What is the history of Unitarian Universalism?
Unlike many Protestant faiths, we do not trace our roots to a single founder. Ideas about the “unity of God” (Unitarian) and “salvation for all” (Universalist) have been around since the earliest days of Christianity. Perhaps the greatest scholar among the early fathers of the Christian Church was Origen, who lived from 185 to 245 CE. He has been called “the first Universalist,” for he rejected the concept of Hell, believed in the benevolence of God who would offer salvation to all humankind, and emphasized the humanity of Jesus. He had wide influence in his day, though by the seventh century he was declared a heretic. The first consolidation of Christianity into an orthodox religion came under Constantine the Great, who had chosen Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the hopes of unifying it. Unfortunately, at that time, Christianity was not a unified faith, but a loose conglomeration of churches ruled by local bishops — there were competing gospels, different
Related Questions
- If Unitarian Universalism doesn explicitly require its members to believe in a personal God, why does it call itself a religion? Is Unitarian Universalism generally regarded as a religion?
- Does Unitarian Universalism have a creed that sums up its beliefs?
- What is the history of Unitarian Universalism?
