READINGS:
1. from (Episcopal Bishop) John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, 1998:
"I am increasingly unimpressed with what people call 'orthodox' Christianity. It has become a kind of religious straightjacket into which all Christians must be bound or face expulsion from the faith community by those who think of themselves as the true believers. To be called an orthodox Christian does not mean that one's point of view is right. It only means that this point of view won out in the ancient debate."

2. from Sophia Lyon Fahs, Today's Children and Yesterday's Heritage, 1952:
"It matters what we believe. Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies… Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in universal brotherhood, where sincere differences beautify the pattern. Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction. Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration. Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness. Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth. Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life."

Hymn: "That Old Time Religion" (with new lyrics)

THE LECTURE
Sophia Fahs, the great Unitarian religious educator, told us that it matters what we believe. It matters because what we believe changes how we live. But how do we know what to believe? This question has sent people throughout the ages on their spiritual journeys. In every period of history there have been ideas which were dominant – the orthodoxy of the day – and many other opposing ideas, a range of opinions along the spectrum from orthodoxy to heresy. Orthodoxy means "straight thinking," and is related to the word for dentistry and straight teeth, orthodontics. Heresy is dissent from conventional thinking. It comes from a Greek root meaning, "to make choices." Heretics are the independent thinkers who make choices different from the majority. Those who win the struggle are the orthodox, simply because they are the winners. If the heretics had won, they would have been considered orthodox. Today we are discussing orthodoxy and heresy in the history of our Western tradition and in our Unitarian and Universalist heritages. My thesis is that the heresy of one era often becomes the orthodoxy of the next – and since history is written by the winners, the winners simply declare their position to be true and orthodox. My inclination is to trace orthodoxy and heresy starting with burial practices 40,000 years ago, to talk about goddess religions, the Babylonians, the Minoans and the Greeks, Judaism and early Christianity. Unfortunately, we don't have time to do all of that, and so we will briefly discuss the early Christians, and then concentrate on the time since the Reformation. Let's see if we can make the point – that orthodoxy is always changing – even though we will have to leave out history prior to a mere 2000 years ago.

JESUS THE JEW
We will start with Jesus. Jesus, of course, was Jewish, not Christian; and Christianity began as a Jewish heresy. Now, I admit that I am expressing a point of view. The Bible, as I study it, appears to be a "unitarian" book, in the classic sense meaning "one God." According to the Gospels, Jesus taught that God is one, a unity (for example, Mark 12:29 -- "the Lord our God is one").
There's not enough time to cover this fully, but here's the short version: Jesus and his first followers were Jews. The most basic belief of Judaism is that God is one. The Doctrine of the Trinity is a significant departure from what the Jews believed then and believe now. If Jesus had believed in the Trinity, thought it was important, and believed himself to be the second person of the Trinity, he would have explained it deliberately and clearly to his Jewish disciples. But he never did that. The word "Trinity" never appears in the Bible, and the Doctrine of the Trinity is never explained in the Bible. In fact, John 14:28, in which Jesus says, "the Father is greater than I," is a complete contradiction of the Doctrine of the Trinity. And Jesus did not pray, "Dear Me, who art both here and in Heaven, hallowed be My name." He did not teach his disciples to pray either to himself or to the Trinity. He taught them to pray to God. Notice the difference between the terms "Son of God" and "God the Son." The first term says Jesus has a relationship to God, the second says he is God. The first phrase appears in the Bible, the second (the Trinitarian formula) does not. The earliest Christians did not use Trinitarian terminology.
Even the phrase "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," which appears only once in the entire Bible (and is a later addition), is not technically Trinitarian. The Trinitarian formula, "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit," never appears in the Bible.
Many people believed Jesus was the Messiah ("the anointed") – which is translated into Greek as Christos, or Christ. But the term "Messiah" does not connote divinity. The Messiah is a human being anointed by God for a special purpose. The term Messiah (anointed) was used in the Bible to refer to the kings of Israel and even to Cyrus the Great, Emperor of Persia (Isaiah 45:1). So to say that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah is only to say that he is a human being chosen or anointed by God for a special task.
Historian Earl Morse Wilbur wrote, "The primitive Christian religion of the first century was that of a Jewish sect. Its distinctive mark was the belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah… [The Jews believed the Messiah] was a man, chosen indeed for an exceptional office, endowed with exceptional powers, but yet limited in knowledge, authority, power, and even goodness."
The Apostle Paul, by the way, also taught the unity of God (see 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Ephesians 4:6, etc.). 1 Timothy 2:3-6 is Unitarian Universalism writ large: "This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all." This passage is Unitarian because it says that there is one God, and says that Jesus is human. It is Universalist because it says that God desires everyone to be saved, and that Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all – not all who believe in a certain dogma, or all who go to the right church, but simply "all." That's Unitarian Universalism in the most classic sense. And that's apparently what some or even most of the very first Christians believed.

