Religious Freedom
In 1568, the only Unitarian king in history, John Sigismund of Transylvania, issued the Western world's first edict of religious freedom. The world's oldest Unitarian congregation is found in the Transylvanian city of Koloszvár. It left the ranks of orthodoxy in 1568 to follow the leadership of the brilliant reformer Francis David . By 1600, there were more than 400 Unitarian congregations in the surrounding area.
Later, in England, the cause of liberal religion was advanced by the powerful advocacy of such people as John Milton, Isaac Newton, and Harriet Martineau. With footings established in spite of constant persecution, the Unitarian religion began to assume organizational form. Journals, schools, and new churches appeared wherever the fierce objections of orthodox authorities could be overcome. In Poland, orthodox reaction was violent enough to exterminate the strong liberal movement.
Early in the eighteenth century, liberal thought began to find expression in American pulpits. During the last half of the eighteenth century, a few isolated religious leaders in England and America began to preach the doctrine that it was unthinkable for a loving God to damn any person everlastingly to hell.
In the 1740s these heretical notions were preached in Pennsylvania by Universalist Dr. George de Benneville. In the 1760s similar ideas brought about the excommunication from Methodism of John Murray. These Universalists proclaimed the final harmony of the human soul with God. John and Judith Murray in 1770 helped to found the Universalist Church in America.
The Calvinist ma" doctrine. There was immediate denunciation of the Universalists as an irresponsible lot bent on encouraging a life of reckless wickedness, counting on escaping the tortures of hell. Standing against the orthodox majority, Universalists stressed the ethical nature of God.
In 1800 a man of outstanding preaching ability appeared on the New England scene, a courageous, persuasive, and scholarly Universalist preacher named Hosea Ballou. In 1803 the Universalists adopted the Winchester Profession, which became the standard expression of Universalist views, emphasizing God's universal love and the example and leadership of Jesus, and coined the phrase "salvation by character."
The first churches in America to assume the Unitarian name were founded by Dr. Joseph Priestley in Northumberland, Pennsylvania (1794) and in Philadelphia (1796). Though known as the discoverer of oxygen and one of the most celebrated of English scientists, Dr. Priestley was by profession a Unitarian minister.
After orthodox fanatics burned his laboratory in Birmingham, England, Priestley came to the American colonies to seek a religious atmosphere less contaminated by orthodox bigotry. His arrival in America was a catalyst. Intellectual and moral revolt against orthodox doctrines was sweeping across the eastern seaboard. Churches of many denominations were caught up in the desire to re-examine their theological beliefs and backgrounds. Boston's historic King's Chapel, the first Episcopal church in New England, led the way in 1785. The congregation called a minister of Unitarian persuasion and revised its book of common prayer to eliminate Trinitarian references.
In 1802 the oldest Pilgrim church, founded at Plymouth in 1620, became Unitarian by congregational vote. This pattern was repeated in more than 100 cities and towns.
Meanwhile there had emerged in Boston a Unitarian leader of eloquence and force of personality, Dr. William Ellery Channing, under whose inspiration the American Unitarian Association was founded on May 25, 1825. By coincidence, the British Unitarian Association was officially organized on the same day. In each country the scattered, independent liberal congregations pooled their strengths in a formal, cooperative way, and their futures were assured.
In the early days there was little enthusiasm for close ties between the Unitarians and the Universalists. This pained Ballou, who wrote eloquently of the affinity of the two groups, recalling their common aspirations and frustrations, and calling for intellectual and spiritual unity. During the 20th century the two groups grew increasingly aware of one another, and passed more than a dozen resolutions calling for union. Finally in 1947, a joint commission was established to lay the groundwork for Federal Union, and by 1951 it presented a recommendation for immediate union in the fields of religious education, publications, and public relations, with a gradual trend toward complete merger, which was effected in Boston in May 1960. Total consolidation was completed in May 1961.
