congregational websites.
Update, 13 Oct. 2025: Thanks to commenter Gabriele Simion, added several congregations; cleaned up some typos, and fixed names of denominations / religious groups. Update, 23 Oct.: Added Free Congregation of Sauk City, thanks to Gabriele again.
The list
The list has all multi-religious congregations I was able to find that are formally affiliated with the UUA. I determined formal affiliation based on the congregation’s appearance in the UUA’s online directory. (N.B.: I haven’t included affiliations with the new North American Unitarian Association, because they don’t publicize a list of their member congregations.) If you know of multi-religious congregations formally affiliated with the UUA that I’ve missed, please mention them in the comments.
Key to religious affiliations: ABC = American Baptist Churches USA; AEU = American Ethical Union; AHA = American Humanist Association; CUA = Christian Universalist Association; DOC = Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); ProgC = Progressive Christianity; UCC = United Church of Christ; UMC = United Methodist Church; UUA = Unitarian Universalist Association.
District of Columbia
- Washington Ethical Society — Washington, DC — AEU, UUA
- Universalist National Memorial Church — Washington, DC — ProgC, UUA
Georgia
- First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta (website states an affiliation with Existentialism, which is not a formal denomination) — Atlanta, GA — Existentialism, UUA
Illinois
- The Federated Church — Avon, IL — UCC, UUA
- Peoples Church of Chicago — Chicago, IL — UCC, UUA
- Federated Church — Sycamore, IL — UCC, UUA
Massachusetts
- First Parish Church of Berlin — Berlin, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Parish of Bolton — Bolton, MA — ABC, UCC, UUA; and “Quaker roots”
- Federated Church of Charlton (listed on the UUA website as “First Universalist Society Federated”) — Charlton, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Church of Deerfield — Deerfield, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Universalist Church of Hardwick Preservation Trust (part of the Tri-Parish Community Church, which meets at First Universalist July-Dec.; affiliations from UCC denominational website, and UUA directory) — Hardwick, Mass. — UCC, UUA
- First Parish in Lincoln — Lincoln, MA — UCC, UUA
- Community Church Of North Orange And Tully — Orange, MA — UCC, UUA
- Federated Church of Orleans — East Orleans, MA — UCC, UUA
- Eliot Church of South Natick — Natick, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Church in Sterling — Sterling, MA — UCC, UUA
- Federated Church of Sturbridge and Fiskdale — Sturbridge, MA — ABC, UCC, UUA
- First Church of Templeton (website is gone, I’ve linked to their active Facebook page; UCC affiliation from other online sources) — Templeton, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Church of West Bridgewater — West Bridgewater, MA — UCC, UUA
- First Parish Church United of Westford — Westford, MA — UCC, UUA
New Hampshire
- Federated Church of Marlborough — Marlborough, NH — UCC, UMC, UUA
- Newfields Community Church — Newfields, NH — UCC, UMC, UUA
- United Church of Winchester (website is gone, I’ve linked to their active Facebook page; UCC, UMC affiliations from other online sources)— Winchester, NH — UCC, UMC, UUA
New York
- All Souls Bethlehem Church — Brooklyn, NY — DOC, UCC, UUA
Michigan
- Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Flint — ProgC, UUA
Pennslyvania
- First Universalist Church — Kingsley, PA — CUA, UUA
- East Suburban Unitarian Universalist Church (per comment by Elizabeth) — Murrysville, PA — AHA, UUA
Rhode Island
- First Universalist Church in Providence (thanks to Scott for this link) — Providence, RI — CUA, UUA
Vermont
- United Church of Bethel — Bethel, VT — UCC, UUA
Wisconsin
- Free Congregation of Sauk County — Sauk City, WI — Free Thought Movement, UUA
Others
There are other congregations that may have had a Unitarian or Universalist affiliation in the past, but no longer do. Trying to research such congregations seems incredibly difficult, so I haven’t included them. But here are three examples from Scott’s 2010 blog post:
The Community Church of Pepperell, in Pepperell, MA, is formally affiliated solely with the UCC. On their website they say that they formed as a merger between the Unitarian church and the Congregationalist church in Pepperell.
First Church in Belfast, Maine, was formerly affiliated with the Unitarians and the Congregationalists, but is now solely affiliated with the UCC. (The history section of their website states that “Congregationalists believed in the complete autonomy of the local church; Unitarians did not”; this is incorrect, as both Congregationalists and Unitarians share the same polity).
