Unitarians are not Unitarians anymore. Rationalists are not Rationalists. Scientists are not Scientists. God isn't God anymore.

This is just a challenging way of saying that what a name once signified is not what it may come to signify at a later time. Rationalists (back in the time of Aristotle) used reason without recourse to empirical data. Today that meaning has flip-flopped and a Rationalist is one who makes use of reason largely to interpret empirical data. Scientists were once describers and classifiers of natural data, now they are experimenters who create data.

So it is with Unitarianism. Unitarianism began almost entirely as a movement within Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity as a way of describing God (which those of "Unitarian" persuasion opposed) had developed gradually in the Christian Church and was officially defined at Nicaea (325) and later Constantinople (381). The Trinitarians were a variant of a common faith in God as Creator and Jesus as Savior. They certainly believed that there is only one God - no responsible Trinitarian has ever said otherwise. But that one God, they said, exists in three ways of being. The big issue, of course,
was the relation of Jesus to God. In saying God existed in three ways of being, the Trinitarians included Jesus the Son as one of those ways of God being God.

The early Unitarians - they weren't called that then - contended that God is uni-personal, that Jesus is human and not of the same "substance" as God, and that the Holy Spirit is simply a name for the activity of God. These early anti-Trinitarian views were held by the Arians and the Monarchianists. Today such views are held by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who remain within the Christian faith but are anti-Trinitarian.

What we think of as Unitarianism had its antecedents in the 16th Century, when various reformers were beginning to question orthodox belief. The Protestant Reformers - like Luther and Calvin - were the most powerful driving forces but there were also Catholic humanists, like the Dutch Erasmus, and the Italian Faustus Socinus. Socinus left the Roman Catholic Church and left Italy to settle in Basel in Switzerland. He was possibly influenced by Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician, who was on the run from Roman Catholic persecution, but fell afoul of John Calvin,
who also condemned his anti-Trinitarian views, leading to Servetus' death by burning at the stake.

Socinus left Switzerland - it had gotten rather hot there - and settled in Poland, where he helped to found the Polish Brethren. This Socinianism is sometimes called Old Unitarianism. Francis David led a similar movement in Transylvania. Socinian ideas spread to England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Names like John Biddle (1615-62), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), and James Martineau (1805-1900) became prominent.

Their ideas were transplanted to the United States mainly in liberal Congregational Churches in New England. Priestley migrated to the States. And thinkers like Emerson (1803-82), Theodore Parker (1810-60), Henry Ware (1764-1845), and William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) rose to prominence. Gradually a Unitarian Church separated out of Congregationalism, and the American Unitarian Association was formed in 1825. A parallel movement known as Universalism arose in America. Where Unitarianism challenged the orthodox Christian view of God, Universalism challenged the orthodox Christian view of predestination and salvation, holding that all persons would eventually be
reconciled to God. Both movements were variants within the general Christian worldview. They would eventually merge in 1961. 

But in the 19th century, a different kind of challenge arose. Not against Christianity in particular but against religion in general. This challenge came from science. The first half of the 19th century saw the triumph of Newton's science in explaining the physical natural world without recourse to God, and the second half of the 19th century added Darwin's theory of evolution to explain the biological natural world without recourse to God.

Ethical Culture Leader, Joe Chuman, wrote his 1994 Ph.D. dissertation on Theodore Parker and Felix Adler - Parker a prominent Unitarian thinker and Adler the founder of Ethical Culture. Chuman could combine the two thinkers in one thesis because he felt they had a similar agenda: To restore the place and authority of religion in face of the challenge of science - without recourse to supernaturalism (on the one hand), and without becoming secular (on the other). So Chuman called his dissertation: "Between Secularism and Supernaturalism." Parker and Adler turned to reason and conscience and ethical intuition, and drew on Kant's Transcendental Idealism to construct a new edifice of religious thought. Emerson was another thinker working along these lines.

Not all Unitarians went along. In fact a huge controversy exploded among the Unitarians between those who thought Biblical miracles were empirical evidence of God's revelation and those, like Emerson and Parker, who thought not. "A miracle is a Monster," Emerson declared. He needed no such external validation for his internally based faith. In 1843 Parker was called before his Unitarian brethren of the Boston Ministerial Association for possible expulsion on doctrinal grounds.

We have come a long way since then! From being a Christian movement, Unitarianism has become a liberal religious movement. It has turned from the authority of Scripture to the authority of reason and conscience and democracy. From the divinity of Jesus to the divine in all persons (if you want to use the term "divine" at all). From questioning certain
establishment doctrines, creeds, and dogmas, Unitarians have come to question all doctrines, creeds, and dogmas. You don't have to be a Socinian, you don't have to profess any faith, to be a Unitarian today. While challenging particular doctrines, the old Unitarians had promoted Rationality and Tolerance and Diversity, and that part of their approach, not just dissent, became the primary motif of Unitarian Faith.

But is it ever true that Unitarians don't believe anything? And here I present a challenge.

If one defines a creed in theological terms, then that may well be true. But let's try that another way. To say Unitarians don't have creeds is one thing. To say Unitarians don't have principles - would be somewhat disconcerting. But it can be argued that principles are ethical creeds. They are crystallizations of thought and experience for purposes of guidance. Seven such principles have been identified by The Unitarian Universalist Association as the content of the covenant that it has confirmed as a sustaining bond of union between its congregations. Stated in brief those principles are:

[1] Personal worth 
[2] Justice, equity, and compassion 
[3] Mutual acceptance and spiritual growth 
[4] Free and responsible search for truth 
[5] Right of conscience and democratic process 
[6] World peace, liberty, and justice 
[7] Respect for the interdependent web of all existence.

