We are Unitarian Universalists
"Copyright Unitarian Universalist Association"
History of Unitarianism & Universalism
Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith..
Unitarians and Universalists have always been heretics. We are heretics because we want to choose our faith, not because we desire to be rebellious. “Heresy” in Greek means “choice.” During the first three centuries of the Christian church, believers could choose from a variety of tenets about Jesus.
Among these was a belief that Jesus was an entity sent by God on a divine mission. Thus the word “Unitarian” developed, meaning the oneness of God. Another religious choice in the first three centuries of the Common Era (CE) was universal salvation. This was the belief that no person would be condemned by God to eternal damnation in a fiery pit. Thus, a Universalist believed that all people will be saved. Christianity lost its element of choice in 325 CE when the Nicene Creed established the Trinity as dogma. For centuries thereafter, people who professed Unitarian or Universalist beliefs were persecuted.
This was true until the sixteenth century when the Protestant Reformation took hold in the remote mountains of Transylvania in eastern Europe. Here the first edict of religious toleration in history was declared in 1568 during the reign of the first and only Unitarian king, John Sigismund. Sigismund’s court preacher, Frances David, had successively converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism to Calvinism and finally to Unitarianism because he could find no biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. Arguing that people should be allowed to choose among these faiths, he said, “We need not think alike to love alike.”
In sixteenthcentury Transylvania, Unitarian congregations were established for the first time in history. These churches continue to preach the Unitarian message in presentday Romania. Like their heretic forebears from ancient times. these liberals could not see how the deification of a human being or the simple recitation of creeds could help them to live better lives. They said that we must follow Jesus, not worship him.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Unitarianism appeared briefly in scattered locations. A Unitarian community in Rakow, Poland, flourished for a time, and a book called On the Errors of the Trinity by a Spaniard, Michael Servetus, was circulated throughout Europe. But persecution frequently followed these believers. The Polish Unitarians were completely suppressed, and Michael Servetus was burned at the stake.
Even where the harassment was not so extreme, people still opposed the idea of choice in matters of religious faith. In 1791, scientist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley had his laboratory burned and was hounded out of England. He fled to America where he established American Unitarian churches in the Philadelphia area.
Despite these European connections, Unitarianism as we know it in North America is not a foreign import. In fact, the origins of our faith began with some of the most historic congregations in Puritan New England where each town was required to establish a congregationally independent church that followed Calvinist doctrines. Initially, these congregational churches offered no religious choice for their parishioners, but over time the strict doctrines of original sin and predestination began to mellow.
By the mid1700s, a group of evangelicals were calling for the revival of Puritan orthodoxy. They asserted their belief in humanity’s eternal bondage to sin. People who opposed the revival, believing in free human will and the loving benevolence of God, eventually became Unitarian. During the first four decades of the nineteenth century, hundreds of these original congregational churches fought over ideas about sin and salvation, and especially over the doctrine of the Trinity. Most of the churches split over these issues. In 1819, Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing delivered a sermon called “Unitarian Christianity” and helped to give the Unitarians a strong platform. Six years later the American Unitarian Association was organized in Boston, MA.
Universalism developed in America in at least three distinct geographical locations. The earliest preachers of the gospel of universal salvation appeared in what were later the Middle Atlantic and Southern states. By 1781, Elhanan Winchester had organized a Philadelphia congregation of Universal Baptists. Among its members was Benjamin Rush, the famous physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
At about the same time, in the rural, interior sections of New England, a small number of itinerant preachers, among them Caleb Rich, began to disbelieve the strict Calvinist doctrines of eternal punishment. They discovered from their biblical studies the new revelation of God’s loving redemption of all. John Murray, an English preacher who immigrated in 1770, helped lead the first Universalist church in Gloucester, MA, in the battle to separate church and state.
From its beginnings, Universalism challenged its members to reach out and embrace people whom society often marginalized. The Gloucester church included a freed slave among its charter members, and the Universalists became the first denomination to ordain women to the ministry, beginning in 1863 with Olympia Brown.
Universalism was a more evangelical faith than Unitarianism. After officially organizing in 1793, the Universalists spread their faith across the eastern United States and Canada. Hosea Ballou became the denomination’s greatest leader during the nineteenth century, and he and his followers, including Nathaniel Stacy, led the way in spreading their faith.
Other preachers followed the advice of Universalist publisher Horace Greeley and went West. One such person was Thomas Starr King, who is credited with defining the difference between Unitarians and Universalists: “Universalists believe that God is too good to damn people, and the Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned by God.” The Universalists believed in a God who embraced everyone, and this eventually became central to their belief that lasting truth is found in all religions, and that dignity and worth are innate to all people regardless of sex, color, race, or class.
Growing out of this inclusive theology was a lasting impetus in both denominations to create a more just society. Both Unitarians and Universalists became active participants in many social justice movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker was a prominent abolitionist, defending fugitive slaves and offering support to American abolitionist John Brown.
