When having a child, there are far more important decisions than its name — say, pre-natal care — but naming comes so naturally for human beings that I hope you’ll indulge me when it comes to naming this new church. At least I can get it out of my system for a moment.
Call it Second Universalist Church in the City of Washington. Or Second Universalist, for all practical purposes. Here’s why.
- Numbered churches are a Universalist custom. Not always, of course, but the custom is to number churches in the order of their formation. Universalist National Memorial Church is obviously the first in the tradition in this city. There were no others formed here. That makes this the Second.
- The name resists hypocrisy, or charges therof. Consider all the churches with an attribute in the name, like Friendship or Grace. That’s a headache to live into.
- That said, abbreviated, it makes a cute nickname. I’m thinking here of the Unitarian churches of Chicago — First U, Second U and Third U particularly — and Fourth U (Universalist) in Manhattan. That would make this church 2U, pronounced to you.
- For those old enough to remember the Avis TV ad campaign, there’s a certain “we try harder” quality to the second one in line.
And the web domains were available.
Considering the new maxim that the cheapest real estate to stake out is on the Internet, I was sure to snag 2udc.org and seconduniversalist.org — along with my long-held dcchurchproject.org — for future use. None are currently active.
And 2udc on Twitter. Â It is active and I welcome you to follow it.