Local Unitarian Universalist Church Welcomes New Senior Minister

The red-brick building of the Community Church of New York has stood on East 35th Street between Madison and Park since the late 1940s - a bastion over the years not only of Unitarian Universalism, but also of liberal and progressive thought.

Now it has its first woman Senior Minister, with the naming of the Reverend Peggy Clarke as successor to the Rev. Bruce Southworth, who retired in 2017 after 35 years (he now serves as minister emeritus).

As Senior Minister, Rev. Peggy hopes to work with the Unitarian Universalist congregation to renew its historic commitment to social activism and justice, while fostering a true community church that is "a house of prayer for all people".

"We are going to spend time this year looking at where the real needs are in ourselves, our families, in the neighborhood, in the greater New York area," she told the congregation in a sermon on Sunday, September 8. "Where are the deep spiritual aches? How can we serve the people who long for community, for connection, for meaning-making?"

This month, the church will play an active role in supporting the week of action on climate change around the UN General Assembly. That will include a prayer service at the church led by the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, ahead of the protest march scheduled for Friday, September 20.

The Rev. Peggy Clarke comes to East 35th Street after serving at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester in Hastings on Hudson.

The Community Church has a strong history of social activism. In the first half of the 20th century it was the home church of the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, a founder member of both the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, and a pacifist who spoke out against both world wars. It played a leading role in mobilizing American opposition to apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, while in the 1960s it was a center for civil rights activists and anti-war movement.

The Rev. Clarke has been active in the Unitarian Universalist (UU) climate justice initiative, Commit2Respond, and served as chair of the UU's Food Justice Ministry.

She was one of the denomination's Observer Delegates at the 2015 United Nations Climate Summit in Paris. And she has represented the Unitarian Universalists at the Standing Rock pipeline protests in North Dakota in 2016, and most recently at the Mexican American border, calling attention to the crisis of separated families.