EARLY CHRISTIANITY
The Doctrine of the Trinity was first mentioned by Tertullian around 195 CE. But Tertullian was the leader of the Montanists, a Christian sect that was eventually declared to be heretical. Another church leader, Paul of Samosata (c. 250 CE), Bishop of Antioch, taught that Jesus was a mere man until he was adopted as, or declared to be, Son of God. This doctrine, which emphasized the unity of God, was called Adoptionism. Much later Adoptionism was declared to be heretical -- even though that was the position taken by the Apostle Paul, who in Romans 1:4 had written that Jesus had been "designated Son of God!"
Tertullian's heresy, the Doctrine of the Trinity, did not become orthodox teaching until the Fourth Century. In 325 the Council of Nicea declared that Jesus was God the Son, of the same substance as God the Father. In 381 the Council of Constantinople added God the Holy Spirit. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon completed the Doctrine of the Trinity by establishing the two natures of Christ, one divine and one human.
An Egyptian Christian leader, the Presbyter Arius (256-336), who opposed the new orthodoxy, was declared heretical. When the Orthodox-Catholic Church declared God to be a trinity of three persons, Arius said that God is simply "the unknown unbegun." Because Arius said that Jesus was not of the same substance as God, he is considered a forerunner of the Unitarians. Early Unitarians were often called "Arians" after Arius (not to be confused with the white supremacist "Aryans"). The Roman Emperors decided who was heretical and who was orthodox. Depending on who was Emperor, and whether he was Arian, Orthodox, or Pagan, one religious faction or another might be in power or might be exiled.

Here's the point: there has never been one unified Christian Church.

Even Paul argued with Peter, James and John about doctrine and practice (Galatians 2:11-14). In the first centuries of the Church there were many squabbling Christian sects – Ebionites, Gnostics, Marcionites, Adoptionists, Patripassians, Donatists, Montanists, Arians, Pelagians, Nestorians, and others. It took centuries of exiles and executions for all the "heretics" to be forced into one somewhat unified Orthodox-Catholic Church -– and then the Church began to split again. In 1054 the Church in the West broke with the Church in the East. The Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other. After this time we have the Roman Catholic Church in the West, and the Orthodox Churches in the East.

THE RENAISSANCE and the PROTESTANT REFORMATION
In Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries there was a revival of classical learning known as the Renaissance. New technology, the printing press, made books widely available, and literacy increased. The Church no longer had a monopoly on ideas. Leading scholars, scientists and artists during the Renaissance were called Humanists. Humanists revived Greek and Roman learning, emphasized the dignity and worth of individuals, and taught that humans are rational beings who possess within themselves the capacity for truth and goodness. Some Humanists, like Erasmus of Rotterdam, remained Catholic while criticizing Church practices. But Church leaders persecuted some, like Galileo, and executed others, like the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600.
Other challenges to Catholic orthodoxy came from the Protestant Reformation. The English reformer John Wycliffe (1330-84) criticized the papacy, attacking the power and corruption of the pope, the excessive veneration of saints, the low moral standards of priests, and the doctrine of transubstantiation. Wycliffe escaped execution because he had powerful friends in the English court. But after his death his body was dug up and burned by church authorities, who declared that he had been a heretic. His teachings spread to Bohemia, where they gained support from Jan Hus, a popular priest. In 1415 the Catholic Church executed Hus as a heretic. His followers combined the communion chalice, which Hus had shared with the people, with the flame of his execution, to create a symbol of religious freedom, the flaming chalice (now used as a symbol by Unitarian Universalists). The Czech version of the flaming chalice has a motto beneath it, "Pravda vitezi," which translates, "Truth overcomes," or "Truth prevails."
In 1517, Martin Luther published 95 theses challenging the sale of indulgences. Those who, like Luther, protested the excesses of the Catholic Church became known as Protestants. Luther faced a problem. Where did he get the authority to challenge the pope? The Catholic Church claimed that its authority came from God through the decisions of the Church Councils, and through the line of papal succession beginning with Peter, a disciple of Jesus. Luther was challenging those sources of authority. Where did he get his authority? Luther decided that his religious authority came not from the Church, or from papal succession, but from the Bible. He said that any individual can read and interpret the Bible for him or herself. This emphasis on the Bible was heresy to the Catholics, but became orthodoxy to the Protestants.

