What is Unitarianism?
A radical religious community since 1774
Unitarianism is a free and progressive religious faith tradition, historically rooted in Christianity, and now open to insight from a wide range of sources – including the wisdom of the world’s religions, poetry and literature, philosophy and science – all considered in the light of reason and experience.
Unitarians hold that all people have the right to believe what their own life experience tells them is true and what the prompting of their own conscience tells them is right. We say that each person’s spiritual or intuitive experience deserves respect; that everyone’s deep reflection and reasoning on religious and ethical questions should be taken seriously. Unitarians form a movement that tries to put these affirmations into practice. Our local religious communities offer a setting where people can worship, explore, and share faith together, drawing on wisdom and inspiration from diverse sources, in an atmosphere of freedom, mutual respect, and loving support.
The historic Unitarian affirmation God is One is what gave our movement its name. Now Unitarians also affirm: Humanity is One, the World is One, the Interdependent Web of Life is One. Within the historical Unitarian tradition there have been many strands, including deeply devotional Christian and Theistic forms, and approaches which owe more to religious humanism. There has always been something of a shifting balance between two tendencies. On the one hand, there is the rational, scientific, and discursive. On the other, there is the intuitive, the emotional, and – in its true sense – the mystical. Unitarians would see a healthy spiritualty as one that holds in balance the intuitive and the rational.
Excerpts adapted from ‘Unitarian? What’s That?’ by Cliff Reed.
Unitarianism:
An international movement
Click the links below to find out more about Unitarians in the UK and worldwide:
Unitarians in London and the South East
Unitarian Universalist Association
(sister organisation in the USA)