 Congregational (now United Church of Christ) church, a circumstance that dates to this tumultuous time at the beginning of the 19th century. Ironically, Unitarians were labeled for their idea of God (a single God, rather than a Trinity), which was not as central to their thinking as their concept of human beings as more divine then depraved.
Universalists, on the other hand, left their churches over the heretical idea that God would ultimately save all people, not just those who were chosen, or those who believed. Rejecting the idea of hell, they had set aside part of the creed, so they too, rejected creeds.
[Invite participants to consider how the early Unitarian and Universalist ideas are reflected in what they've seen in your Unitarian Universalist congregation.]
Later challenges arose in both Unitarianism and Universalism about whether it was necessary to be Christian, or even to believe in God. Many Unitarians, especially Westerners, joined the Free Religious Association, insisting on absolute freedom of conscience, a notion which, despite arguments, prevailed. Universalists, though a bit more conventional, consistently added a conscience clause to their statements of faith. By the 20th century, they, too, as a group, had set aside many conventions of Christianity. In the 20th century, humanism became an important theological force in Unitarianism.
[Invite observations about the importance of different ideas about God and humanity in your congregation.]
Because Unitarian Universalism supports freedom of thought and belief and does not require subscribing to a creed, we are free to look for truth in many different places. "Revelation" is the word traditionally used to describe how God becomes known to human beings. We have adopted the word to describe truth more generally. We look in different places for truth which keeps emerging, rather than being sealed, or confined, to a particular book or tradition. We look to our own personal experience, trusting it as much, or more than, the words from the past.
Beginning with the Transcendentalists, Unitarians began to find truth in religions other than Christianity. Emerson, for example, studied the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu scripture. In 1893, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, a prominent Midwestern Unitarian leader, brought the Parliament of World Religions to Chicago, hosting participants from a breadth of religious backgrounds to share their thinking. By that time, Universalists, too, had begun broadening the concept of Universalism beyond the idea of universal salvation to embrace what is universal in human experience.
[Ask participants, "Can you see ways that openness to different expressions of religion has shaped Unitarian Universalism?"]
With revelation not limited to biblical sources or the authority of (mostly male) clergy, women claimed their place in our religious tradition. Thus, Unitarians and Universalists became early supporters of women's rights, including suffrage, the ordination of women, and the economic independence of women from their fathers and husbands.
[Ask participants how they see the movement for women's rights reflected in Unitarian Universalism.]
Around the same time, many Christians were shaken by scientific ideas. Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. Unitarians and Universalists had already realized that science, too, was a source of truth, so had little difficulty with Darwin's ideas. Even harder than Darwin's theory for many orthodox Christians to accept was the 19th-century movement of historical-literary criticism of the Bible, which examined biblical texts as products of a particular time and place. Again, Unitarians and Universalists had no problem with such ideas, because they embraced the ever-widening sphere of truth from a variety of sources.
[Invite participants to consider other forms of revelation that may have added to the richness of Unitarian Universalism. Participants may remember something from Workshop 1 regarding the Sources.]
The Power of Nature
With science as an esteemed source of truth rather than the source of an inconve