Unitarianism is a Nontrinitarian Christian theology which teaches belief in the single personality of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (God as three persons).[1] According to its proponents, Unitarianism reflects the original God-concept of Christianity. The movement has come to be associated with other liberal Christian beliefs as well.
The term Unitarianism (with an upper case "U") customarily refers to a liberal Christian theology. The term unitarian (lower case "u") is used descriptively to refer to anyone adhering to the teaching of the single personhood of God, a wide-ranging category that also includes many conservative evangelical branches which are not the subject of this article. They generally hold similar beliefs to most other evangelical Christians, apart from their rejection of the Trinity doctrine. This version of unitarianism is more commonly called Nontrinitarianism, rather than Unitarianism. There also are some nontrinitarians who, while holding God to be a single person, perceive Jesus to be God himself, and therefore they do not really fall into the usual unitarian category, which typically rejects the idea of Jesus as Almighty God. Instead see: Sabellianism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Monarchianism, Binitarianism, and The New Church.
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Unitarianism, both as a theology and as a denominational family of churches, was first defined and developed within the Protestant Reformation, although theological ancestors may be found back in the early days of Christianity.
The term "Unitarian" has been applied both to those who hold a Unitarian theological belief and to those who belong to a Unitarian church. A hundred years ago, this would not have made much of a difference, but today it is a distinction that needs to be made.
Unitarian theology is distinguishable from the belief system of modern Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships in several countries. This is because over time, some Unitarians and many Unitarian Universalists have moved away from the traditional Christian roots of Unitarianism.[2] For example, in the 1890s the American Unitarian Association began to allow non-Christian and non-theistic churches and individuals to be part of their fellowship.[3]
As a result, people who held no Unitarian belief began to be called "Unitarians," simply because they were members of churches that belonged to the American Unitarian Association. After several decades, the non-theistic members outnumbered the theological Unitarians.[4] A similar, though proportionally much smaller, phenomenon has taken place in the Unitarian churches in the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries, which remain more theistically based.
The remainder of this article includes information about Unitarianism as a theology and about the development of theologically Unitarian churches in several countries around the world. For a more specific discussion of Unitarianism as it evolved into a pluralistic liberal religious movement in the United States and elsewhere in more recent times, see Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist Association, Canadian Unitarian Council, General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, and International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU).
Unitarians believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament and other Early Christian writings. Adhering to strict monotheism, they maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself. They believe Jesus did not claim to be God, nor did his teachings hint at the existence of a triune God. Unitarians believe in the moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity, of Jesus. Their theology is thus distinguishable from the trinitarian theology of most Christian denominations, which hold the idea of a triune God as a core belief.
With regard to Unitarianism proper (the liberal variety), there are common traits to be found, apart from the rejection of the Trinity doctrine. Although there is no specific authority on these convictions, the following represent the most generally accepted:[5]
Unitarians sum up their faith as "the religion of Jesus, not a religion about Jesus." Historically, they have encouraged unorthodox views of God, Jesus, the world and purpose of life as revealed through reason, scholarship, science, philosophy, scripture and other prophets and religions. They believe that reason and belief are complementary and that religion and science can co-exist and guide them in their understanding of nature and God. They also do not enforce belief in creeds or dogmatic formulas. Although there is flexibility in the nuances of belief or basic truths for the individual Unitarian Christian, general principles of faith have been recognized as a way to bind the group in some commonality. Adherents generally accept religious pluralism and find value in all teachings, but remain committed to their core belief in Christ's teachings. Liberal Unitarians value a secular society in which government stays out of religious affairs. Most contemporary Unitarian Christians believe that one's personal moral convictions guide one's political activities, and that a secular society is the most viable, just, and fair society.
Unitarian Christians generally accept the presentation of Jesus in the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but believe that those accounts are not without error. They generally do not believe that Jesus was conceived in the womb of a virgin or performed miracles to the extent reported in the Gospels, for example. They also are more likely than other Christians to find value in early Christian texts that did not make it into the canon of the Christian Bible.
Unitarian Christians reject the doctrine of some Christian denominations that God chooses to redeem or save only those certain individuals that accept the creeds of, or affiliate with a specific Church or religion, from a common ruin or corruption of the mass of humanity. They believe that righteous acts are necessary for redemption, not only faith.
Unitarians are not to be confused with members of the United Church of Christ, the Unity Church, the Universal Life Church, the Unification Church, the United Church of Canada, or the Uniting Church in Australia. In the United States, "Unitarian" is sometimes used as a shortened way of referring to present-day adherents of Unitarian Universalism. However, not all members of the Unitarian Universalist Association are theological Unitarians.
Unitarianism can very loosely be divided into two categories relating to the pre-existence of Christ, and then those not accepting the pre-existence of Christ divided again into churches which believe in the virgin birth and those which believe Jesus was the son of a human father, typically Joseph. All three forms maintain that God is one being and one "person"—the one Jesus called "Our Father". Jesus is the (or a) Son of God, but generally not God himself. However, they differ as to particulars.