Other reformers included Universalists such as Charles Spear who called for prison reform, and Clara Barton who went from Civil War “angel of the battlefield” to become the founder of the American Red Cross. Unitarians such as Dorothea Dix fought to “break the chains” of people incarcerated in mental hospitals, and Samuel Gridley Howe started schools for the blind. For the last two centuries, Unitarians and Universalists have been at the forefront of movements working to free people from whatever bonds may oppress them.
Two thousand years ago liberals were persecuted for seeking the freedom to make religious choices, but such freedom has become central to both Unitarianism and Universalism. As early as the 1830s, both groups were studying and promulgating texts from world religions other than Christianity. By the beginning of the twentieth century, humanists within both traditions advocated that people could be religious without believing in God. No one person, no one religion, can embrace all religious truths.
By the middle of the twentieth century it became clear that Unitarians and Universalists could have a stronger liberal religious voice if they merged their efforts, and they did so in 1961, forming the Unitarian Universalist Association. Many Unitarian Universalists (UUs) became active in the civil rights movement. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, was murdered in Selma, Alabama, after he and twenty percent of the denomination’s ministers responded to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call to march for justice.
Today we are determined to continue to work for greater racial and cultural diversity. In 1977, a women and religion resolution was passed by the Association, and since then the denomination has responded to the feminist challenge to change sexist structures and language, especially with the publication of an inclusive hymnal. The denomination has affirmed the rights of bisexuals, gays, lesbians, and transgender persons, including ordaining and settling gay and lesbian clergy in our congregations, and in 1996, affirmed samesex marriage.
All these efforts reflect a modern understanding of universal salvation. Unitarian Universalism welcomes all to an expanding circle of understanding and choice in religious faith.
Our history has carried us from liberal Christian views about Jesus and human nature to a rich pluralism that includes theist and atheist, agnostic and humanist, pagan, Christian, Jew, and Buddhist. As our history continues to evolve and unfold, we invite you to join us by choosing our free faith.
For more information contact info@uua.org [2].
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Source URL: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/history/ourhistoricfaith
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History of Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
To read about the creation of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, go to http://www.uuworld.org/news/articles/284894.shtml?utm_source=UUA+Top+Stories+RSS&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+uua%2FLxnn+%28Unitarian+Universalist+Association%3A+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=FeedBurner
Some Significant Unitarians: Robert Ingersoll
A good way to appreciate our history is to learn about famous Unitarian Universalists. Go to; http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/01/17/robert-green-ingersoll-the-great-american-agnostic for a podcast on Robert Ingersoll. Thanks to Joyce for calling to our attention. And to Brad for first bringing up Ingersoll.
Our Principles
There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations
affirm and promote:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in
our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within
our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
affirm and promote:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in
our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within
our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Our Spiritual Foundations
Unitarian Universalism draws from many sources:
-Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in
all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness
to the forces which create and uphold life;
-Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to
confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the
transforming power of love;
-Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and
spiritual life;
-Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by
loving our neighbors as ourselves;
-Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason
and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind
and spirit.
-Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the
sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms
of nature.
These principles and sources of faith are the backbone of our religious
community.
Principios en Espanol
www.uua.org/visitors/10841.shtml
-Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in
all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness
to the forces which create and uphold life;
-Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to
confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the
transforming power of love;
-Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and
spiritual life;
-Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by
loving our neighbors as ourselves;
-Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason
and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind
and spirit.
-Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the
sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms
of nature.
These principles and sources of faith are the backbone of our religious
community.
Principios en Espanol
www.uua.org/visitors/10841.shtml
What is our healing message? To what are we being beckoned when we
gather?
By James Ishmael Ford 12.31.12
This tradition we share, Unitarian Universalism, stands with one foot in the great western way, the
liberal Protestant tradition enriched by the best of the wisdom of Judaism and
Christianity and their child Humanism, summarized for us as reason and freedom
and tolerance. And it stands with another foot leaning out, toward a world
perspective—found most clearly in the advance of the universalist
perspective—growing from a faith that God saves us all, a faith that all human
beings have within themselves and their spiritual traditions what is necessary
to the healing of human hearts.
So, to the casual eye we Unitarian Universalists are a Protestant church. But
listen to the word preached, listen to the conversations in coffee hour, and
something else becomes quickly, startlingly obvious. What is it? What is our
healing message? To what are we pointing, to what are we being beckoned, within
our gatherings?
Well, in a sermon at our General Assembly in Phoenix in June 2012, the Rev.
John Crestwell proclaimed, “I am a First and Seventh Principle preacher.” I am a
First and Seventh Principle preacher. I heard those words and I heard my own
heart, and my voice and my life. I heard our message, our good news. When people
come to the church I serve as minister, they will hear the good news of the
First and Seventh Principles preached, explored, preached again, delved into,
sliced and divided and examined, and preached again. And, I hope, ever more
deeply lived.
First is our proclamation of the preciousness of the human being, of each and
every one of us, as we are. You are good enough. You contain within who you are
all that is necessary to love and grow deep and to heal your own wounds and the
wounds of the world. This is articulated as the First Principle of our
contemporary Unitarian Universalism: “We affirm and promote the inherent worth
and dignity of every person.”
