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Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church’s (TJUC) 50th anniversary will be celebrated during 2010-2011 with various activities and observances. The Tapestry will publish an article each month on some facet of TJ’s history, and those articles plus other relevant news relating to the year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration are also published here.
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UU History - The roots of our faith |
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Written by Pat Webb
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Monday, 18 January 2010 00:50 |
Unitarian Universalist (UU) history and theology have roots in Judaism and Christianity. In 325 C.E., Emperor Constantine called church leaders together to settle theological differences and the Nicene Creed was developed which held that Jesus was of one substance with the Father. The minority which stated that Jesus was subordinate to the Father were called dissenters, and persecuted as “Unitarians”.
In 543 C.E. Justinian condemned the belief in universal salvation. The surviving dissenters would be called “Universalists”. The Reformation in the 15th and 16th centuries established protestantism, but freedom for more liberal religious sects was denied.
The term “Unitarian” was first used as the name of a denomination in 1600 in reference to the Transylvanian movement. History’s only Unitarian king (in Transylvania, now part of Romania) established religious tolerance not only for Unitarians, but for all.
In England, the first permanently organized Unitarian church, the Essex Street Chapel, was opened in 1774. Benjamin Franklin attended and later invited Unitarian Joseph Priestly to America.
Next month we will look briefly at the beginnings of Unitarianism and Universalism in America. |
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UU History - History in North America |
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Written by Pat Webb
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Monday, 01 February 2010 00:00 |
In America, Universalist and Unitarian ideas were being explored in Boston about 1740. George de Benneville (who preached Universalism in Europe) emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1741, the same year as John Murray’s birth in England. In 1770 John Murray came to America, began preaching Universalism and became the founder of organized American Universalism. He first preached in Thomas Potter’s Chapel at Good Luck NJ. The first Universalist congregation in America gathered at Gloucester MA with Murray as its minister in 1779. The General Convention of Universalists in the United States was founded in 1833.
King’s Chapel in Boston about 1785 was the first American church to openly affirm the Unitarian theological position, revising its liturgy to omit references to the trinity. Two years later that congregation ordained James Freeman, becoming “Anglican in worship, congregational in polity, and Unitarian in theology”. In 1794 Joseph Priestley, British Unitarian minister and scientist, emigrated to Pennsylvania where the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia was organized in 1796 with Priestley’s encouragement. The preaching and writings of Hosea Ballou, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Parker established freedom, reason, tolerance and action as the foundation stones of Unitarianism. In 1825 The American Unitarian Association was organized.
The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of American combined in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).
Next month the focus will be on Louisville churches.
Sources: TJ archives and “A Chosen Faith” by John A. Buehrens and Forrest Church |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 February 2010 02:00 |
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