The Son of God is a preexistent being, the Logos who dwelt with God in the beginning and then was born as the man Jesus. However, he is not eternal, but had a beginning of existence. This theology is commonly called Arianism, but there are many varieties of this form of Unitarianism, ranging from the belief that the Son, before he came to earth, was a divine spirit of the same nature as God to the belief that he was an angel or other lesser spirit creature of a wholly different nature from God, and Arius' views represent only one variation of this theology.
Whatever the case, in this belief system, Jesus is beneath God, but higher than humans (and has always been so). This concept could be referred to as "elevated subordinationism." It is associated with early church figures such as Payden Martyr, Lucian of Antioch, Eusebius of Caesarea, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Asterius the Sophist, Eunomius, and Ulfilas, as well as Felix, Bishop of Urgel and others who believed that Jesus was God in his divine nature but his divinity in his human nature was through adoption. Arian ideas persist among Unitarians in Transylvania, Hungary, France, and several countries in Africa.[citation needed] Famous 19th century Arian Unitarians include Andrews Norton[6] and Dr. William Ellery Channing.[7]
19th century Unitarians often claimed Isaac Newton, but his Arian ideas predate Unitarianism.[8]
Michael Servetus did not deny the pre-existence of Christ.[9]
Since the 19th century, several Evangelical or Revivalist movements adopted an elevated subordinationist theology (best described as Nontrinitarianism or Semi-Arianism, rather than Unitarianism). Important figures include Barton W. Stone and Charles Taze Russell. Theologies among evangelical nontrinitarians are sometimes classed as Arian,[10] and sometimes Sabellian[11] (Jesus is God in the flesh, the manifestation of God, who exists as a single person). Other modern nontrinitarian churches or fellowships include the Filipino-based Iglesia ni Cristo, the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Christian Churches of God (CCG).[12]
The denial of pre-existence but belief in the virgin birth is sometimes distinguished as Socinianism from Fausto Sozzini.[13] The Christadelphians,[14][15] the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith and the some of the groups which came out of the Way International[16] do not believe in the literal preexistence of Jesus, but do believe in the virgin birth.
This theology ranges from the belief that Jesus was a great man filled with the Holy Spirit, sometimes called Socinianism (or, in the 19th Century, Psilanthropism) to the belief that he is the incarnation of God's impersonal Logos. It is associated with early church figures like the Ebionites, Theodotus of Byzantium, Artemon, and Paul of Samosata in the early Church, Marcellus of Ancyra and his pupil Photinus in the 4th century AD, Ferenc Dávid in the Protestant Reformation.
In modern times we see the psilanthropist view manifested in Rationalist Unitarianism, which emerged from the German Rationalism and the liberal theology of the 19th century. Its proponents took a highly intellectual and humanistic approach to religion, rejecting most of the miraculous events in the Bible (including the virgin birth.) They embraced evolutionary concepts, asserted the "inherent goodness of man" and abandoned the doctrine of biblical infallibility. Rationalist Unitarianism is distinguished from Deism (with which it nevertheless shares many features) by its belief in a personal deity who directly acts on creation, while Deists see God as holding aloof from creation.
Notable Unitarians include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker in theology and ministry, Joseph Priestley and Linus Pauling in science, Susan B. Anthony and Florence Nightingale in humanitarianism and social justice, Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in literature, Frank Lloyd Wright in arts, Josiah Wedgwood in Industry and Charles William Eliot in Education. Five presidents of the United States were Unitarians: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson,John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft.
There are a number of associations, congregations and publications that can be considered as actively involved in the preservation and development of the distinct tradition known as Unitarian Christianity - started by Dávid Ferenc in 1565 in the remaining Hungary (Transylvania) of John II Sigismund Zápolya (later also Unitarian).
Many American Unitarian Christians identify primarily with the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, a sub-group of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which is the result of the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, and is located in the United States. In addition many Unitarian Christian groups are affiliated with the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.
Some organizations, such as the American Unitarian Conference, are independent of the UUA and are not members of the ICUU. Others, such as Bét Dávid Unitarian Association, have recently become associated with the ICUU. They tend to contain a majority membership who express specifically Unitarian Christian beliefs, rather than the religious pluralism of the UUA - nevertheless they remain liberal, open-minded and inclusive communities.
The Unitarian Christian Association (UK) and Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (USA) maintain formal links with their national movements and the majority of their membership describe themselves as Christian. There are also numerous local British Unitarian and UUA affiliated congregations which have a Christian majority.
