Faith CoLab: Tapestry of Faith: Principled Commitment: An Adult Program on Building Strong Relationships

Leader Resource 2: UU Trivia Hunt Answer Key

Our congregation:

  • What is the official name of our congregation? (Insert answer.)
  • Who is the president/chairperson of the congregation? (Insert answer.)
  • When was our congregation founded? (Insert answer.)
  • In what year was our congregation's building constructed? (Insert answer.)
  • Name a room in our building that is named for a famous Unitarian Universalist. (Insert answer.)
  • Who was our congregation's first minister? (Insert answer.)
  • Find a quote from our congregation's first minister. (Insert answer.)

Our movement:

  • What is the first Source of "the living tradition which we share," as listed in the Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association? ("Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life")
  • What is at 24 Farnsworth Street in Boston? (The main offices of the Unitarian Universalist Association; inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop; Beacon Press)
  • What is the name for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations' system of governance, which offers a high degree of autonomy to each congregation? (Congregational polity)
  • What ritual do almost all of our congregations engage in toward the beginning of worship? (Lighting a flaming chalice)

Early history:

  • What sixteenth-century European heretic, hero to many Unitarian Universalists, was burned at the stake for his beliefs? (Michael Servetus)
  • Who defined Unitarianism in his 1819 sermon "Unitarian Christianity," and is sometimes called "the father of American Unitarianism"? (William Ellery Channing)
  • In what city was the first Universalist church in America? (Gloucester, Massachusetts)
  • In what city was the first Unitarian church in America? (Boston and Philadelphia both claim this distinction.)
  • Who was the first woman minister in the United States to be ordained, achieve full ministerial standing, and be recognized by a religious denomination? Was she Unitarian or Universalist? (Olympia Brown, Universalist)
  • Who wrote A Treatise on Atonement in 1805? What was its main point? (Hosea Ballou; the Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography describes the main point as such: "As finite creatures, he argued, human beings are incapable of offending an infinite God. Therefore, he rejected the orthodox argument that the death of Jesus Christ was designed to appease an angry God, and replaced it with the idea that God is a being of eternal love who seeks the happiness of his human children.")

More recent history:

  • When did the American Unitarian Association merge with the Universalist Church of America? (1961)
  • The 2004 court decision in the case Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. How many of the 14 plaintiffs in the case were Unitarian Universalists? (Seven)
  • What is the name of the comprehensive sexuality education program published by the Unitarian Universalist Association and United Church of Christ? Is there a curriculum in this series for adults? (Our Whole Lives; yes, there is a curriculum for adults and a curriculum for young adults, ages 18 to 35)