The Unitarian Church

why do they call themselves universalist then if they exist mostly on one northeast corner of a continent on a small planet in the milky galaxy which is just one of countless trillions of galaxies in the universe?

 

We have plans Chief. We have plans.

 

Unitarian Outreach Conference

 

Apparently the Chief is making a reference to the joke about a militant Unitarian in the 60s. The punch line was that instead of burning crosses on people’s lawns, he burned question marks on people’s lawns.

Buh duh bum !

 

Both Unitarianism and Universalism started out with some of the best of intentions. Unfortunately, over the years both faiths were inundated-and in my opinion infiltrated-with belief systems that were many, if not most times, not religious in nature. This included humanism, among other belief systems. By the middle of the twentieth century, the respective faiths had been reduced in size so much so that they merged in 1961. This merger took on the name "Unitarian-Universalist Association."

Today, the 'faith' is what I'll describe as liberal religion gone astray. What Unitarian-Universalists (or UUs) need to understand is that if they are ever to have a relevant impact on spiritual matters, they need to become more grounded. Simply discrediting fundamentalists and others of like mind will not work. UUs need to be more knowledgeable on Biblical matters than the fundamentalists are. To do this, UUs and other religious liberals need to understand what the message that scripture was really trying to convene when it was being written. When they're able to do this, they'll be better able to handle confrontations when dealing with their religious adversaries.

There have been a few splinter groups which have formed from disenfranchised UUs and others of like mind. Check out the following:
http://www.americanunitarian.org/
http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/uc/wuf.html
http://www.christian-universalism.com/

 

Oh thats just funny lol

 

I thought the only difference (major one anyways) was that unitarians do not accept the trinity?

 

Are we talking about UU's here?

Cause as much as I know, they arent
really christian at all.

 

Classical Unitarians are monotheistic in doctrine but do not accept the trinity. Some of these individuals may be congergants of a UUA affiliated church, others not. A relatively new denomination of theistic Unitarians formed a new denomination a few years back, known as the American Unitarian Conference.

Modern Unitarian-Universalists come from numerous faith persuasuions. Some are christian, others pagan, humanists, agnostics, and the list goes on. Granted, Christians make up a small percentage of the denomimation's members. There are also groups within the denomination which cater to each of these different schools of thought. The UU Christian Fellowship website is:
http://www.uucf.uua.org/index.html

 

only 10% of UUs consider themselves Christian [from Religious Tolerance.com in the Chrisitianity section]

 

I didn't know the exact percentage, but I'm not surprised.

 

Ok, so heres some info on UUs

We started out as 2 groups of people, the Unitarians and the Universalists. The Uniatrians believed that there is one God, no trinity. The Universalists believed that everyone is resposable for there own religion, no creed. They both got kicked out of the churches. So they started new churches, but because there numbers were so low they combined and now we are unitarian universalist or unavisalist unitarian. As for being agnostic, yes, there are some agnostics. The minster at my church is agnostic. There also many other religions, including pagans, buhdists, athiests, jews, ect.

 

What do you minister if you are agnostic?

 

Well, why not? Shes agnostic, not athiest.

 

OH ok, so she ministers confusion and not knowing.

atheist dont believe in anything, agnostics dont know
what to believe, so again, how can she minister?

 

No, thats not it at all. She knows what she believes, morals and such, what you should and should not do, being there for people, but she does not preach about God that much. For the reason that she believes that no one really knows who God is, and what God is the correct God. We have a lot of diffrent religions in our conrigation so she is kind of like all the religions together.

 

I doubt this, at least as I understand it. While you're correct on the concept of unitarianism, universalists and universalism origionally rejected the concept of eternal damnation and that salvation was meant for all, not just a select few as many christian denominations of the day believed. As I understand it, The non-creedal aspect probably came along after both churches were established.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, both the Unitarian and Universalist churches absorbed many different philosophical movements including humanism and others. The spiritual element of some of these movements were arguably lacking. This resulted in a great deal of disenfranchisement. While both movements had a somewhat strong presence in their infancy, by the time that the middle of the twentieth century came about, both churches had experienced so much attrition in membership that they decided on a merger, which took place in 1961.

In recent years, many disenfranchised religious liberals who believed that the Unitarian-Universalist Association has gone astray have started up other denominations or other movements in other established churches.
http://www.americanunitarian.org/
http://www.christian-universalism.com/
http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/uc/wuf.html
http://www.universalistchristians.org/

 

this is the history I have come to learn of our church, and my previous church. My current church was started in the 1800s as a universalist church and later become universalist unitarian church...

 

The claims which I made above came from booklets which I received at a UU congregation over a decade ago as well as the websites mentioned above. The outreach booklet "Meet the Unitarian Universalists" contains a chapter "Religious Freedom" which gives a brief description of early universalism in America.

 

we might just have that, ill check it out on sunday