(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
This association is the modern institutional
embodiment of two separate denominations that came from movements and faith
traditions that extend back to the Christian Reformation era, around the
14th–16th centuries A.D. and well beyond. The convictions of Universalists
have been found as early as the church father Origen, declaring that everything
in creation would ultimately be drawn back to its divine source and that
no one would be forever excluded. Unitarian thought has been a recurring
heresy within the established church since the 1st century of the Christian
era, because of its conviction that God is ultimately and absolutely One.
The Roumanian–Transylvanian Unitarian Church is more than four centuries
old and originally stems from the skeptical and evangelical rationalist
movements that were within the Roman Catholic Church and the openness engendered
in the Reformation era. In the Sourcebook Of The World’s Religions (2000),
Rev. David A. Johnson explains this faith: “[Its] struggles, and that of
Socinianism in Poland and the Low Countries became fertile seeding ground
for the beginnings of British Unitarian thought and structure.”
Having its own primary roots in the liberal Christian movement within New
England’s old Puritan establishment is American Unitarianism. A formal break
from that tradition produced the American Unitarian Association in 1825.
The belief that original sin fatally flaws all human character, a Calvinist
double predestination, and the doctrine of the full and absolute personhood
of each member of the Trinity is something that the Unitarian faith rejected.
They instead affirm the just and loving character of God, the moral and reasoning
capacity of all people, working out one’s salvation through both diligence
and God’s grace, and, above all, one God.
Their institutional roots are in the Radical
Reformation, intertwining with the histories of several movements, such as
Anabaptist, Separatist, and Pietist. An offshoot of the Wesleyan Methodists,
the Universalists first organized separately in Britain. The beginnings of
the Universalist Church of America first started with a gathering in September
of 1793. It found supporters mainly in Protestants disaffected by the bitter
sectarian enthusiasms of much of American Protestantism, having theologies
that condemned the great mass of humankind to eternal perdition. Many people
who did not believe that a fiery hell awaited all those who didn’t have the
proper faith and salvation joined the Universalists during the large revival
era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Both the Universalist and Unitarian denominations had church policies and
organizational structures that were democratic in nature. They rejected absolute
and binding statements of faith, and affirmed freedom of personal belief
within the disciplines of democratic community, as well as the freedom of
each congregation to decide how they would express their faith and worship,
and choose their own clergy. These two associations of churches were unitarian
in theology even before they merged in 1961. In the last few decades the
Unitarian Universalist Association has grown into an international association
of churches with congregations in several countries.
This movement is very open and encompasses persons of liberal Christian persuasions.
Their ritual is as diverse as their congregations and some may include any
number of different ceremonies, a Jewish high holy days service, a tea ceremony,
a Muslim Prayer, a Hindu Festival Of Lights, or a Wiccan ritual in a Unitarian
Universalist church. No single symbol has been assigned them, but in recent
years the flaming chalice has become the most frequently used, and originates
from the movement that spread from the martyrdom of Jan Hus in the 13th century.
In the Sourcebook Of The World’s Religions (2000), Rev. David A.
Jonson tells this story: “The flame in the communion cup symbolized the enduring
flame of his faith, burning up from the chalice, together forming the shape
of a cross. Over time, the flaming chalice has been reshaped in many forms
as congregations have used and adapted it; its most common meaning today
is the light of knowledge and the search for truth.”
Unitarian Universalism is a small, gradually growing religious body that
is loosely connected to Protestant Christianity, although many members see
themselves as separate and different from that tradition. The UUA is a strong
supporter of the International Association For Religious Freedom, an interfaith
organization with seventy member groups in more than twenty-five nations,
and is a member of a new coalition of Unitarian movements worldwide.