So, historic hashing of prior iterations and influences of the flaming chalice symbol has been going on on Facebook. No place to have a public conversation, so when the “it’s a Unitarian (not Universalist) thing” card got thrown, I knew I had to chime in and thus blog about it.
I’m no fan of the flaming chalice symbol, and so I’ve kept this tidbit to myself. Years ago, back when I still lived in Georgia, the widow of a former Universalist minister sought me out to receive some of her husband’s collection of Universalist ephemera.
In it was this Lenten meditation manual from 1948.
In case you don’t recognize the author’s name and want proof of its Universalist provenance.
Oh, and lookie there, as I read on. No copyright notice. It’s fallen into the public domain. Might have to do something with that.
Well, well, well. I eagerly await follow up.
Thanks for this, Scott! What a great artifact — a Universalist Lenten manual. And what a great image. Any idea who the artist was?
As to your comments regarding the Facebook discussion — I don’t get the sense that the UUA or the marketing company that developed the logo had any particular bias towards either the Unitarian or the Universalist tradition. One of the Facebook conversations I followed, however, legitimated the new UUA logo based on a reading of Unitarian history, which I found problematic. If we’re going to invent a history for the new logo, no reason to restrict it to Unitarianism.
However, the bottom line for me is that it’s just a logo; it has no special history, and no real meaning, except as a marketing tool.