Heirloom #13
by Will Frank
At the start of the church year of 1916-17, the First Unitarian Church of Norfolk, now with a real church building at 306 East Freemason Street advertised itself as follows:
This little brick church is a home of the soul. It is dedicated to religion but not to theological formulas. Love to God and man it regards as the essential gospel of Jesus. People of all creeds and no creeds it welcomes in its worship and fellowship.
Clouds, however, still hung over the church with the departure of the Rev. Frank Pratt for the Richmond church. Yet the clouds soon parted with the opportunity to call an enthusiastic new minister to the Norfolk pulpit, the Rev. John L. Einstein. He had been a guest minister in Norfolk in February 1916, when he preached on the topic of “Why I became a Unitarian.” Now, eight months later, the congregation called Einstein to become its settled minister. [See his photo in social hall display.]
John L. Einstein, born in 1881 in Radford, Virginia, and with a Methodist background, in 1906 had graduated from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he prepared for the Presbyterian ministry. Desiring further study, he attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, specializing in New Testament interpretation. Study led him to be at odds with Presbyterian doctrines. Finding himself unable to preach what was expected of him, in sadness he gave up the ministry and became headmaster of a boys’ preparatory school. Then, in 1913, he accepted the position of assistant in ancient history at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. While in Ithaca he became friends with the Rev. C. W. Heizer of the Unitarian Church of Ithaca, who encouraged him to consider joining the Unitarian ministry, which he found compatible with his liberal and questioning mind. Further study at Cornell in 1913-14, and with a strong endorsement by Frank Pratt as “a valuable addition to our ministry,” led him to be accepted into Fellowship in the Unitarian ministry. Soon the Norfolk pulpit opened to him, an ideal call for a liberal Southerner to make a difference.
Settling in Norfolk in the fall of 1916, Einstein organized a “Liberal Bible Class” on Sunday mornings to consider new interpretations of the Bible, and preached in the evening on such topics as “A New Day in Religion,” “What is a Liberal Christian?,” “A Way of Life: A Meditation,” “A Man’s Fight with Himself,” and “A Religion for the Present Day.” By November, he was preaching on different topics twice a Sunday, at 11:00 AM and 7:30 PM, while Major Lawrence Waring and Arthur C. Gray, President of the church, taught the Bible class. Rev. Einstein’s ordination and installation came on March 3, 1917, with Frank Pratt and Dr. Louis Cornish, secretary of the AUA, participating. The Apollo Male Quartette provided music. The future seemed sunny for both minister and congregation. R. C. Quayle became superintendent of the Sunday School. The church proclaimed: “An invitation is given to all those who want simplicity and sincerity in religion. In this church you are free.” “A vigorous movement is going forward in Norfolk, Va.” reported Frank Pratt to the AUA.
This rosy picture soon changed. A month after Rev. Einstein’s joyous installation, the United States declared war on Germany, and soon thousands upon thousands of newly drafted soldiers started pouring through Hampton Roads on their way to the ghastly realities of the trenches of the fighting front in France. What should be the witness of the Unitarian Church in wartime? This burning question challenged Unitarian churches across the country, but nowhere more so than in Norfolk. With the spiritual needs of the soldiers as a new challenge to accustomed priorities and with the discomfort felt by many citizens by the innundation of Hampton Roads communities by a sea of khaki, thus entered the controversy that would split the church down the middle.