THE MARTYRDOM OF MICHAEL SERVETUS
But when people started reading the Bible, everyone found something different in it. The Protestant movement began to break up into many different squabbling sects. In Geneva, Switzerland, the Protestant theologian John Calvin became the leader of the municipal government. Calvin believed that human nature was hopelessly sinful. God had predestined some people to be saved and others to be damned, and there was nothing we could do to merit salvation. Even though good behavior wouldn't get you into Heaven, card playing, drinking, theatergoing and dancing were all forbidden in Geneva.
In 1553 Calvin and his Protestant supporters burned Michael Servetus at the stake for heresy. Servetus was a Spanish physician, geographer and theologian. As a theologian he wrote the books On the Errors of the Trinity, and The Restoration of Christianity. He argued that Jesus was the Son of God, but was not God from eternity; and that Christ was divine not by nature but only by God's grace. Servetus used strong language, comparing the trinity to Kerberus, a three-headed dog in Greek mythology. He also said that the Council of Nicea had begun the reign of the Antichrist, who he identified as the pope.
Servetus wrote to John Calvin, arguing with Calvin and insulting him. Although Calvin was a Protestant, he arranged to have Servetus arrested by Catholic authorities in France. Servetus was condemned to death by the Catholics, but escaped. Foolishly, he made his escape route through Geneva, where Calvin ruled. There he was recognized, arrested, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake by the Protestants. Because he was anti-trinitarian, Servetus is usually thought to have been a forerunner of the Unitarians.
In 1554 Sebastian Castellio wrote acriticism of the execution of Servetus. Castellio said, "We are all heretics in the eyes of those who do not share our views…To kill a man does not defend a doctrine. It simply kills a man."

THE FIRST ORGANIZED UNITARIANS
In 1539, Katherine Weigel, a white-haired eighty-year-old woman, was burned at the stake in Krakow, Poland, for refusing to say that she believed in Christ as God's Son. In 1559 a Lithuanian noblewoman, the Lady Anna Kiszka, placed an anti-trinitarian preacher, Peter Gonesius, in charge of the Reformed congregation in Wegrow, Lithuania. About 40 "Unitarian" Churches were organized in Poland and Lithuania by 1565. Faustus Socinus (or Fausto Sozzini), who had fled from his native Italy, became their leader. Officially named the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, or the Polish Brethren, and referred to as "Arians" by their opponents, the Polish Unitarians are known to history as the Socinians. Socinus believed that Scripture should be interpreted through the use of reason, that God is one, that Jesus was human, and that God does not damn anyone for eternity. To Socinus, the true test of Christianity was how you live your life, not the doctrines you accept. In other words, he was a Unitarian, a Universalist, and a Christian Humanist.
There may have been as many as 125 Socinian congregations in Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine by the late 1500s, but we can't be sure because the records were burned by the Catholics in later persecutions. Socinus was driven out of Krakow by a Catholic mob in 1598, and his books were burned. A member of the Polish Brethren, Iwan Tyszkiewicz (Ivan TIS-ke-vitch), was accused of having blasphemed God and the Virgin Mary. He denied the charges. At his execution, his tongue was cut out because he was convicted of blasphemy, and his hand and foot were cut off because supposedly he had thrown a crucifix on the ground and stepped on it. Then he was beheaded as a rebel because he had tried to appeal his sentence, and finally he was burned at the stake. His execution in Warsaw in 1611 made Tyszkiewicz the first martyr of an organized Unitarian Church.
The Catholics closed the Socinian Church in Lublin and confiscated their property. In 1638 the Socinian college in Rakow was forced to close, their printing press was destroyed, and all Socinians were banished from the city. In 1660 the Socinians were given the choice to convert to Catholicism, leave Poland or be executed.

