An abstract of F. Church and Beuhren’s book, “A Chosen Faith”, an introduction to Unitarian Universalism.
In 325 CE, the Nicaean creed of miracles including trinity was the edict for the Roman empire. In the 1500’s disavowing trinity would result in being burned at stake. The Unitarian movement as one God had roots in the Protestant Reformation. In the 1700’s universalism was recognized in Britain. The first American universalist congregation was in Gloucester Massachusetts in 1779. In the early 1800’s two Unitarian ministers in Boston, Channing and Parker, brilliantly described the Unitarian interpretations: there is one God, not trinity; scripture was written by men seeking understanding of life and death, and must be interpreted with evidence and reason, not with literalism; Jesus was a man who obtained God’s spirit by prayer and orientation, as all men can; divine thoughts and values are spirit. In 1838 Emerson lectured at Harvard that a religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and is saying that religion is not truth. Unitarians were workers: Clara Barton founded the Red Cross, Unitarian Taft was president, philosopher and theologian Tillich’s deep thoughts on man’s existence and that death is a terminal event. Universalists and Unitarians formed an Association in 1961. They affirm and live this here and now life, not an afterlife. They provide their children with an exposure to several religions to allow them information to choose for themselves. E. M. Wilbur noted that Unitarians enjoy freedom, but dignity does not allow everything. A universal infinite God would have different names in different cultures.
Not deluded by creeds of miracles, unitarians are free to embrace an ultimate concern for objective type truth, required for the time-tested values of honesty, justice, and respect that is both the mandate of the Ten Commandments and the logic of evidence and reason. Derivatives are the humanistic values of forgiveness, kindness, mercy, peace, and grace.
Gordon Chason Miller, BS, MD
Dr. Miller is a retired cardiologist in Bainbridge who enjoys watching UUCT services and appreciates dialectic responses via email at millergordoncmd@gmail.com. His essay “Orthodoxy” is available on Amazon.