Julie Stauffer

<<The UU Church is not considered Christian by other Christians. >>

I'm just looking into the UU church but the information the church sent to
me is that their roots are from pre-Constantinian Christianity. When
Constantine declared Christianity the official religion they needed to
define it. So the Nicene creed appeared and at this time the Trinity was
"established", for lack of a better word. Someone else may know better than
I, but this is the information I got.

Julie

Fetteroll

on 7/2/02 1:54 PM, Julie Stauffer at jnjstau@... wrote:

> I'm just looking into the UU church but the information the church sent to
> me is that their roots are from pre-Constantinian Christianity. When
> Constantine declared Christianity the official religion they needed to
> define it. So the Nicene creed appeared and at this time the Trinity was
> "established", for lack of a better word. Someone else may know better than
> I, but this is the information I got.

There's an excellent history and summarization of Unitarian Universalism at:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/u-u.htm

Though the words unitarian and universalist have very old histories,
apparently the churches that formed UU "only" go back to 1638 and 1785
respectively.

The Unitarians (in America) were in response to the Trinitarians. As I heard
it, the churches in each New England town were the "town church" so to
speak. It was just where everyone went. At some point an intellectual debate
on theology broke out over the trinity or unity of God. There were more
wealthy, educated -- and, therefore, lawyerly -- types supporting the unity
theory so the Unitarians ended up "winning" the debate and kept the
churches. The Trinitarians had to move out and build their own churches.
(Which is why the UUs, though congregations are small, often have the
biggest oldest church in the center of New England towns.) (The Trinitarians
eventually became the United Church of Christ.)

The Universalists (in America) were in response to the Calvinist teachings
that who was going to heaven was preordained. They emphasized universal
salvation. (Though it says Unitarian at the website.)

I'm not sure how the Unitarian church ties into the Unitarian founded in
Transylvania but some how they did get together.

It says they were both Christian until the 19th century when beliefs
gradually evolved into the "multi-faith" of today. And in 1961 the two
churches merged to form Unitarian Universalist Association.

Though there are individual Unitarian and Universalist churches that
remained separate from the UUA. And each UU church has a different flavor.
In some churches "God" (the meaning of which is left up to individual
interpretation and may be nondietyish like "interconnectedness of all
things" or nothing at all.) And in some churches God doesn't get mentioned.
And some churches will have a particular religious bent like Christian or
Pagan or whatever though the majority of UU churches tend to be multi-faith.

A good summary of the beliefs held is:

> As a result, UUs hold diverse beliefs about deity. Within a single
> congregation, there will be some individuals who are unsure of the existence
> of god(s) and goddess(es). Others believe in no deity, a single deity or many
> deities. They hold various views on life after death, including complete
> annihilation of the person, some form of afterlife removed from earth, or
> reincarnation. They are free to have beliefs that parallel those of
> conservative Christians; but few do so. Approximately 10% of UUs consider
> themselves to be Christians. These people typically share many beliefs about
> Jesus with members of liberal Christian denominations

If the Religious Tolerance webpage isn't enough for anyone ;-) there a
really good set of questions and answers at:

http://www.uunashua.org/100quest.shtml

Joyce