UNITARIANS in TRANSYLVANIA
Many Socinians fled to Transylvania. As early as 1548, Queen Isabella of Transylvania had declared religious toleration in that small kingdom. In 1568 her son, King John Sigismund, invited the Trinitarian and Unitarian preachers to a great debate in the city of Torda, to decide whether the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Jesus were taught in the Scriptures. The debate lasted ten days. Francis David (or David Ferenc, pronounced "DAH-vid"), a Unitarian preacher, argued that God is one person, not three, and Jesus is not God. He also said that we "do not have to believe alike in order to love alike."
In giving judgment, John Sigismund – the only Unitarian king in history -- ordered that each preacher should be allowed to preach what he believed. If the people disagreed, the congregation could dismiss him, but if they agreed, the preacher was not to be interfered with by the state. We date the beginnings of Unitarianism in Transylvania to this grant of toleration in 1569, although the name "Unitarian" was not actually used until 1600. King John died in 1571. The next king was Catholic, and accused David of "innovation," because David taught that prayers should be addressed only to God, not to Jesus. Francis David died in prison in 1579. Although there have been long periods of persecution, Transylvania, now located in Rumania, has today 125 Unitarian Christian Churches with 80,000 Hungarian-speaking members led by a Unitarian bishop. Their motto is "Egy Az Isten," or "God is One."

UNITARIANS in ENGLAND
Anti-trinitarians were burned at the stake in the British Isles as early as 1327. John Biddle, often called the "father of English Unitarianism," established a Socinian congregation in England in 1653, and spent most of his life in prison for his beliefs.
The philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) wrote a book called The Reasonableness of Christianity. He argued that reason, not revelation, is the main authority for religious truth. This idea influenced both the Unitarians and the Deists. Deism was a major religious view that held that "natural religion" is accessible through the use of reason and observation of nature. Deists denied the validity of religious claims based on the Bible or the specific teachings of any church. Isaac Newton held anti-trinitarian views, and also influenced the development of Deism. Newton said that the world operated by fixed laws. Nature might be compared to a clock, and God can be compared to the clockmaker. The clockmaker winds the clock, and then lets it run on its own. Thus, God has little or nothing to do with day-to-day events. (Deists and Unitarians were among the leaders of the American Revolution.)
Theophilus Lindsay established a Unitarian Chapel in London in 1774, with Benjamin Franklin in attendance. In 1813, with the passage of the Trinity Act, Unitarians were no longer officially classified as criminals. The British and Foreign Unitarian Association was formed on May 26, 1825. By coincidence, the American Unitarian Association was organized on the same day.
British Unitarians held distinctly radical views on religious, political, and social issues, including the role of women. The cornerstone of Unitarian beliefs was their progressive educational philosophy for both men and women.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) was an English Unitarian feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She said that God had created human beings as rational creatures, and all humans, regardless of sex, had a basic right to develop their reason through a liberal education. Her daughter, Mary Shelly, wrote the famous novel Frankenstein. Another Unitarian, Harriet Martineau (1802-76), was a literary celebrity who wrote numerous books on economics. A two-year visit to the United States made her a fervent abolitionist. She also wrote novels, tales for children, a history of England, and an autobiography.
Other English Unitarians of note include Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, Beatrix Potter (creator of Peter Rabbit), and Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain. Today the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in Great Britain has 182 member congregations, with about 6,700 members.