And the Seventh Principle grounds it and radicalizes it by proclaiming that
this is so because we are all of us, each and every precious one of us—and every
blessed other thing in this cosmos—united in a web of intimacy that is more
deeply true than the blood coursing through our veins. This is the Seventh
Principle of our contemporary Unitarian Universalism: “We affirm and promote the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
There is one thing more. We are about the integration of these two truths as
deeply known and explored, manifest as a way of life.
Ours is an electric, dancing middle way between the two poles of our precious
individuality and our intimate connection. But—and this is most important—not by
splitting some difference, not being half individual and half communal. Our way
is more radical. It calls for two 100 percents. Or perhaps it is better to say
we are called to discover fully the one in the other. We are all about the
individual and the fullest expression of that individuality, creative, powerful,
even dangerous. And, we are all about our radical interrelatedness, where no one
exists in isolation. We are woven out of each other, we are created by each
other, one thing. Just this.
Following the way of these two truths and fully embracing what each means,
and how each is dependent upon the other, opens a life that is dynamic,
creative, and full of potential. And this is our way.
This is what we find as we come into our meeting places—our old New England
churches, our modern sanctuaries, our rented halls. This is what we find as we
gather together in our religious education programing. This is what we find as
we open our mouths and sing. This is what we find in our coffee hour, and our
chalice circles, in our committee meetings, in our work to feed the hungry, to
clothe the naked, to find justice in our communities, and to heal this
world.
This is why we gather.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This essay is adapted from a sermon delivered at First Unitarian Church of
Providence, Rhode Island, on September 9, 2012. See sidebar for links to related
resources.
UU World Magazine | 25 Beacon Street, Boston MA 02108 | (617)
948-6518
© 1996-2007 Unitarian Universalist Association of
Congregations. All rights reserved.
This tradition we share, Unitarian Universalism, stands with one foot in the great western way, the
liberal Protestant tradition enriched by the best of the wisdom of Judaism and
Christianity and their child Humanism, summarized for us as reason and freedom
and tolerance. And it stands with another foot leaning out, toward a world
perspective—found most clearly in the advance of the universalist
perspective—growing from a faith that God saves us all, a faith that all human
beings have within themselves and their spiritual traditions what is necessary
to the healing of human hearts.
So, to the casual eye we Unitarian Universalists are a Protestant church. But
listen to the word preached, listen to the conversations in coffee hour, and
something else becomes quickly, startlingly obvious. What is it? What is our
healing message? To what are we pointing, to what are we being beckoned, within
our gatherings?
Well, in a sermon at our General Assembly in Phoenix in June 2012, the Rev.
John Crestwell proclaimed, “I am a First and Seventh Principle preacher.” I am a
First and Seventh Principle preacher. I heard those words and I heard my own
heart, and my voice and my life. I heard our message, our good news. When people
come to the church I serve as minister, they will hear the good news of the
First and Seventh Principles preached, explored, preached again, delved into,
sliced and divided and examined, and preached again. And, I hope, ever more
deeply lived.
First is our proclamation of the preciousness of the human being, of each and
every one of us, as we are. You are good enough. You contain within who you are
all that is necessary to love and grow deep and to heal your own wounds and the
wounds of the world. This is articulated as the First Principle of our
contemporary Unitarian Universalism: “We affirm and promote the inherent worth
and dignity of every person.”
And the Seventh Principle grounds it and radicalizes it by proclaiming that
this is so because we are all of us, each and every precious one of us—and every
blessed other thing in this cosmos—united in a web of intimacy that is more
deeply true than the blood coursing through our veins. This is the Seventh
Principle of our contemporary Unitarian Universalism: “We affirm and promote the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
There is one thing more. We are about the integration of these two truths as
deeply known and explored, manifest as a way of life.
Ours is an electric, dancing middle way between the two poles of our precious
individuality and our intimate connection. But—and this is most important—not by
splitting some difference, not being half individual and half communal. Our way
is more radical. It calls for two 100 percents. Or perhaps it is better to say
we are called to discover fully the one in the other. We are all about the
individual and the fullest expression of that individuality, creative, powerful,
even dangerous. And, we are all about our radical interrelatedness, where no one
exists in isolation. We are woven out of each other, we are created by each
other, one thing. Just this.
Following the way of these two truths and fully embracing what each means,
and how each is dependent upon the other, opens a life that is dynamic,
creative, and full of potential. And this is our way.
This is what we find as we come into our meeting places—our old New England
churches, our modern sanctuaries, our rented halls. This is what we find as we
gather together in our religious education programing. This is what we find as
we open our mouths and sing. This is what we find in our coffee hour, and our
chalice circles, in our committee meetings, in our work to feed the hungry, to
clothe the naked, to find justice in our communities, and to heal this
world.
This is why we gather.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This essay is adapted from a sermon delivered at First Unitarian Church of
Providence, Rhode Island, on September 9, 2012. See sidebar for links to related
resources.
UU World Magazine | 25 Beacon Street, Boston MA 02108 | (617)
948-6518
© 1996-2007 Unitarian Universalist Association of
Congregations. All rights reserved.