Some Hows and Whens of Unitarian Universalist History
To find the roots of our religion we must go back to the prophets of ancient Israel and the Socratic tradition of Athens. Modern liberal religion is indebted to these founts of reverence for human dignity and the primacy of ethics in religion.
The Christian origins of our movement are anchored in the moral teachings of Jesus, as exemplified in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Early Christianity was neither Trinitarian nor Unitarian. For nearly three centuries after Jesus' death, no specific doctrine of this type was enforced as part of an official Christian creed. When doctrinal controversies became too stormy and violent, the Roman Emperor Constantine summoned church leaders to a council in 325 CE where the Nicene Creed was voted into existence. The divinity of Jesus thus became the official orthodoxy of the Christian religion. The Nicene formula declared by a divided vote that Jesus was of the same essential substance as God.
A half century later, at another gathering of church leaders, the General Council of Constantinople, the assembled dignitaries added the Holy Spirit to their formula, thus completing the Trinity. This was the very human manner in which the Trinitarian dogma of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" came into existence. From the beginning there were sincere and thoughtful Christians who felt that the essential message of Jesus was being swamped in a sea of metaphysics, but those who could not conscientiously accept the Trinitarian position were expelled, condemned, and martyred as heretics. Nevertheless, a spirit of independent thought and belief continued to flicker through the centuries.
The ferment of the Protestant Reformation furnished adventurous opportunities for leaders of a more liberal mind. Some began to question the Trinity, and to call for less rigid religious conceptions and practices. Their cause was immortalized by the shameful burning of Michael Servetus in Switzerland by order of John Calvin. Servetus' crime was the writing of a book, On the Errors of the Trinity, in which he argued that the Trinity was a grotesque and distracting addition to the true Christian life. Servetus was burned and many others were tortured and slain for expressing personal convictions in opposition to official orthodoxies, but irrepressible ideas were in the air. In Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Holland, and England, spokespersons for a liberalized Christianity appeared in ever-increasing numbers. Ministers and entire congregations began to secede from orthodox ranks in rebellion against theological dogmatism.
Find out about Emerson's history.