UNITARIANS in the UNITED STATES
Joseph Priestly, a Unitarian clergyman and scientist, settled in America after his home and laboratory in Birmingham, England, were destroyed by a mob. His friend, Benjamin Franklin, encouraged Priestly to publish a work on electricity. He is also credited with the discovery of oxygen (which he called dephlogisticated air). In his book, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, Priestly contended that primitive Christianity had been Unitarian, and that all departures from that faith must be labeled as corruptions. In other words, he asserted that Unitarianism is orthodoxy, and all other forms of Christianity are heresy! Priestly established the first church in the United States to use the name "Unitarian," in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, in 1794.
As early as 1785, King's Chapel, the oldest Episcopal Church in Boston, had eliminated references to the Trinity from their liturgy. Today they have a sign outside describing their church as "Anglican in liturgy, Congregational in polity, and Unitarian Universalist Christian in theology."
For a long while before and after the American Revolution, a conflict was growing in the Congregational churches of New England. The orthodox (or Trinitarian) Congregationalists – followers of Calvinism -- believed God was a trinity; that Jesus was God the Son, that human nature was completely sinful, and that God had predestined only a few to be saved. The liberal (or Arian) Congregationalists believed that God was one, Jesus was the Son of God (rather than God the Son), that humans had the potential for either good or evil, and salvation was offered for all.
The dispute widened in 1805 when a liberal, Henry Ware, was appointed to the chair of divinity at Harvard College. The Trinitarians began to break off contact with the liberals and called the liberals by the nastiest name they could think of – Unitarians!
In 1819, the Rev. William Ellery Channing of Boston galvanized the liberal Congregationalists with his sermon, "Unitarian Christianity." Channing embraced the Unitarian name and made it acceptable. He argued that the Bible must be read in the context of history, and with the application of human reason. He also said that the doctrine of the Trinity not only made God into three persons, but also made Jesus into two persons with two natures and two minds, one human and one divine – and all of this was unscriptural and unreasonable. Channing's sermon became the most popular pamphlet in America since Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Channing is known as "the prophet of Unitarianism," our founder and intellectual inspiration in the United States.
The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was organized in 1825. Trinitarian and Unitarian Congregationalists parted company. Many New England churches, including the original Pilgrim Church in Plymouth, and Boston's oldest Puritan Churches, became (and remain) Unitarian. In 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister, criticized the Unitarians in his famous Harvard Divinity School Address, calling for more emphasis on the soul, and less on ritual. Preachers, he said, should put intuition and their own personal experience into sermons, not just dry intellectualism. And he asserted that Jesus spoke of miracles only because he believed life to be a miracle. Emerson left the ministry to become a lecturer and author, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement. These new radicals said spiritual authority comes from intuition, rather than tradition, Scripture, or even reason. Transcendentalism was a reaction to "Unitarian orthodoxy," and some conservative Unitarians called it "the latest heresy."
Other Unitarian Transcendentalists included Margaret Fuller, the preeminent feminist thinker of her day, and Elizabeth Peabody, a pioneer in the development of kindergartens. Fuller was the editor of the Dial, a Transcendentalist journal. She was also the author of a feminist book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and was the world's first female war correspondent, covering the Italian Revolution for the New York Tribune. In 1841, Unitarianism took another jolt, this time from another disciple
of Emerson, the Rev. Theodore Parker. In his sermon, "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," Parker argued that some aspects of Christianity are permanent and must be kept, but other aspects are cultural, and change from generation to generation. The transient aspects can be discarded. The rites, doctrines and creeds of the church might be heretical to one generation, and orthodox to the next, he said. Parker argued that the truth of Jesus' words do not depend upon the divinity or authority of Jesus, any more than the axioms of geometry depend on the authority of Euclid. The churches have it backwards, Parker said. Jesus said certain things because they were true. But the churches teach that those things are true because Jesus said them. Jesus is important because of what he taught, but the church has been saying that what he taught is important because Jesus said it. The truth of Jesus' teachings does not depend on the personal authority of Jesus. If they are true, they are true, no matter who said them. Parker also said that the miracles, the inspiration of Scripture, and the divinity of Jesus are transient ideas and not essential to Christianity.
Some Unitarian ministers were shocked by Parker's radicalism, and several would have nothing to do with him. But Parker, who was also an abolitionist, became the most popular preacher in Boston, and his ideas had a great impact among Unitarians.
In 1865 the Rev. Henry Whitney Bellows of New York organized the National Conference of Unitarian Churches, giving Unitarians an effective denominational structure for the first time. Bellows was a Unitarian Christian, and the National Conference declared Unitarians to be "disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ." More radical Unitarians – Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others – believed that the National Conference would stifle freedom. The radicals, who were studying evolution, biblical criticism and world religions, said that modern religion was moving beyond the limits of Christianity. They formed the short-lived Free Religious Fellowship, which also included some Universalists and Quakers.
Following the lead of the Universalists, the Unitarians began ordaining women to the ministry in the second half of the 19th Century. Antoinette Brown Blackwell was the first woman regularly ordained in the United States. Ordained by the Congregational Church of South Butler, NY in 1852, her ordination did not have denominational support. Unable to affirm the beliefs of Trinitarian Congregationalism, she resigned her pastorate in 1854 and became a Unitarian. Late in her life she organized a Unitarian Church in Elizabeth, NJ. She was a life-long feminist who lived to cast her vote, at age 95, in the 1920 presidential election. Many women followed the lead of Rev. Blackwell and entered the Unitarian ministry, although they usually wound up serving small frontier churches the men didn't want. A group of nine Unitarian clergywomen, known as the "Iowa Sisterhood," included Mary Safford (1851-1927), who served churches in Sioux City and Des Moines, Iowa, and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Unitarian Association.
Why could the Universalists and Unitarians ordain women, when most other denominations would not? The answer is probably theological. We had rejected the Doctrine of Original Sin, and so we didn't blame Eve for eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. And because Jesus was human, God could transcend the sexual categories of male and female -- so priests and pastors didn't have to be male like Jesus. Just the same, many men opposed the ordination of women. Early in the 20th Century, Samuel Atkins Eliot, president of the American Unitarian Association 1900-27, discouraged women who wanted to enter the ministry. Although he was an otherwise able leader who put the AUA on sound financial footing, he almost put an end to the practice of ordaining women as clergy. In the 1960s and '70s more women began entering our ministry again, and this trend has continued to the present – we now have more clergywomen than clergymen. Early in the 20th Century, many Unitarians recited a statement that affirmed "the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, and the progress of mankind onward and upward forever." This led to the quip that Unitarians – who were weak outside of New England -- really believed in "the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston."
Notable American Unitarians include Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft; poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; authors Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Meville; feminists Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony; architect Frank Lloyd Wright; Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and William O. Douglas, and poet e.e. cummings.

