What was unitarianism

There are many well-known Unitarians throughout history. Discover them below categorized by their professions:. Additionally, Julia Ward Howe who was a leader in the woman suffrage movement, the first ever woman to be selected to the Academy of Arts and Letters, and creator of the Battle Hymn of the Republic along with books of poetry and writing. This article is part of our Denomination Series listing historical facts and theological information about different factions within and from the Christian religion.

We provide these articles to help you understand the distinctions between denominations including origin, leadership, doctrine, and beliefs. Explore the various characteristics of different denominations from our list below! Share this. What Is Unitarianism? Discover the History and Beliefs of the Unitarian Church. Learn the Origins and History of Anabaptism.

More in Denominations What is Calvinism? What Is the Orthodox Church? History and Beliefs of Orthodoxy Archives. The lack of a formal creed has been central to attacks by critics who argue Unitarianism is without religious content and thus not subject to protections of religious freedom afforded by the First Amendment. Unitarianism is a form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the Trinity, whereby God is manifested as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Originally a scripturally oriented denomination, in the mid-nineteenth century it became a religion of reason and liberal theology under the leadership of James Martineau in England and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker in the United States.

Although early European leaders of anti-Trinitarian ministries such as Francis David and Michael Servetus were prosecuted for their beliefs, Unitarians in the United States have practiced their religion without interference. The consolidation of the Unitarian and Universalist denominations in brought together two distinct traditions to form a creedless movement that acts today as an umbrella organization for religious liberals all over the world.

Under its current name, Unitarian Universalism is a theologically liberal and inclusive belief system representing one thousand congregations with some , members. Unitarian Universalists claim a theological orientation that aspires to creativity, freedom, and compassion with respect for diversity and interconnectedness. Members seek spiritual growth and justice-making through fellowship, personal experience, social action, and education.

This lack of a formal creed has been central to recent attacks by critics who argue that Unitarianism is without religious content and therefore not subject to the protections of religious freedom afforded in the First Amendment. A tax-exempt status offers a church, among other things, the assurance that all membership donations by tithes, offerings, and gifts will be fully tax-deductible.

In his view the Son and the Holy Spirit like the Son, a personal agent or self distinct from the Father exist and have their perfections because of the Father.

Both are functionally and ontologically subordinate to him, and in the Spirit is at least functionally subordinate to the Son. What sort of dependence relations are these? Clarke argues that the New Testament teaches the eternal existence of the Son, and that he is co- creator of the world. Further, it teaches that the Holy Spirit is a personal agent distinct from God and not a power of God, or an exercise of such.

The early Fathers, he holds, thought Father and Son to be homoousios only in the sense that the latter is ineffably derived from the former—not in the sense of their being the same thing or the exact same kind of thing.

Clarke attempts to recast the debate, taking a middle course between Socinian unitarianism and more mainstream trinitarian views. This middle view took voluminous fire from both sides. His main objections to Clarke may be summed up as follows. Clarke misreads both the Bible and the early church fathers, both of which teach that the Father, Son, and Spirit are God and are divine in the same sense, and the latter of which teaches that the three are homoousios in a sense which implies they are one and the same being, although three persons.

See the supplementary document on the history of trinitarian doctrines section 3. This very long and intricate debate between Waterland and Clarke and their respective allies, has been canvassed but never thoroughly analyzed Dixon ; Ferguson ; Pfizenmaier , Wiles He was asked: Is it possible for the Father to annihilate the Son and Spirit?

On the other hand, if he answers affirmatively, then he compromises the divinity of the Son and renders him a mere creature, as it will be possible for the Son to not exist—his existence will not be inevitable. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, since its inception in the late 19th century, has taught that the Son is a creature, created before the cosmos, and the agent through which God created the cosmos. The Holy Spirit is simply the power of God, the Father.

Like earlier unitarians, they make their stand on the Bible, holding that it supports their view and is inconsistent with creedal trinitarian views Anonymous ; Holt ; Stafford They make many points in common with earlier unitarians, but have produced little scholarly literature. But another factor in the decline of Clarkean subordinationism was the declining fortunes of mind-body dualism.

Clarke held that Christ pre-existed in the form of divine spirit, which spirit at the incarnation then indwelled the body of Jesus, taking the place of a normal human soul Cf. But it is a central tenet of Christianity that he was a human being.

Further, belief in a realm of spirits other than God, i. Finally, Priestley and others held that former subordinationist and prolific scholar Nathaniel Lardner — had made a powerful scriptural case against Clarkean subordinationism. Lardner undercut a christology favored by subordinationists, in which the eternal Word or Logos unites with a human body in the man Jesus as opposed to the mainstream view that the Word united with both a human body and a human soul.

The driving forces of this new, English denominational Unitarian movement were Joseph Priestley — and his friend Theophilus Lindsey — , the latter having publicly resigned a post as an Anglican minister in protest of the doctrine of the Trinity, and founded the first avowedly unitarian church in London in Lindsey These two, along with their fellow travelers, poured out a large volume of plainly written, polemical but cool-headed literature.

They were particularly concerned with the interpretation of Bible texts which in their view had been commonly misread as attributing pre-existence to Christ or to his divine nature , and literal divinity to Christ.

Their antitrinitarianism was a part of a larger program to thoroughly de-catholicize and de-calvinize Christianity, and they gave a historical account of as they saw it the gradual, near-total corruption of the religion of Jesus Priestley a-c.

This movement grew in England and Scotland producing well-developed arguments against the deity of Christ, the doctrine of two natures in Christ, and against trinitarian interpretations of the Bible Belsham ; Christie , ; Lindsey Many of its proponents, including Priestley and Lindsey, revised other Christian doctrines as well, for example disavowing belief in a personal Devil and demons, holding the accounts of the birth of Christ to be later and unbelievable additions to those gospels, or holding Christ to have been mistaken in some of his interpretations of the Jewish scriptures.

Influenced by these Unitarians, a somewhat different unitarian movement arose in America. Like the English Unitarians, many of these American Unitarians argued at length that the Bible supports unitarianism and humanitarian christology over trinitarianism Lamson ; Norton ; Wilson Others argued for subordinationist unitarian views Worcester It evolved to the point where even theism was considered optional for its congregants Grodzins Thus, in the Federal Council of Churches rejected a Unitarian delegation on the grounds that they were not Christians, and Unitarians have never been a part of the World Council of Churches.

This evolution from liberal Christian denomination to a theism-optional religion has often been seen, both within and without the movement, as a natural, perhaps inevitable development. Because of this, most present day Christian theologians feel free to ignore the entire history of unitarianism and its arguments. Like late 18th to early 19th century unitarians, they argue at length that trinitarianism has no biblical foundation, and is inconsistent with its clear teachings.

They also reject trinitarianism as contradictory or unintelligible, as involving idolatry, and as having been, as it were, illegally imported from Platonic philosophy Buzzard ; Buzzard and Hunting ; Graeser et al.

Although this literature points out real tensions within contemporary theology between text-oriented commentators and systematic theologians it is widely ignored in academic theology and philosophy, and its adherents are generally excluded from the institutions of mainstream Christianity.

Supplement to Trinity Unitarianism 1. Terminology 2.