The Unitarian Church in Hungary and the Transylvanian Unitarian Church are affiliated with the ICUU and continue with the historical Unitarian Christian tradition established by Dávid Ferenc (aka Francis David). The Unitarian churches in Hungary and Transylvania are structured and organized along a church hierarchy that includes the election by the Synod of a national Bishop who serves as superintendent of the Church. Many Hungarian Unitarians embrace the principles of Rationalist UnitarianismThe only Unitarian high schools in the world exist in Translyvania (Romania), these have rich traditions with many notable graduates among its ranks: John Sigismund Unitarian Academy in Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár, Klausenburg), Romania and the Berde Mózes Unitárius Gimnázium in Székelykeresztúr and they both teach Rationalist Unitarianism.
The majority of Unitarian Christian publications are sponsored by an organization and published specifically for their membership. They generally do not serve as a tool for missionary work or encouraging conversions.
In recent years there has been a relatively small, yet significant, growth in groups with a specifically Unitarian Christian outlook and ethos. The Congregazione Italiana Cristiana Unitariana (Italy) and Bét Dávid Unitarian Association (Norway) are two examples of this trend. There are also reports of the development of Unitarian Christian groups in African countries such as Burundi. Some of these groups are joining the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, either as Emerging Groups or as Associates, as they gain a solid organizational structure.
There is a noticeable presence of Unitarian Christians on the internet, such as the Restoration Fellowship and Unitarian Ministries. Online networks have been growing steadily for some time attracting members from across the world. Many Unitarian Christians who join these networks do not have a congregation in their locality and so rely on the internet as the main contact with their fellow believers.
When Unitarianism developed in the 1600s during the Protestant era of the evolution of Christianity, the strongholds in Transylvania, Poland, and eventually Britain and the northeastern parts of the United States were firmly in the congregational tradition in the English-speaking countries. In the Hungarian-speaking territories it adopted a governance system that combined the Synodal and Episcopal models.
For those churches under the congregational model, each church governed itself independently of a hierarchical authority. These small congregations did belong, however, to more formal associations of churches. The American Unitarian Association, formed in 1825, was one of these. Later, in 1961, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America merged to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), which is the largest organization of Unitarians in the US. The UUA is no longer an explicitly Christian organization and does not focus exclusively on the core teachings of Jesus Christ or Christianity.
Several Unitarian organizations still promote Christianity as their central theme including the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (UUCF, an affiliate of the UUA), the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (GAUFCC) of the United Kingdom, and the Unitarian Christian Association (UCA, an affiliate of the GAUFCC).
In the US, the newest organization promoting a return to the theistic roots of Unitarianism is the American Unitarian Conference (AUC), formed in 2000. The AUC's stated goal is to formulate and promote classical Unitarian-based, unifying religious convictions, which balance the needs of members with a practical approach to inclusion and progressive free thought.
The adoption of Unitarian belief almost always entails severance of identification with "Christianity" as it is formulated in the creeds of the Nicene and pre-Chalcedonian churches (Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestants). Unitarianism is outside of the fellowship of these traditions. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant creeds of various stripes insist on trinitarian belief as an essential of Christianity and basic to a group's continuity of identity with the historical Christian faith.
As a tradition founded by dissenters from mainstream Christian churches, and traditionally denounced as heretics, it is difficult to see the emergence of Unitarian groups in areas dominated by existing Christian denominations.
However, occasionally, especially in Protestant history, traditionally trinitarian groups grow friendly to, or incorporate, unitarianism. Friendliness toward unitarianism has sometimes gone hand-in-hand with anti-Catholicism. In some cases non-trinitarian or unitarian belief has been adopted by some, and tolerated in Christian churches as a "non-essential". This was the case in the English Presbyterian Church, and in the Congregational Church in New England late in the 18th century. The Restoration Movement also attempted to forge a compatible relation between Trinitarians and Unitarians, as did the Seventh Day Baptists and various Adventists. The Seventh Day Baptists hold Unitarian Doctrines in their International Conference but became Trinitarians in the US. The Unitarian tendency in these last-mentioned groups came from their original theology and a total rejection of the Catholic explanation and acceptance of Trinitarianism and the Trinitarian Christian tradition of interpretation.
In some cases, this openness to unitarianism within traditionally trinitarian churches has been inspired by a very broad ecumenical motive. Modern liberal Protestant denominations are often accused by trinitarians within their ranks, and critics outside, of being indifferent to the doctrine, and therefore self-isolated from their respective trinitarian pasts and heritage. In some cases, it is charged that these trinitarian denominations are no longer Christian, because of their toleration of unitarian belief among their teachers, and in their seminaries.
At a local level, many Unitarian Christian groups - and individual Unitarian Christians - have links with congregations affiliated with the United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Unity Church. Indeed, some argue they feel more at home within these denominations than Unitarian-Universalism. A small proportion of Unitarian Christians also have links with Progressive Christianity.
Despite the close friendship and shared heritage that exists between adherents to Unitarian Universalism and Unitarian Christianity, there is an element within Unitarian Universalism that opposes specifically Unitarian Christian groups, believing them to be exclusive and intolerant of non-Christian thought. Likewise, some Unitarian Christians also believe that Unitarian Universalists are intolerant of Christian thought and tend to marginalize Christians.
