A Unitarian Confession

from AmericanUnitarian.org

A Unitarian Confession:

We believe in one God, the Creator and Preserver of all things,

And in Jesus Christ, the one Lord of the Church,

whose teachings and life form the standard of our faith and practice,

And in the holy spirit, the influence of God within us;

We believe in the divine element in conscience,

In free will and the responsibility that comes with it,

In the inspiration and sanctity of Scripture,

In the forgiveness of sins,

In God's universal love for all humankind,

And in the future advancement of the whole human family to holiness and happiness.

Unitarian Christianity

from AmericanUnitarian.org

What is Unitarian Christianity?

Briefly described, Unitarian Christianity is, like other forms of Christianity, a religion that asserts the divine character, divine spirit, and divine foundation of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It places particular emphasis on reason, conscience, and free will in religion and uses contemporary methods to understand myths and symbols of the past. It is a progressive religion, founded on and patterned after the elemental Christianity of Jesus and his disciples. Like that model, it seeks ever to form surer and nobler understandings of God and of the world by a conscientious search for truth. It lays great stress on the ethical responsibility of individuals, of the Church, and of the human race. Unitarian Christianity is distinguished from other Christian belief systems in four main respects:

1) the belief that human nature in its present condition is neither inherently corrupt nor depraved, but exactly as God created it and intended it to be from the beginning, capable of both good and evil;

2) the conviction that no religion has a monopoly on holy spirit or theological truth;

3) the belief that the Bible, while inspired of God, is written by humans and therefore subject to human error;

4) the rejection of traditional doctrines that malign God’s character or veil the true nature and mission of Jesus, such as the doctrines of predestination, eternal damnation, the Trinity, and the vicarious sacrifice or satisfaction theory of the Atonement.

Other belief systems may hold to one or more of these views, but Unitarian Christianity is unique in upholding all of them. It is the rejection of the Trinity doctrine that gave rise to the name “Unitarian,” although disavowal of the Trinity teaching is hardly the emphasis of Unitarianism. Unitarians have great respect for all forms of Christianity, but are convinced that their Christianity best reflects Jesus’ own vision.

Religious Principles of the American Unitarian Conference

What is the AUC? What does our little corner of Christianity have to offer the rest of the faith?

From the American Unitarian Conference website.

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.

UU Christians

The American Unitarian Church, and what im calling All Saints AUC (Vancouver, BC) are seeking to return the Unitarian ethos to Christianity. While the UU (Unitarian Universalists) do incredible work and show us ways to honor diverse traditions, It is also important for Unitarian voices to reintergrate with mainline Christianity.

To that end we should listen to the UU Christian voices that have come before us and learn from them. I found the list below on the PeaceBang blog website and thought it was too good to pass by. This list embodies so much of what I want to be!!!

So what do (UU) Christians do? Here is my own personal list.

1. Christians worship together in community. The Christian movement is all about the community of the faithful. It is not about kinship ties but spiritual ties. Christians need to be together to praise God according to Jesus’ model. Christians do not do this alone. This means that I need to make a commitment to worship in a Christian church or with UU Christians on a regular basis, and I do. This was a commitment I made when I was baptized, as I believe that one cannot be a Christian “solitary.”
I have learned the stories and the songs that bond me to Christians all over the world, and this has brought immeasurable depth and meaning to my life.

That said, Mama G, I like SC Universalists idea for your group.

2. Christians read and preach from the Bible when they are together. The Bible contains the sacred story for Christians and should be read and studied and marveled at and delved into by those who seek to know, and to live by, the spirit of Jesus.

3. Christians read and study the Bible when they are alone. I encourage all UU Christians to read the Bible (OT and NT) daily and to study the commentaries, both Jewish and Christian. I think that UU Christians have a special responsibility to affirm the sibling relationship that exists between Judaism and Christianity, and to acknowledge the latter’s debt to the former. UU Christians have a unique ability to keep reminding the Christian world that Jesus was a Jewish man ministering within a Jewish community. We can, and should be, bridge-builders between the two communities.

3. Pray as a Christian.
To pray as a Christian means to name God as the One who hears our prayers, who is actively involved in the world, and who loves us. To pray as a Christian means to ask for healing in the name of Christ, the healer. It means to learn the Lord’s Prayer and to develop a personal understanding and relationship with each of the phrases. To pray as a Christian means to pray for others and to assume that doing so is never an empty gesture. Christian UUs should be praying people and offer to pray for anyone who asks, including agnostics, skeptics, and anyone who thinks that maybe a prayer “couldn’t hurt.” We are not required to believe that prayer “works” but I think we are required to keep faith that prayer matters.

3. Christians share table fellowship.
Eat! Break bread together!

4. Christians should feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked, etc., as per Jesus’ instructions. UU Christian groups will want to consider doing something along these lines together.

5. Christian UUs should become friends with the communion of saints from our tradition, and consider it their privilege and responsibility to know the religious teachings of our great Christian ministers (and lay men and women as you can find them).

SO, what DON’T UU Christians do?

1. UU Christians don’t proselytize or make claims that theirs is the one true faith. They just choose this path for themselves.

2. UU Christians don’t exclude people from fellowship for expressing doubts or irreverent thoughts about the Bible, Jesus or God.

3. UU Christians don’t worry about who’s going to hell and they don’t engage in competetive spiritual development.

4. UU Christians assume that all are capable of taking on leadership, and they share the responsibility of planning, setting up and cleaning up.

The 8 Points

By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who:

1. Proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God

2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God's realm

3. Understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of God's feast for all peoples

4. Invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full partners, including (but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, homosexuals and heterosexuals, females and males, the despairing and the hopeful, those of all races and cultures, and those of all classes and abilities, without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us

5. Think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way we express our beliefs

6. Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers

7. See ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for our work in the world: striving for justice and peace among all people; bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers

8. Recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil--as has always been the tradition of the church