THE UNIVERSALISTS
Now we need to back up and look at the Universalists. The name "Universalist" is derived from a belief in "universal salvation," the faith that a loving and forgiving God would not damn anyone, and that all souls will eventually be reconciled with God. Universalism began with the Bible, especially the letters of Paul, who suggested that Christ's sacrifice saved everyone (1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5:18, etc.). Universalists trace their heritage to Origen (c. 185-254 CE), the first great systematic theologian of the Church. Origen taught that "all begins and ends with God;" that everything comes from God, and in the end we all return to God – there is no eternal Hell.
George De Benneville (1703-1793) a Frenchman, was the first preacher of Universalism in America, but he established no churches. The Universalist movement in America really began when John Murray's ship ran aground off the coast of New Jersey in 1770. Murray was an English Methodist who had become convinced that a loving God would not punish anyone for eternity in hell. He became a Universalist, but gave up preaching after the death of his wife and child. In his grief, Murray decided to sail to America and lose himself in the wilderness. When his ship became stuck on a sandbar near Good Luck Point, New Jersey, he met Thomas Potter, who had done an extraordinary thing -- Potter had built his own chapel, and had prayed for God to send a Universalist preacher. Murray admitted that he was a Universalist, but said he would not preach. Potter convinced Murray that if the wind did not change and allow the ship to sail before Sunday, it was a sign from God that he should preach. The wind did not change, and Murray preached Universalism in Potter's Chapel. This event might be characterized as "a Universalist miracle."
Murray remarried, this time to JudithSargent Murray, a feminist who was also one of America's earliest woman authors. Using the Bible, especially the letters of Paul, John Murray preached that Christ's sacrifice had saved all people, not just those who believe in certain doctrines. He established the first Universalist Church in America, the Independent Christian Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1774. The Universalists developed a loose national organization by 1792.
Hosea Ballou, a self-taught backwoodsman, became the leading Universalist of the early 1800s. His book, A Treatise on Atonement, published in 1805, argued that the consequences of sin are manifested only in this life -- there is no Hell at all. He taught that most evil deeds have their own earthly consequences.
Ballou's insistence that there is not even temporary punishment in Hell, raised great controversies among the Universalists. For a while there was a division between the "Restorationists" and the "Ultra-Universalists." Restoration Universalists believed that after temporary punishment, all souls would be restored to a permanent relationship with God. "Death and Glory" or Ultra-Universalists believed there was no Hell at all, and when you die you go to glory. (And unlike Murray, who was a trinitarian Universalist, Ballou was a "unitarian" Universalist.) But all Universalists agreed that a loving God would not punish anyone for eternity. Sin is to be healed, they said, not punished. God is like a loving father, and no good parent would torture his own children. There are better reasons to live a good life than the fear of hell.
By 1850, the Universalists were a major denomination in the U.S. After that, membership gradually slid downhill. The Universalists were not as effective in organizing or fund-raising as were other churches. Rural Universalist Churches closed as urban areas grew. And when other churches began to de-emphasize Hell, there was less need for an organized Universalist denomination. Early in the 20th century, Clarence Russell Skinner, Dean of Crane Theological School at Tufts University, tried to redefine Universalism in terms of the universals that unite all humankind. It was said that "Universalism is the largest word in the English language, and we must either improve the premises or move off them."
In 1942 the Universalist Church in America applied for membership in the Federal Council of Churches (now known as the National Council of Churches). But the member churches rejected their application by a vote of 12 to 6. The Universalists were told that their religion was not sufficiently Christ-centered, and that they were too much like the Unitarians.
The Universalists were pioneers in many ways. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is known as the "father of American psychiatry," and was a founder of the first anti-slavery society in the United States. Mary Livermore was president of the American Woman Suffrage Association. The Rev. Olympia Brown became the first woman in the U.S. ordained with full denominational support (1863). Other important Universalists included American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, circus operator P.T. Barnum, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, and President Chester A. Arthur. The Universalist seminary at St. Lawrence University was the first U.S. theological school to admit women. Universalists also founded Tufts University and Cal Tech.
It is often said that Universalists were regular folks, while Unitarians tended to be upper crust. More than theology, this social class difference kept the two denominations apart. Thomas Starr King, who was a leader among both denominations, said that the difference between the Unitarians and Universalists was that "Universalists believed that God was too good to damn them, while Unitarians believed that they were too good to be damned."