The American Unitarian Conference is open to non-Christian Unitarians - being particularly popular with non-Christian theists and deists. In addition, the Bét Dávid Unitarian Association (Norway) has forged positive and mutual friendships with Jewish groups.
The Unitarian Universalist Association do not currently have any formal links with the Biblical Unitarian movements in the United States - the two communities should be regarded as separate and distinct.
Here ... Here ... In This Marked Place We Searched for Truth. The story of a remarkable Congregation: LASCAUX and the NORTH SHORE UNITARIAN CHURCH http://www.dirsmithgroup.com/FGW/Lascaux.htm
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UNITARIANISM, a system of Christian thought and religious observance, based, as opposed to orthodox Trinitarianism, on the unipersonality of the Godhead, i.e. that the Godhead exists in the person of the Father alone. Unitarians carry their history up to the Apostolic age, claim for their doctrine a prevalence during the ante-Nicene period, and by help of Arian communities and individual thinkers trace a continuity of their views to the present time. However this may be, it is certain that the Reformaticn of the 16th century was in every European country attended by an outbreak more or less serious of anti-Trinitarian opinion. Suppressed as a rule in individual cases, this type of doctrine ultimately became the badge of separate religious communities, in Poland (extinct), in Hungary (still flourishing), and at a much later date in England.
Along with the fundamental doctrine, certain characteristics have
always marked its professors; namely, a large degree of toleration, a minimizing
of essentials, a repugnance to formulated creed, an historical
study of Scripture. Martin Cellarius (1499-1564) a friend of
Luther, is usually regarded as the first literary pioneer (1527) of the movement;
the anti-Trinitarian position of Ludwig Haetzer was not disclosed till after his
execution (5529) for anabaptism. Both by his writings (from 1531)
and by his fate (1553) Servetus (q.v.) stimulated thought in this
direction. The Dialogues (1563) of Bernardino
Ochino, while defending the Trinity, stated objections and
difficulties with a force which captivated many. In his 27th Dialogue Ochino points to
Hungary as a possible home of religious liberty. It was in Poland
and Hungary that religious communities, definitely
anti-Trinitarian, were first formed and tolerated.
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Scattered expressions of anti-Trinitarian opinion appear here early. At the age of 80, Catherine, wife of Melchior Vogel or Weygel, was burned at Cracow (1539) for apostasy; whether her views embraced more than deism is not clear. The first synod of the Reformed Church was held in 1555; at the second (1556), Gregory Pauli and Peter Gonesius avowed anti-Trinitarian and anabaptist views. The arrival of Blandrata in 1558 furnished the party with a leader. In 1565 the diet of Piotrkow excluded anti-Trinitarians from the existing synod; henceforward they held their own synods as the Minor Church. Known by various other names (of which Arian was the most common), at no time in its history did this body adopt for itself any designation save Christian.
Originally Arian (though excluding any worship of Christ) and
anabaptist, the Minor Church was (by 1588) brought round to his own
views by Fausto Sozzini, who had settled in Poland in 1579 (see
SoclNus). In 1602 James Sienynski established at Rakow a college
and a printing-press, from
which the Racovian Catechism was issued in 1605. In 1610 a
Catholic reaction began,
led by Jesuits. The
establishment at Rakow was suppressed in 1638, two lads having
pelted a crucifix outside the town. Twenty years later the Polish
Diet gave anti-Trinitarians the option of conformity or exile.
The Minor Church included many Polish magnates, but their adoption
of the views of Sozzini, which precluded Christians from
magisterial office, rendered them politically powerless. The
execution of the decree,
hastened by a year, took place in 1660. Some conformed; a large
number made their way to Holland (where the Remonstrants admitted
them to membership on the basis of the Apostles' Creed); others to
the German frontier; a contingent settled in Tran sylvania, not
joining the Unitarian Church, but maintaining a distinct
organization at Kolozsvar till 1793. At Amsterdam was published (1665-1669)
the Bibliotheca fratrum polonorum, embracing the works of
Hans Krell, their leading theologian, of Jonas Schlichting, their
chief commentator, of Sozzini and of Johann Ludwig Wolzogen; the
title-page of this collection,
bearing the words quos Unitarios vocant, introduced this
term to Western Europe.
No distinct trace of anti-Trinitarian opinion precedes the appearance of Blandrata at the Transylvanian court in 1563. His influence was exerted on Francis David (1510-1579), who was successively Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist and anti-Trinitarian. In 1564 David was elected by the Calvinists as "bishop of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania," and appointed court preacher to John Sigismund, prince of Transylvania. His discussion of the Trinity began (1565) with doubts of the personality of the Holy Ghost.
