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.Within a decade they were asserting that peo-ple could strive for and achieve some measure of personal righteous-ness.OWEN-TOWLE, CAROLYN SHEETS (1935 ).She has been a pi-oneer in developing strong concepts of joint ministry with her hus-band Tom and was also a candidate for the Unitarian UniversalistAssociation (UUA) presidency in 1993.Born in Upland, California,on July 27, 1935, her parents were Millard Owen Sheets and MaryBaskerville Sheets.Her father was an artist who has been called the Father of Southern California Watercolor. She graduated fromScripps College in Claremont, California, in 1957 with a major in artand art history.She was married to Charles Chapman for 14 years andhad three children.In 1973 she was remarried to Thomas Towle andtook the name Carolyn Owen-Towle.Owen-Towle became a parishminister through the UUA s independent study program.This wasundertaken at the Graduate School of Religion at the University ofIowa.She was fellowshipped into the ministry and ordained in 1978.Shortly thereafter, she was called with Tom, who was then serving inDavenport, Iowa, to serve the First Unitarian Universalist Church ofSan Diego, California.They served a 24-year ministry there as full-time senior parish ministers, retiring in June 2002.The church had824 members with a church school of 318 at that time.Owen-Towle was active in denominational groups from the begin-ning of her ministry.She served as president of the Ministerial Sis-terhood, a prominent group of women ministers.For six years shewas a board member of the Unitarian Universalist Service Com-mittee (1980 86), finally becoming its president.From 1988 to1889, she was president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers As-sociation (UUMA).During this time she was also a board member OXFORD CONVENTIONS " 353of the Meadville Lombard Theological School (1998 92).A col-lection of her sermons, Step off the Sidewalk, was published in 1992.In 1993 she ran for the presidency of the UUA, but lost in a closeelection to John Buehrens.The next year she received an honoraryD.D.from Meadville Lombard.When the Owen-Towles retired fromthe San Diego church they were both named minister emeriti and alsohad a garden dedicated to them and an endowment fund named intheir honor.Retirement did not end her active role with the denomi-nation, as she began serving a term on the UUA s Ministerial Fel-lowship Committee in 2002.She began her retirement by serving asa minister-in-residence at Meadville Lombard in the fall of 2002.OXFORD CONVENTIONS.The Universalists began to organizethemselves first with a regional meeting in Oxford, Massachusetts, in1785, and then with a second meeting in Oxford in 1793, where theNew England Convention was formally established.The first meet-ing in Oxford came about as a direct result of legal problems thatJohn Murray and the Gloucester Universalists were experiencing.In Gloucester the First Parish Church had seized property for non-payment of taxes, and Murray had countersued for the return ofgoods.Murray said that his opponents were trying to show that Godhates them, we hate them, and we hope that you will hate them. Adams Streeter proposed that the Universalists gather in associationso that a unified and legal church body might be recognized on con-stitutional grounds.They met on September 14, 1785, and formed theOxford Association, following the intended proposal that they be ce-mented in one body to assist one another.Delegates came from fivechurches under the leadership of Caleb Rich along with Rich, Mur-ray, Streeter, and Elhanan Winchester.The group approved a Charter of Compact using language from the Massachusetts Con-stitution to prove their legitimacy.The problem in Gloucester passedwhen the case was settled in Murray s favor in 1786 and the associa-tion proved to be only a short-lived political alliance.The churchesunder Rich s influence never agreed to the charter, and the Univer-salists of New England did not develop any institutional stability un-til the next decade.Trying to corral these independent New Englanders into a cohesivebody bore some results in the 1790s.This first attempt at a national 354 " PACIFISMconvention of Universalists was held in Philadelphia in 1790, but manyNew Englanders felt this was too much of a strain on resources to berepresented there on a regular basis.In 1792 Universalists in Bostonmade a request to hold a New England convention.Although originallyorganized as an appendage of the Philadelphia group, the New EnglandConvention gradually assumed more responsibilities.It met annuallyfrom 1793 until 1833 when it officially became the United States Con-vention.The invitation to the gathering in 1793 invited Universalistsfrom 37 towns and by the following year, when they met in Oxfordagain, 71 towns were listed.Although the meeting in 1793 is consid-ered the starting date for Universalist organization, little is knownabout the business transacted at that meeting.The convention in 1794approved the Philadelphia Articles of Faith and Plan of Government,which provided for minimal order including congregational autonomy,validity of non-Universalist ordination and optional observance ofsacraments, but assured Universalists of Gospel liberty in matters offaith.This convention also witnessed the spontaneous ordination ofHosea Ballou by Elhanan Winchester, although it appears that the con-vention did not assume this official power until 1800.This occurred inOrange, Massachusetts, where the delegates decided to do a better jobof keeping records and making reports, work on settling disputes be-tween clergy and churches, and for the first time, Walter Ferriss rec-ommended they consider a profession of faith, which finally came atthe 1803 convention in Winchester, New Hampshire [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]