Personal Spiritual Practices: These are practices done alone and, perhaps, daily—such as meditation, dream work, journaling, prayer, and so on. They’re what most people think of when they hear the words “spiritual practice.” Communal Worship Practices: Although Unitarian Universalists affirm...

Margaret Fuller was: A pre-eminent United States human rights advocate The first major U.S. foreign correspondent, spending four years in Europe reporting on and supporting, among other things, Italy's failed socialist revolution The first literary editor of a major U.S....

By Charles Chauncy. The Four Categories First: Sensations For traditional Christians like Chauncy, spiritual awakening is prompted by the minister's sermon, and thus his voice, the sounds of the words impressing themselves upon the bodies (eardrums) of the congregants become the sensations first...

Love beyond belief, according to Thandeka, means that personal experience has three basic elements for us as Unitarian Universalists: (1) a change of heart, (2) a congregational ethos of care and compassion, (3) doctrinal freedom to explore various sources to explain our religious feelings and...

The Reverend Dr. Thandeka is cited as one of our most influential contemporary Unitarian Universalist theologians. She is the author of The Embodied Self: Friedrich Schleiermacher's Solution to Kant's Problem of the Empirical Self and Learning To Be White: Money, Race, and God in America, and...

Information and short excerpts from the writings of William F. Schulz—presented in five sections, or topics, for ease of study and discussion—convey his theological point of view. All quotations are used with permission of William F. Schulz. I: Assessment of Human Nature William F. Schulz...

This professional biography was provided by Dr. Schulz in 2009. On November 3, 2010, The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) announced that Dr. William F. Schulz had been named the new UUSC president and chief executive officer. "William Schulz......

Religion Adams claims that religion is a universal experience. To be human, Adams argues, is to be religious because the purpose of religion is to identify what gives fundamental meaning and fulfillment to human life....

Drawn from Adams' essays and his autobiography, Not Without Dust and Heat. By the time of his death in 1994 at age 92, James Luther Adams was recognized as one of the preeminent Christian social ethicists and theologians of the 20th century. In his work, he emphasized personal and institutional...

This story is included in the second and third grade Tapestry of Faith curriculum, Faithful Journeys. "Mama, Mama, why do we just keep going and going and not going anywhere?" asked little Sophie. Her family was crossing the wide Pacific Ocean on a big ship bound for America. Sophie Lyon was an...

One of the creators of modern American theological liberalism, Sophia Lyon Fahs was also the progenitor of American Unitarian religious education as a modern theological science of human emotions. Born in 1876 to Presbyterian missionary parents in China, she embraced progressive educational...

From "Likeness to God," a Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. F.A. Farley, Providence, Rhode Island, 1828, found in William Ellery Channing: Selected Writings, David Robinson, ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 1985). In proportion as we approach and resemble the mind of God, we are brought into...

Information drawn from sources including: Channing, William Henry, Memoir of William Ellery Channing with Extracts His Correspondents and Manuscripts, In Three Volumes, (Boston, 1851) Wright, Conrad, http://www.uuabookstore.org/Three-Prophets-of-Religious-Liberalism-P175… Prophets of Religious...

From Hosea Ballou, http://books.google.com/books?vid=HARVARD32044016976474&printsec=ti… Treatise on Atonement in which, The Finite Nature of Sin is Argued, Its Cause and Consequences as such; The Necessity and Nature of Atonement; And its Glorious Consequences in the FINAL RECONCILIATION OF ALL...

Hosea Ballou preached his liberal faith to everyday people, men and women of the laboring classes. He was a self-educated man from rural New Hampshire and Massachusetts who was spurned by the Boston Unitarian elite. But in no small part thanks to Ballou, by the end of the 19th century, one out of...

Charles Chauncy preached this sermon May 13, 1742, at the First Church of Boston. Printed by T. Fleet, for D. Henchman and S. Eliot in Cornhill, 1742. Excerpts 3 and 5 include paraphrasing as well as direct quotes from the sermon. First Excerpt The Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, as the word is...

Information drawn from Albert D. Bell, The Life and Times of Dr. George de Benneville (1703-1793) (Boston: The Universalist Church of America, 1953) and David Robinson, “George de Benneville,” The Unitarians and the Universalists (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1985). George de Benneville is the...

We Are Surrounded by Love Printing This Handout Download a high-resolution copy of this Handout (PDF) for printing.

Where were you born? Where do you live? Have you always lived there? If not, how many times have you moved? Do you have siblings? Do you have pets? When did you begin coming to this congregation? What is your favorite ritual or celebration in this congregation? What hobbies or activities do you...

Plan a worship service that inspires participants and allows them to bear witness to one another's commitments to take on the work of building antiracist, anti-oppressive, multicultural communities and groups in all areas of your lives. Use the questions and template below as a guide. I....