His antagonist in public disputations was the Calvinist leader,
Peter Juhasz (Melius); his supporter was Blandrata. John Sigismund,
adopting his court-preacher's views, issued (1568) an edict of religious liberty at the
Torda Diet, which allowed David (retaining his existing title) to
transfer his episcopate from the Calvinists to the
anti-Trinitarians, Kolozsvar being evacuated by all but his
followers. In 1571, John Sigismund was succeeded by Stephen
Bathory, a Catholic, and trouble began. Under the influence of
John Sommer, rector of the Kolozsvar gymnasium, David (about
1572) abandoned the worship of Christ. The attempted accommodation by Sozzini only
precipitated matters; tried as an innovator, David died in prison at Deva (1579).
The cultus of Christ became an established usage of the Church; it
is recognized in the 1837 edition of the official hymnal, but
removed in the edition of 1865. On the other hand, in 1621 a new sect arose, the Sabbatarii,
with strong Judaic tendencies; though excluded from toleration they
maintained an existence till 5848. The term unitarius
(said to have been introduced by Melius, in discussions of
1569-1571) makes its first documentary appearance in a decree of
the Lecsfalva Diet (1600); it was not officially adopted by the
Church till 1638.
Of the line of twenty-three bishops the most distinguished were George
Enyedi (1592-1597), whose Explicationes obtained European
vogue, and Michael Lombard Szentabrahami (1737-1758), who rallied
the forces of his Church, broken by persecution and deprivation of
property, and gave them their existing constitution. His Summa
universae theologiae secundum Unitarios (1787), Socinian with
Arminian modifications, was accepted by Joseph II. as the official manifesto of
doctrine, and so remains, though no subscription to it has ever
been required.
The official title is the Hungarian Unitarian Church, with a
membership of over 60,000, most of thefn in Transylvania,
especially among the Szekler population, a few in Hungary; their
bishop has a seat in the Hungarian parliament. At Kolozsvar, the
seat of the consistory, is the principal college; others
are at Torda and at Szekely-Keresztur. Till 1818 the continued
existence of this body was unknown to English Unitarians; relations
have since become intimate; since 1860 a succession of students
have finished their theological education at Manchester College, Oxford; others at the Unitarian Home Missionary
College.
Between 1548 '(John Assheton) and 1612 we have a thin line of anti-Trinitarians, either executed or saved by recantation. Those burned were George van Parris (1551), Flemish surgeon; Patrick Pakingham (1555), fellmonger; Matthew Hamont (1579), ploughwright; John Lewes (1583);(1583); Peter Cole (1587), tanner; Francis Kett (5589), physician and author; Bartholomew Legate (5652), cloth-dealer, last of the Smithfield victims; and the twice-burned fanatic Edward Wightman (1612). In all these cases the virus seems to have come from Holland; the last two executions followed the rash dedication to James I. of the Latin version of the Racovian Catechism (1609).
The vogue of Socinian views, which for a time affected men like Falkland and Chillingworth,
led to the abortive fourth canon
of 1640 against Socinian books. The ordinance of 1648 made denial of the Trinity
capital, but it was a dead letter, Cromwell intervening in the
cases of Paul Best (1590-1657) and John Biddle (1616-1662). In 1650 John
Knowles was an Arian lay-preacher at Chester. In1652-1654and1658-1662Biddle held a
Socinian conventicle in London; in addition to his own writings he
reprinted (1651) and translated (1652) the Racovian
Catechism, and the Life of Socinus (1653). His disciple Thomas Firmin (1632-1697), mercer and philanthropist, and
friend of Tillotson, was weaned to Sabellian views by Stephen Nye
(1648-1719), a clergyman. Firmin promoted a remarkable series of
controversial tracts (1690-1699).
The term "Unitarian" first emerges in 1682, and appears in the
title of the Brief History (1687). It was construed in a
broad sense to cover all who, with whatever differences, held the
unipersonalityof the Divine Being. Firmin had later a project of
Unitarian societies "within the Church"; the first preacher to
describe himself as Unitarian was Thomas Emlyn (1663-1741) who gathered a
London congregation in 1705.
This was contrary to the Toleration Act of 1689, which excluded all
who should preach or write against the Trinity. It is noteworthy
that in England the Socinian controversy, initiated by Biddle,
preceded the Arian controversy initiated by Samuel Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of
the Trinity (1712). Arian or semi-Arian views had much vogue during
the 18th century, both in the Church and in dissent.
The free atmosphere of
dissenting academies
(colleges) favoured new ideas. The effect of the Salters' Hall
conference (1719), called for by the alleged heresy of James. Peirce (1673-1726) of Exeter, was to leave dissenting
congregations to determine their own orthodoxy; the General Baptists had already (1700)
condoned defections from the common doctrine. In 1689 Presbyterians
and Independents
had coalesced, agreeing to drop both names and to support a common
fund.