I would contend that a positive implies a negative. Each of these positive principles says not only that Unitarians stand for something but also that they won't stand for their opposites. So, by implication, Unitarians stand against: 

<> People using people 
<> Inequity between women and men 
<> Any kind of abuse 
<> Any kind of social, sexual, or racial discrimination 
<> Exploitation of minorities and Third World countries 
<> Deceitful propaganda
<> Anything that degrades humans.

Together, principles and their negative corollaries, constitute a cognitive construct system. And that is a major step in the direction that I am interested in.

In the light of our history, I believe that Unitarianism has established one strong agenda: Freedom FROM. I believe that it - along with other liberal religions - is now entering a new phase when it will be important to address a new agenda: Freedom FOR.

We make a lot of how we impose no beliefs on members. But that presentation hides some hidden controversy. For one thing, all liberal organizations face an inherent tension in trying to hold respect for the individual together with democracy. An individual may be outvoted, and while he or she is free to think what they want, they may not be able to give it  institutional expression, if the majority has chosen otherwise.  Further, tension arises when practical claims on the time and property of the congregation become an issue. We may say, Think what you like. But when a group wants a piece of
the pie, and ideas become a claim on services and meeting place and name and funds, etc., votes of approval and validation become necessary. My contention is that those votes conceal a hidden belief system. We do stand for something! And we do draw lines.

This can happen with the criteria for membership - not often, admittedly, because most of those who seek us out are already simpatico with our general approach to religion. But, using what Einstein would call a "thought-experiment", what would we do if a self-confessed white supremacist became a member and became vociferous in advancing his claims? Some suggest that we should admit such a person and hope to persuade him or her to a better viewpoint. Others might argue that such a person does not understand the membership that they are claiming. They are not joining US, given our
principles. Again, if the person keeps quiet about their belief, little would happen, but what if they got up at times of opportunity to speak and pressed their views? Or, again, more in the realm of deed than creed, what if the wife of a couple who belonged to the Church came to church frequently with a bruised face and solicited help because her husband was physically abusive to her? What if persuasion failed to work? Would we say to such a member, would we ever say to any member, your behavior has put you outside of membership?

These examples are obviously based on the tension inherent in anyone's belonging to any larger group. The tension reflects the issue of how permeable or rigid the boundaries of the group are. And there is one further rider on the problem. Often in a liberal group that sets out to respect everyone's opinion, a member or clique of members can develop an agenda hostile to, say, the minister or leader of such a group, or to some policy. That small minority often gets what they want, because the majority is hamstrung with the notion that we should not try to put down anybody's opinion. The pressure group then uses the tolerance of the larger group to go ahead and secure their agenda. It has happened, folks!

But while those examples address a tension that is inherent in any two or more persons sharing the same turf, the larger challenge, having established our freedom FROM, is asking what are we are going to have freedom FOR? I believe liberal religions often stall or limp along in growth because they are not offering any identifiable image. The Apostle Paul stated the marketing truth that applies here. He said: "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle?" (1 Cor 14.8)

Let me share my own sense of what Freedom For might mean. I propose that it would include the following:

(1) A growing consensus on how we view our universe.
(2) A growing consensus on some things we can do to improve our world.
(3) A growing sense of community that responds to personal needs.
(4) A growing confidence in a way of life that empowers us to accept ourselves and love others and live positively.

But what if, in advancing those traditions, we are really fooling ourselves? That there is no common ground between the Unitarian-Universalist drawing on the Jewish-Christian heritage and the Unitarian-Universalist drawing on a Humanist tradition? At least no common philosophical ground. We could, of course, agree to belong to an organization that permits everyone to believe what he or she wants even if the views held are diametrically opposed. And the rule might be, Don't ask, don't tell. The opposing views would simply coexist. We would come together as a church where anyone might believe anything, but, I would ask, for what purpose? What is the content of our coming together? I would contend that to leave that unanswered would be to abandon real respect for taking each other seriously, to admit to a failure of the very reasoning that we so admire, and eventually to having very little to say to the world. Actually, in practice, we find solutions to these problems of membership and worship, because a majority trend prevails in a particular congregation. My challenge is to scratch the surface of such rapprochements and ask what underlies them.

 I suspect that most of us would agree that we could jointly (without too much effort) make more of finding a positive spiritual life, deepening our sense of community, and joining in common efforts for peace and justice. But it's that proposed first consensus (on a worldview) that scares us, because at the back of our minds is always that fear that someone will try to impose a common belief system on us.

My proposal would be that we deliberately set up opportunities to dialogue on the issues and see what emerges. We may be closer than we think to some common components of a worldview.

I suspect that most liberal educated persons today have a worldview shaped by the scientific mythos that says that humans have emerged from a biological life that we share with other life forms, that we are products of a larger process that has led to the evolution of minds that now probe and make sense of that universal process. We believe therefore that we are in a vast feedback loop, given minds by life and making life meaningful and mindful. We believe that even if we are here by either chance (as an atheist may think) or a higher purpose (as a theist may think), we are now committed to
bringing positive good into the universe. Joining a Unitarian-Universalist Church, we are committing ourselves to a faith community that believes there are values, and truths, and right actions that we choose to seek, find, and live by.

That's a positive faith. I would like to think it is the Unitarian Faith.