UNITARIANS AND UNIVERSALISTS in CANADA
The first Unitarian worship service held in Canada was in Montreal in 1832, but the congregation there was not established until 1842. In 1843 John Cordiner became their minister. Cordiner came from the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland – as the Irish Unitarians call themselves. Unitarian churches were established in Toronto by 1846, and Ottawa by 1889.
On the Western prairies, Icelandic immigrants established several Unitarian congregations. The Icelanders were well educated and independent-minded people who did not get along well with the strict Lutheranism they found in North America. The Unitarian Church of Winnipeg, established in 1891, is about all that remains of the Icelandic Unitarian movement. Unitarians and Universalists alike were attacked in the Canadian press as heretics who were leading Christians astray. Canadian Universalists had promising beginnings in the mid-1800s. The Universalist congregation in London, Ontario, was organized in 1831, more than 11 years before there was a Unitarian Church anywhere in Canada. The Quebec provincial census of 1851 showed 7,000 Universalists compared to only 1,200 Unitarians. But by the time of the continental merger of the Unitarians and Universalists, only three Canadian Universalist congregations survived – one was the Universalist Church of Halifax, Nova Scotia, established in 1837. After merger, the Universalist name was generally dropped in Canada.
Notable Canadian Unitarians have included John Molson, the brewer, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and R. S. Weir, who wrote the most commonly used translation of the original French words to O Canada. Fidelia Gilette, who served the Universalist congregation in Bloomfield, Ontario, was probably the first ordained woman minister in Canada. Today there are 43 churches in the Canadian Unitarian Council, with a bit over 6,500 members. Current discussions are aimed at clarifying the relationship between the Canadian Unitarian Council and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

