MEM CHURCH

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Professor Martin Kilson's diatribe (Crimson, November 5) asserts Harvard's Christian tradition is why Rabbi Gold finds no sensitivity to Judaism in University Hall.

Harvard became Unitarian in the 19th century. We Unitarians are excluded from the National Council of Churches and for at least 400 years have been regarded as heretics. Polls show that Unitarians feel closer to Judaism than Christianity, that a majority are humanists, that many (including myself) do not believe in a personal God.

Unitarians never wanted to convert people and Harvard didn't end up a backwater denominational school. This is old history except if there comes a day when Jews or Mormons or atheists feel uncomfortable, then Unitarians won't feel comfortable either.

When I was an undergraduate, the Memorial Church minister refused its use for a Jewish wedding. Like Professor Kilson, he appealed to a nonexistent Calvinistic Trinitarianism that anyone who reads a history of Harvard like Morison's will find it never existed. Harvard's greatness is not because it was Unitarian but because the Unitarians had the good sense to let everyone come.

The issue is not that Rabbi Gold is unhappy or Professor Kilson is misinformed, but that Memorial Church with its magnificent location and facilities should be of much more use to the Harvard community than it is. The strange thing about Memorial Church is that it neither expresses what Harvard was not what Harvard is. Paul John Rich '59   Minister, The Unitarian Church   East Bridgewater, Mass.