BOSTON -- The freedom of choice Unitarian Universalism offers attracts spiritual seekers, from atheists to Jews.
But they aren't being drawn in large numbers. Membership is 220,000--among the smallest Protestant denominations in the country.
William Sinkford, recently elected as the first black president of the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association, hopes to change that.
The obstacles are many, not the least of which is uniting a denomination with some members who don't even believe in God. Sinkford, who believes in God, argues the church's diversity is a reason it can grow.
"We have lived the experience that difference need not divide," said Sinkford, of Cambridge. "That's a pretty powerful piece of good news for the world outside our sanctuaries."
Sinkford was an avowed atheist into his teens until he found a home in a Unitarian Universalist Church. "I didn't have to check any part of my identity, racially and in terms of my theological questioning," he said. "I could bring it all."
But Sinkford, 55, broke with the church in the mid-1960s because he saw a weakening commitment to the black community.
He said the civil rights struggles were also reflected in a bitter rift within the church. Some members, including Sinkford, were sympathetic to the black power movement, which urged blacks to focus on their own problems before engaging with whites. Others, such as his mother, believed immediate integration was the only road to progress. Sinkford was drawn back after the church helped him with the grief following his mother's death.
In 2000, Unitarian Universalists reported 155,449 adult members and 61,482 children enrolled in their church schools.
The denomination boasts seven straight years of growth in adult members, but the increases have been modest.
Sinkford said many blacks left the church for the reason he did, but they have not come back. The denomination is more than 90 percent white and has almost no black clergy.
The church's racial battle also caused members to withdraw, both figuratively and literally, as many congregations left the cities for seclusion in the suburbs, he said.
Alan Wolfe, director of Boston College's Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life, said people may bypass Unitarian Universalism because it's unclear what they'll get out of it religiously.
Sinkford argues that, in fact, the groups within Unitarian Universalism have broad common ground, including a search for justice and a desire to connect to something outside themselves, whether that's God, a deeper inner consciousness, or other people.