| Our
Religious Principles 1. God's presence is made known in a
myriad of ways. Religion should promote a free and responsible
search for truth, meaning, communion and love. 2. Reason is a gift from God. Religion should
embrace reason and its progeny, including the scientific enterprise
which explores God's creation. 3. Free will is a gift from God. Religion should
assist in the effort to find a path that exercises that gift in a
responsible, constructive and ethical manner. 4. Conscious of the complexity of creation, of
the limits of human understanding and of humanity's capacity for
evil in the name of religion, we hold that humility, religious
tolerance and freedom of conscience should be a central part of any
religious experience. 5. Religious experience is most fulfilling in the
context of a tradition. Our religious tradition is the Unitarian
tradition, which emphasizes the importance of reason in religion,
tolerance and the unity of God. 6. Revelation is ongoing. Religion should draw
inspiration not only from its own tradition but from other religious
traditions, philosophy and the arts. Although paying due regard for
the hard lessons learned in the past and to the importance of
religious tradition, religion should not be stagnant but should
employ reason and religious experience to evolve in a constructive,
enlightened and fulfilling way. 7. Conscious of the spiritual and material needs
of our fellow men and women, the evil they may be subjected to and
the tragedies they may endure, works of mercy and compassion should
be a part of any religious experience. | About the American Unitarian
Conference The crucible of
freedom and reason that fostered the American revolution also opened
the door to new movements in religious thought. One of those
movements was Unitarianism, which grew out of Congregationalism in
New England and the Unitarian tradition in
England, Hungary, and elsewhere in Europe. The American Unitarian
Association (AUA) was created in 1825, giving form to the burgeoning
Unitarian faith in North America. Thomas Jefferson had seen the
Unitarian potential when he wrote "I trust that there is not a young
man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian."
Although Jefferson proved unduly optimistic, the AUA quickly became
one of the most prominent religious groups in the United States. The AUA—for
most of its life—was an organization dedicated to promoting a
tolerant religious faith that saw reason and a belief in God as
congruent rather than hostile. It saw the Unitarian faith as
squarely within the Western religious tradition. Modern thought,
knowledge, and other faith traditions were not automatically
rejected, as
other religions insisted be done. Rather those modern ideas and the
beliefs they challenged were to be tested through reason and debate,
allowing the truth to come forth as a faith that could embrace both
the wisdom of the past and new knowledge. Thus illuminated,
religious faith would shine steadily and brightly in even the
strongest storm. In more recent
years, various movements within the AUA, many not even religious in
character, caused the association to depart from its historic
traditions to the point that it would hardly be recognizable to its
founders. The AUA was disbanded in 1961 when it merged with the
Universalist Church of America, creating a new organization called
the Unitarian Universalist Association. The American
Unitarian faith tradition was reborn in the year 2000 as the
American Unitarian Conference, dedicated to a renewal of the
historic Unitarian faith. The new AUC
holds that the traditional Unitarian faith is uniquely suited for
modern men and women seeking to grapple with the difficulties of
applying religious faith to modern life. Classical Unitarian
thinking offers a religious faith and language that neither requires
its adherents to jettison modern science, nor to accept beliefs that
they cannot rationally accept. Yet it is a religious faith, not just
a philosophy, and draws sustenance and life from the Western
religious tradition. The new AUC is not so vain or arrogant as to
think that all that has been done before us is of little or no value
and that religious truths need to be entirely rediscovered with each
new generation. Our Unitarianism is anchored in the hard-won wisdom
and understanding of those that went before us without remaining
stagnant. We believe that the Unitarian tradition is unique in this
respect and the AUC aims to make that tradition vibrant and alive
once again. It will take a
tremendous amount of work to rebuild Unitarianism into a movement
that can fulfill its promise, yet at the same time this effort
promises to be an exciting adventure. We invite you to join us and
help us build a Unitarianism that will bring us intellectual and
spiritual sustenance, a Unitarianism that will offer an anchor in an
increasingly chaotic world, a Unitarianism that offers much more
than tired formulas and dogmatic creeds, a Unitarianism that we can
be proud to bequeath to our children. | Menu Unitarian Christianity Unitarian History Free
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