AboutJon Bond Expertise Will answer all questions regarding Unitarian Universalist (UU)church; including ancient history (Universalists go back to at least 250 A.D.) and medieval history (Unitarians look to 1553 A.D. as their beginning) up to merger of the two movements in 1961 and continuing up to present. Am familiar with Christian church organizations and relationship of UUs to traditional churches.
Experience Currently member of Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado. Past vice-president of Board of Trustees and currently on Membership Committee. Have taught UU history for over 20 years. Have attended Unitarian Universalist General Assemblies (annual meetings held in June) for past 15 years.
Organizations Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado
Expert: Jon Bond Date: 12/28/2004 Subject: doctrine
Question The Unitarians I know are pretty much secular humanists with no firm doctrinal positions other than all roads lead to the same place. Can you tell me succinctly what Unitarian doctrine is please.
Answer Hello Bob Davis -
I'll try to answer your question. Remember, I'm one of over 250,000 people in the UU Association and, if you ask another UU (Unitarian Universalist), you may get a different (but, hopefully, not conflicting) answer. I'd like to divide my answer into two parts: first, a background of our association, then secondly; I will discuss UUs secular humanism and, then, what UU doctrine might be. Hopefully, you'll see that not all UUs believe that "all roads lead to the same place."
First , a background (including when the two groups originated):
The concept of Unitarianism generally looks to a Catholic priest, Michael Servetus, as a spiritual originator. Servetus was born in Spain in 1511 and died in 1553, after attacking the doctrines of the Trinity. Unitarianism is a doctrinal system characterized chiefly by a belief in the unipersonality of God and the normal humanity of Jesus, as contrasted with the Trinity and the eternal deity (divinity) of Jesus. Most Unitarians I've spoken with reject the divinity of Jesus, but do recognize him (Jesus) as a great moral teacher
Universalism is the theological doctrine that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there are no torments of hell. Universalism has been asserted at various times in different contexts throughout the history of the "Christian church"--e.g., Origen in the 3rd century. The Universalists also denied the miraculous element in Scripture, and rejected such important Bible doctrines as the total depravity of man and the Trinity.
The Unitarian Universalist Association was created in May of 1961 as a merger of Unitarians and Universalists.
Second - I'll try to develop a long answer for you to see where/how/what we believe in. To do that, we have some survey results on what our members believe. Recently (in the last six years), the UU organization took a survey to find out what we believe is important in our religious lives.
Almost 10,000 Unitarian Universalists took the time to fill out and return the survey, giving us all an invaluable snapshot of who we are. Our association has been enriched by the knowledge gained from the answers many UUs provided.
This survey began a process designed to reach out to all UU individuals and congregations called "Fulfilling the Promise." This Concept was set in motion by the Unitarian Universalist Association's Board of Trustees. Its goal was to help us move toward agreement about why we come together as congregations and as an association and what we hope to accomplish.
The survey questions came from individual UUs, as did the suggested responses. More than 500 people helped create this survey. Bob Davis, you may, as you look through this statistical list, find your own experience reflected in the questions and answers, even if the exact language you would use is not perfectly captured here.
What follows are the total tabulations for the first 8118 surveys. At least one question deals with theological perspective. Question number 30 results follow:
Question 30 - Please check the one of the following which best describes your theological perspective:
The balance of the questions (age, sex, length of church membership, etc.), gave us a picture of who are demographically and as church persons. They provide a picture of what we say our values in religious community are.
Bob Davis, you are correct when you say that many UUs follow a Humanist path, but there are also UUs that follow the path of Christianity and there are followers of the Buddhist, Jewish, Moslem traditions, in addition to agnostic and Earth/Nature centered groups. But, I would imagine that even those UUs who consider themselves "Christian" are exponentially more liberal than the usual Christian you might find.
We (UUs) don't have a single doctrine. We do have a statement of Principles and Purposes. You're on the right track. For more information, please feel free to check out our web site http://uua.org/ Also, a good book to check on is "The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide," ISBN 0-933840-45-4
