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by Rev. Katie Lee Crane

Unitarian Universalism has deep roots in American Christianity. (We also have fascinating connections to religious movements in 16th century Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and 17th century England, with a Unitarian presence even today in Romania and other parts of Europe and Asia. But that's another story)

It is our American forebears who have most influenced who we are today. They were the Puritan Congregationalists. Part of a Reformed Calvinist tradition that had migrated to the New World, they were breaking away – not only from the Church of Rome, but also from the European Protestants with whom they disagreed.

Thus it was that the first European settlers of Sudbury Plantation (now Wayland and Sudbury) gathered to worship in homes as early as 1638. In time they built a meetinghouse to serve both as a center of government and also as a place of worship. Calling themselves Christians, they were the dominant religious presence among the white settlers. They based their governance – both civil and religious – on the democratic model. It wasn't until later, during the flourishing of a «back-to basics» movement we call the Great Awakening, that these Christians began to disagree with one another theologically.

Influenced by the rational Enlightenment movement, some of these Christians looked for «proof» of what they believed in Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Because they could find no evidence there for the existence of a trinity (three persons in one God), they challenged the idea. They proposed instead that there was only one God and that Jesus, though a great teacher, prophet, and exemplar, was not a God or any part of the one God. To other Christians before and since, this is heresy. As early as 325 CE, the church attempted to silence this same perspective, the Arian interpretation, when it adopted the Nicene Creed. Similarly, this point of view split American Christians by the 19 th century. Those who denied the divinity of Jesus eventually became known (pejoratively, at first) as Unitarians.

In a separate movement, another group of Christians disagreed with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, the notion that God elected some people to be saved and others to be damned regardless of how good (or bad) a life they led. They simply could not accept that a loving God would punish for all eternity those who sinned. They believed too strongly in the power of a loving and merciful God and felt certain that one could earn salvation through some kind of reconciliation with God. Their name, Universalists, grew from their belief in universal salvation.

By the time this theological split occurred, the original settlers of Sudbury Plantation had also split, not over theological differences, but over the geographical barrier of the Sudbury River. Spring floods made it difficult for the west country farmers and traders to worship or do business at the original meeting house in what we now call Wayland, so in 1723 they built a second meeting house on that rocky plain in what we now call Sudbury. The current Unitarian Universalist meeting house in the center of Sudbury's historical district was built in 1797 on the same site and served as the town hall as well as a house of worship. It wasn't until 1839 that theological controversy split the congregation, with some members leaving to form what is now Memorial Congregational Church.

Among the most famous Unitarians were the Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller and those who shared their philosophies. The Universalists, many of them women, were those who ministered in remote rural areas, creating new congregations wherever they went in the south and mid west.

Unitarians and Universalists perceived themselves to be quite different from one another at first. The Unitarians, urban and educated, saw themselves as inside reformers; they simply wanted to liberalize the established Congregational church. The Universalists, on the other hand, were rural farmers who challenged the orthodox Christian views from the outside. In spite of their differences, the two movements also had a lot in common. Both challenged the established way of thinking; each wanted to reform what they saw as the elite, austere, hell-and-damnation religion of the New England Puritans. Though there had been discussions about bringing the two movements together for years, it wasn't until 1961 that the two actually merged and became known as Unitarian Universalists.

You can reach deep into the history of both movements to find strong anti-slavery and abolitionist sentiments and passionate proponents for women's rights. You will find, for example, the first woman ever to preach in a Universalist Church (Maria Cook in 1811), the first woman ordained a minister by a denomination (Olympia Brown, ordained a Universalist minister in 1863), and the first African American Universalist Minister (Joseph Jordan, ordained in 1889). You will find the 18 th century ministry of Joseph Tuckerman devoted to addressing the needs of the urban poor. (Sadly you will also find a few examples of slave holders and absent or inadequate support for people of color, women and those serving the urban poor.) You will find deep Unitarian roots at Harvard Divinity School and Universalist origins at Tufts University.

In Unitarian Universalist congregations today, many of us no longer call ourselves Christians. We are strongly influenced by our Jewish and Christian heritage, but also make meanings from what we've learned from Humanist teachings and other religious traditions of the world. At the turn of the 21 st century, we Unitarian Universalists embrace racial, cultural, social and economic diversity along with religious plurality. We include all who share the principles and goals of our community.

We are now, as we have been throughout history, champions of change. Listen, and you will hear strong and compelling Unitarian Universalist voices in public policy, in social justice, in moral discourse and in large and small communities throughout the country.

Revision 2. Last edited Fri 11 Apr 2008 11:23am by TomYelton