The Federated Church of Hyannis is an “independent” (i.e., nondenominational) congregation that claims both Universalist and Congregationalist roots. It would be interesting to learn more specifics of their history; there were other Universalist churches which left the Universalist General Convention and affiliated with the Congregationalists in the first half of the twentieth century.
If you know of other multi-religious congregations with a Unitarian or Universalist history, please mention them in the comments. If possible, provide a link to their website or social media presence.
Horton Congregational Church is affiliated with the NACCC but it was an Universalist Church and still use the Winchester Profession of Faith
https://hortonchurch.org/what-we-believe/
There are also two churches that appear both in the UUA directory and in the Christian Universalist Association directory: The First Universalist Church in Providence, Providence, RI and First Universalist Church of Brooklyn, Kingsley, PA
https://www.uua.org/offices/organizations/first-universalist-church-providence
https://www.uua.org/offices/organizations/first-universalist-church-5
https://christianuniversalist.org/congregations-in-person/
Thank you Gabriele, I forgot about the Christian Universalist Assoc. Added both those congregations to the list above.
In the directory of Progressive Christianity https://progressivechristianity.org/global-network/ (search engine nearly useless, manual search is needed) are listed at least three UU congregations:
– Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Flint https://uuflint.org/ . No data on this affiliation of the site, but on their FB page description they wrote that ‘Honoring the spiritual wisdom of the world, including today’s Progressive Christianity.’ and on their page ‘typical services’ wrote ‘We also make a special effort to honor and teach about the Jesus of history, so progressive Christians will feel right at home at the UUCF.’
– All Souls Bethleheim Church of Brooklyn (found nothing on their site)
– Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington DC. Affiliation cited https://www.universalist.org/childrens-education/
In my opinion is open to interpretation if Progressive Christianity is a denomination in a meaningful sense.
Gabriele, thank you again! I added 2 congregations affiliated with Progressive Christianity — but not All Souls Bethlehem Church, since it doesn’t seem to be on their website.
if First Existentialist Atlanta is part of this list also the Free Congregation of Sauk County could be included. https://www.freecongregation.org/home.aspx
It is the last Free Thought / Free Religious Congregation still active in America, but other congregations are still active in Germany
https://www.freireligioese.de/
http://www.freireligioes.de/
It is also affiliated to the IARF indipendently from the UUA https://iarf.net/member-organisations-and-chapters/free-congregation-of-sauk-county/
Gabriele, what a great find! Thank you, and have updated the post with the Sauk City listing.
I found that the UCC published in 2015 a report about their multidenominational congregations
https://new.uccfiles.com/pdf/UCC-Multiply-Affiliated-Congregations-Report.pdf
available also as synthesys
https://carducc.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/better-together-multiply-affiliated-ucc-churches/
https://carducc.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/multiply-affiliated-ucc-churches-part-2/
https://carducc.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/multiply-affiliated-ucc-churches-part-3-3/
they wrote that share with the UUA 20 congregations, but if I read well in this list they are 22.
They are also way more and more diverse
Gabriele, thanks again for your research. The post above lists 20 congregations which are affiliated with both the UUA and the UCC. So the only question is whether there are two more federated UUA/UCC congregations, as you suggest might be possible.
Esuuc – East Suburban Unitarian Universalist Church, Murrysville, PA. Humanist UUA
Thank you, Elizabeth! Now added to the post.
DuPage UU Church of Naperville https://dupageuuchurch.org/ in their bylaws write
The Church is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Church maintains an historic affiliation with the American Humanist Association
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-OEk8OwsQdmEMoS8poZU1qjePqUhn9mL/edit
the Church is absent from AHA directory, but listed as chapter there is ‘Prairie State Humanists’, a group that has the same address of the DuPage Church and and wrote in their youtube description
We are affiliated with the DuPage Unitarian Universalist church in Naperville, IL, which provides material, technical and practical support
Other groups are listed as affiltes in AHA directory https://americanhumanist.org/get-involved/find-or-start-a-chapter/ , for example Washington Ethical Society
My opinion: searching and verifying all this multiple affiliations is very time-consuming, and often you find something you can’t define: for example do exist relations, even strong, between various UU congregations and minister and the Catholic Women Ordination Movement / Indipendent Sacramental movement groups, but their collaboration is often informal and never defined in a precise way.
Pondering…
Gabriele, you write: “often you find something you can’t define” — that is exactly my feeling, and one of the reasons I’m fascinated by this notion of multiple affiliations. We have this tendency to draw firm lines between religious groups, but I often find that drawing firms lines obscures what’s happening in real life. We want the world to have neat and tidy categories, but it doesn’t…not really.
Thank you again for all your research.