By Merv Hasselmann, copyright © 1981

Background to the Founding

Stated in simplest terms, it might be said that histories are written to inspire and inform. It is hoped that readers of this history—present and potential members and friends of this church, particularly—will be rewarded with good measures of both.

It might also be said that the evolvement of the large and influential Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley was inevitable; that conditions in the university town of Berkeley in 1891 and following—decades of great scientific discovery and enlightenment—made a temple of “the religion of reason” a surety.

Yet others might argue that nothing is inevitable, that all institutions are the shadow of one person; a few, then substantial numbers of inspired and determined people, some to start, some to continue through periods of adversity and to utilize new opportunities. In the case of this church, the preponderance of evidence is that the latter is true.