The union in the London fund was ruptured in 1693; in course of
time differences in the administration of the two funds led to the
attaching of the Presbyterian name to theological liberals, though
many of the older Unitarian chapels were Independent foundations,
and at least half of the Presbyterian chapels (of 1690-1710) are
now in the hands of Congregationalists. Leaders in the advocacy of
a purely humanitarian christology came largely from the
Independents, e.g. Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), Caleb Fleming (1698-1779), Joseph
Priestley (1733-1804), Thomas Belsham (1750-1829).
The formation of a distinct Unitarian denomination dates from the secession (1 773)
of Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) from
the Anglican Church, on the failure of the Feathers petition to parliament (1772)
for relief from subscription. Lindsey's secession had been preceded
in Ireland by that of William
Robertson, D. D. (1705-1783), who has been called "the father
of Unitarian nonconformity." It was followed by other clerical
secessions, mostly of men who left the ministry, and Lindsey's hope
of a Unitarian movement from the Anglican Church was
disappointed.
By degrees his type of theology superseded Arianism in a considerable
number of dissenting congregations. The Toleration Act was amended
(1779) by substituting belief in Scripture for belief in the
Anglican (doctrinal) articles; in 1813 the penal acts against
deniers of the Trinity were repealed. In 1825 the British and
Foreign Unitarian Association was formed as an amalgamation of
three older societies, for literature (1791), mission work (1806)
and civil rights (1818). Attacks were made on properties held by
Unitarians, but created prior to 181 3.
The Wolverhampton Chapel case began in 1817, the more important
Hewley Fund case in 1830; both were decided against the Unitarians
in 1842. Appeal to parliament resulted in the Dissenters' Chapels
Act (1844), which secures that, so far as trusts do not specify doctrines, twenty-five
years tenure legitimates
existing usage.
The drier Priestley-Belsham type of Unitarianism, bound up with a
determinist philosophy, was gradually modified by the
influence of Channing (see below), whose works were reprinted in
numerous editions and owed a wide circulation to the efforts of
Robert Spears (1825-1899). Another American influence, potent in
reducing the rigid though limited supernaturalism of Belsham and
his successors, was that of Theodore Parker (1810-1860). At home
the teaching of James Martineau (1805-1900), resisted
at first, was at length powerfully felt, seconded as it was by the
influence of John James Tayler (1797-1869) and John Hamilton Thom
(1808-1894).
The body has produced some remarkable scholars, e.g. John
Kenrick (1788-1877), James Yates (1789-1871), Samuel Sharpe
(1799-1881), but few very popular preachers, though George Harris (1794-1859) is
an exception. Its year-book specifies 406 congregations in England
and Wales. For the education of
its ministry it supports Manchester College at Oxford (which
deduces its ancestry from the academy of Richard Frankland, begun
1670), the Unitarian Home Missionary College (founded in Manchester
in 1854 by John Relly Beard,
D.D., and William Gaskell), and the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen.
English Unitarian periodical literature begins with Priestley's
Theological Repository (1769-1788), and includes the
Monthly Repository (1806-1838), The Christian
Reformer (1834-1863), the Prospective Review
(1845-1854), the National Review (1855-1864), the
Theological Review (1864-1879), and now the Hibbert
Journal, one of the enterprises of the Ilibbert Trust, founded by Robert Hibbert
(1770-1849) and originally designated the Anti-Trinitarian
Fund.
This came into operation in 1853, awards scholarships and
fellowships, supported (1878-1894) an annual lectureship, and has
maintained (from 1894) a chair of ecclesiastical history at
Manchester College. The general activities of the body are
conducted partly by its association (Essex Street, Strand), partly
by its (triennial) National Conference, established 1882. It has
two weekly papers, the Inquirer and the Christian
Life. Scotland. -
Much has been made of the execution (1697) at Edinburgh of the student
Thomas Aikenhead, convicted of blaspheming the Trinity.
The works of John
Taylor, D.D. (1694-1761) on original sin and atonement had much influence in the east of
Scotland, as we learn from Robert Burns; and such men as William
Dalrymple, D.D. (1723-1814) and William M`Gill, D.D. (1732-1807),
along with other "moderates," were under suspicion of similar
heresies. Overt Unitarianism has never had much vogue in Scotland.
The only congregation of old foundation is at Edinburgh, founded in
1776 by a secession from one of the "fellowship societies" formed
by James Fraser,
of Brea (1639-1699).
The mission enterprises of Richard Wright (1764-1836) and George
Harris (1794-1859) produced results of no great permanence. There
are now seven congregations. The Scottish Unitarian Association was
founded in 1813, mainly by Thomas Southwood Smith, M.D.,
the sanitary reformer. The McQuaker Trust was founded (1889) for
propagandist purposes.
Controversy respecting the Trinity was excited in Ireland by the prosecution at Dublin (1703) of Thomas Emlyn (see above), resulting in fine and imprisonment, for rejecting the deity of Christ. In 1705 the Belfast Society was founded for theological discussion by Presbyterian ministers in the north, with the result of creating a body of opinion adverse to subscription to the Westminster standards. Toleration of dissent, withheld in Ireland till 1719, was then granted without the requirement of any doctrinal subscription.
