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Unitarianism

     Unitarianism emerged in the eighteenth century United States.  Although derived from Anglican and Congregationalist movements, it objected to a variety of traditional Christian teachings, including: the Trinity, the infallibility of the Bible, and the doctrine of original sin. Belief in the oneness of God is the source of the "Unitarian" name.  The church's early history, then firmly rooted in Christian precepts, was guided primarily by William Ellery Channing and faculty and students at the Harvard Divinity School and College.  Over the past two hundred years, Unitarianism has gradually transformed itself from this distinctly Christian vantage into an ethically oriented, humanistic, and sometimes theistic religion.  Contemporarily, it takes personal experience, conscience, and reason, rather than religious texts, as the final authorities on spiritual matters; resists binding creeds; celebrates truths offered by a variety of Christian and non-Christian teachers and sages; and promotes ethical living as the supreme witness of religious faith.  In 1961, Unitarians merged with Universalists, who shared their belief that salvation is universal instead of limited to an elect number, to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.  This body is today the national organization for the church.

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Topeka, KS, 03, NJ