THE 20TH CENTURY: HUMANISM and MERGER
In the 1930s, a new humanist movement, centered in Chicago and the West, influenced both the Unitarians and Universalists, but especially the Unitarians. Curtis Reese, John Dietrich, and other ministers led the humanists. These preachers said that science had changed our ideas about religion: The earth is not at the center of God's universe, but is a small planet in a not particularly important section of the universe. Because humans evolved, there was never a "fall" from perfection in the Garden of Eden. Without Original Sin, we have no need for an Atoning Sacrifice on the cross. All Scriptures were written by humans, and reflect the beliefs and customs of ancient peoples. God and the supernatural are no longer necessary to religion, they said. Modern religion should be based on the highest human values, the highest human ethics, the best human science, and those human ideals that help us to live together in peace and brotherhood. In 1933 a group of professors and clergy issued the Humanist Manifesto. Unitarian Christians and theists were shocked. If Unitarian meant "belief in one God," how could the humanists call themselves Unitarians? The humanists said, "The time for Theism is past. The religion of the future will talk about human concerns and will be based on scientific facts and rational truths." A new heresy had arisen. But since others often accused all Unitarians and Universalists of heresy, we had no desire to expel heretics from our own ranks. We agreed to disagree. Eventually religious humanism became an important part of the mix of beliefs in Unitarian and Universalist Churches.
Both the Unitarians and Universalists declined during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Under the leadership of Frederick May Eliot (president of the AUA 1937-58), the Unitarians had a renewal of growth and energy. Eliot supported merger with the Universalists, and the two movements found they had much in common. One name discussed for the proposed new denomination was the "United Liberal Church," but when consolidation was completed in 1961, neither group wanted to give up its own name, so we called ourselves the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The Unitarians, more than double the size of the Universalists, dominated the early years of the consolidation. We grew rapidly in the 1950s and early '60s. Then our numbers declined sharply during the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and '70s. Many of our congregations were torn apart over issues such as the War in Vietnam. A dispute over the funding of the Black Affairs Council in the late '60s and early '70s was particularly bitter and divisive. (Perhaps surprisingly, our denominational support for equal rights for lesbians and gays has been less divisive. We have been in the forefront of the movement to ordain openly gay or lesbian clergy, and to perform services of union – or marriage ceremonies – for same gender couples.)
Since 1982 membership has been growing again, but we remain small. There are around 215,000 UUs in the U.S. and Canada today, in about 1,000 congregations. (Compare that to 8 million Methodists, 16 million Southern Baptists, and more than 50 million Roman Catholics in the U.S.) Since merger, famous Unitarian Universalists have included "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, folksinger Pete Seeger; author Kurt Vonnegut; actor Paul Newman; rock star Jackson Browne; astronauts Robert Parker and Janice Voss; and Secretary of Defense William Cohen, among others. Our denomination – actually an association of independent congregations -- is run democratically. Self-governing congregations send delegates to annual General Assemblies. The General Assembly is presided over by an elected moderator. The day-to-day operations of the UUA are in the hands of an elected Board of Trustees, the UUA president (elected to a four-year term by the General Assembly) and staff at 25 Beacon St. in Boston, and district field staff. On the local level, our congregations vote to call their ministers, in the "Congregational" tradition.
We began the 20th Century as two liberal Christian movements, we moved into mid-century as one largely humanist movement, and at by the close of the century we were experimenting with a new wave of spirituality. No matter what your theology is, you are in a theological minority today within the UUA. The largest group call themselves humanists, but humanists no longer hold a clear majority.
Remember, the word "heresy" comes from a root meaning "to choose." We take pride in our heresy. This is precisely what Unitarian Universalism is about – the choices we make. We like to think that what has kept us going though history has been our unshakable belief in the potential in every human being to choose for him or herself a right path through life, and to live by those beliefs.
Yet we have always had our orthodoxies as well. One generation's heresy often becomes the next generation's orthodoxy. One generation achieves a certain amount of change, and stops there. The next generation sees a need for further change and growth. And so it continues.

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