Next year a movement against subscription was begun in the General
Synod of Ulster, culminating
(1725) in the placing of the advocates of non-subscription, headed
by John
Abernethy, D.D., of Antrim, into a presbytery by themselves. This Antrim
presbytery was excluded (1726) from jurisdiction, though not from
communion. During the next hundred years its members exercised
great influence on their brethren of the synod; but the
counterinfluence of the mission of the Scottish Seceders (from
1742) produced a reaction.
The Antrim Presbytery gradually became Arian; the same type of
theology affected more or less the Southern Association, known
since 1806 as the Synod of Munster. From 1783 ten of the fourteen
presbyteries in the General Synod had made subscription optional;
the synod's code of 1824 left "soundness in the faith" to be
ascertained by subscription or by examination. Against this compromise Henry Cooke, D.D. (1788-1868),
directed all his powers, and was ultimately (1829) successful in
defeating his Arian opponent, Henry Montgomery, LL.D.
(1788-1865).
Montgomery led a
secession which formed (1830) the Remonstrant Synod, comprising
three presbyteries. In 1910 the Antrim Presbytery, Remonstrant
Synod and Synod of Munster were united as the General Synod of the
non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of
Ireland. They have 38 congregations and some mission stations. Till
1889 they maintained two theological chairs in Belfast, where John
Scott Porter (1801-1880) was a
pioneer in biblical criticism; they now send their students to
England for their theological education, though in certain respects
their views and practices are more conservative than those of their
English brethren.
Irish Unitarian periodical literature began in 1832 with the Bible Christian, followed by
the Irish Unitarian Magazine, the Christian
Unitarian, the Disciple and now the
Non-subscribing Presbyterian. See generally R. Wallace's
Antitrinitarian Biog. (1850); G. BonetMaury's Early
Sources of Eng. Unit. Christianity, trans. E. P. Hall
(1884); A. Gordon's Heads of Eng. Unit. Hist. (1895). (A.
Go.*) United States. - Unitarianism in the
United States followed essentially the same development as in
England, and passed through the stages of Arminianism, Arianism,
anti-tritheism, to rationalism and a modernism based on a
large-minded acceptance of the results of the comparative study of
all religions.
In the early 18th century Arminianism presented itself in New England, and
sporadically elsewhere; this tendency was largely accelerated by
the reaction from the excesses of the "Great Awakening" under Jonathan
Edwards and George Whitefield. Before the War of
Independence Arianism showed itself in individual instances, and
French influences were widespread in the direction of deism, though
they were not organized into any definite utterance by religious
bodies.
As early as the middle of the 18th century Harvard College
represented the most advanced thought of the time, and a score or more of clergymen in New
England were preaching
what was essentially Unitarianism. The most prominent of these men
was Jonathan
Mayhew (1720-1766), pastor of the West Church in Boston from 1747 to 1766. He
preached the strict unity of God, the subordinate nature of Christ,
and salvation by character. Charles Chauncy (1705-1787), pastor of
the First Church from 1727 until his death, the chief opponent of
Edwards in the great revival, was both a Unitarian and a
Universalist. Ebenezer Gay (1696-1787) of Hingham, Samuel West (1730-1807) of New Bedford, Thomas
Barnard (1748-1814) of Newbury, John Prince (1751-1836) and William
Bentley (1758-1819) of Salem, Aaron Bancroft (1755-1836) of Worcester, and several
others, were Unitarians.
The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of
a congregation was by King's Chapel in Boston, which settled James
Freeman (1759-1853) in 1782, and revised the Prayer Book into a mild Unitarian liturgy, in 1785. The Rev. William Hazlitt
(father of the essayist and critic), visiting the United States in
1783-1785, published the fact that there were Unitarians in Philadelphia, Boston,
Charleston, Pittsburg,
Hallowell, on Cape Cod and
elsewhere. Unitarian congregations were organized at Portland and Saco in 1792 by Thomas Oxnard; in 1800 the First
Church in Plymouth accepted the more liberal faith. Joseph
Priestley came to the United States in 1794, and organized a
Unitarian Church at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, the same year, and one at
Philadelphia in 1796. His writings had a considerable
influence.
Thus from 1725 to 1825 a more tolerant and rational belief was
developing in New England, and to some extent elsewhere. The first
distinctive manifestation of the change was the inauguration of
Henry Ware (1764-1845) as professor of divinity at Harvard College,
in 1805. In the same year appeared Unitarian books by John Sherman
(1772-1828) and Hosea
Ballou (1771-1852), and another in 1810 by Noah Worcester (1758-1837). At the opening of the
19th century, with one exception, all the churches of Boston were
occupied by Unitarian preachers, and various periodicals and organizations expressed
their opinions. Churches were established in New York, Baltimore, Washington, Charleston and
elsewhere during this period.
William Ellery Channing was
settled over the Federal Street Congregational Church, Boston,
1803; and in a few years he became the leader of the Unitarian
movement. At first mystical rather than rationalistic in his
theology, he took part with the "Catholic Christians," as they
called themselves, who aimed at bringing Christianity into harmony
with the progressive spirit of the time. His essays on The
System of Exclusion and Denunciation in Religion (1815), and
Objections to Unitarian Christianity Considered (1819),
made him a defender of Unitarianism.
His sermon on "Unitarian
Christianity," preached at Baltimore in 1819, at the ordination of
Jared Sparks, and
that at New York in 1821, on
"Unitarian Christianity most favourable to Piety," made him its
interpreter. The result was a growing division in the
Congregational churches, which was emphasized in 1825 by the
formation of the American Unitarian Association at Boston. It was
organized "to diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests of
pure Christianity"; and it published tracts and books, supported
poor churches, sent out missionaries into every part of the
country, and established new churches in nearly all the states.
Essentially non-sectarian, with little missionary zeal, the
Unitarian movement has grown slowly; and its influence has been
chiefly exercised through general culture and the better literature
of the country. Many of its clergymen have been trained in other
denominations; but the Harvard Divinity School was distinctly
Unitarian from its formation, in 1816, to 1870, when it became an
unsectarian department of the university. The Meadville (Pa.) Theological School was
founded in 1844; and the Unitarian Theological School at Berkeley, California, in 1904.
Unitarian thought in the United States has passed through three
periods. The first, from 1800 to 1835, was formative, mainly
influenced by English philosophy, semi-supernatural, imperfectly
rationalistic, devoted to philanthropy and practical Christianity.
Dr Channing was its distinguished exponent. The second, from 1835
to 1885, profoundly influenced by German idealism, was increasingly rationalistic,
though its theology was largely flavoured by mysticism. In 1865 the National Unitarian
Conference was organized, and adopted a distinctly Christian platform„ affirming that its
members were "disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ."
The more rationalistic minority thereupon formed the Free Religious
Association, "to encourage the scientific study of theology and to
increase fellowship in the spirit." The Western Unitarian
Association accepted the same position, and based its "fellowship
on no dogmatic tests," but affirmed a desire "to establish truth,
righteousness and love in the world." This period of controversy,
and of vigorous theological development, practically came to an end
soon after 1885; and its cessation was assured by the action of the
national conference at Saratoga in 1894, when it was affirmed by a
nearly unanimous vote: "These churches accept the religion of
Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical
religion is summed up in love to God and love to man.
The conference recognizes the fact that its constituency is Congregational in
tradition and polity. Therefore it declares that nothing in this
constitution is to be construed as an authoritative test; and we
cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing
from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our
practical aims." The leaders of this period were Emerson, with his
idealism, and Theodore Parker, with his acceptance of Christianity
as absolute religion.
The third period, beginning about 1885, has been one of
rationalism, recognition of universal religion, large acceptance of
the scientific method and ideas and an ethical attempt to realize
the higher affirmations of Christianity. It has been marked by
harmony and unity to a degree perhaps found in no other religious
body, by steady growth in the number of churches and by a widening
fellowship with all other progressive phases of modern
religion.
This last phase has been shown in the organization of "The
International Council of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious
Thinkers and Workers," at Boston on the 25th of May 1900, "to open
communication with those in all lands who are striving to unite
pure religion and perfect liberty, and to increase fellowship and
co-operation among
them." This council has held biennial sessions in London,
Amsterdam, Geneva and Boston.
During the period since 1885 the influence of Emerson has become
predominant, modified by the more scientific preaching of Minot J.
Savage, who has found his
guides in Darwin and Spencer.
Beyond its own borders the body has obtained recognition through
the public work of such men as Henry Whitney Bellows and Edward
Everett Hale, the remarkable influence of James Freeman Clarke
and the popular power of Robert Collyer. The number of Unitarian
churches in the United States in 1909 was 461, with 541 ministers.
The church membership, really nominal, may be estimated at 100,000.
The periodicals are The Christian Register, weekly, Boston; Unity,
weekly, Chicago; The
Unitarian, monthly, New York; Old and New, monthly,
Des Moines;
Pacific Unitarian, San Francisco.
See Joseph Henry
Allen, Our Liberal Movement in Theology (Boston, 1882),
and Sequel to our Liberal Movement (Boston, 1897); John
White Chadwick, Old and New Unitarian Belief (Boston,
1894), and specially William Ellery Channing (1903);
Unitarianism: its Origin and History, a course of Sixteen
Lectures (Boston, 1895) George Willis Cooke, Unitarianism
in America: a History of its
Origin and Development (Boston, 1902); and Unitarian Year
Book (Boston). (G. W. C.*)
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