The Community Church is an institution of religion dedicated to the service of humanity… It substitutes for a private group of persons held together by common theological beliefs or viewpoints, the public group of citizens held together by common social interests……

OUR CONGREGATION’S COVENANT (Leader: Add the text of your congregation’s covenant to this handout before copying for the group.) COVENANTS COMMONLY USED IN UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATIONS Love is the doctrine of this church, The quest of truth is its sacrament, And service is its prayer. To…

Orthodoxy — from Greek, orthodoxos, from orthos, “right,” and doxa, “belief” Ideas held to be the standard of right belief. A standard of orthodoxy may be established by authority (the judgment of others), tradition (the test of time), testimony (written documentation), or reason (personal…

Excerpts from a Divinity School Address given by Ralph Waldo Emerson to the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sunday evening, July 15, 1838. On human agency… … The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws…

Mary Livermore, in addresses to the Women’s Centenary Aid Society and the mass meeting of the Centennial Assembly of Universalists in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1870 said: I long for the women of our church to come up to their birthright, to take their places….

Copyright 1933 by The New Humanist and 1973 by the American Humanist Association. Used with permission. Please note that this is no longer a current statement of humanist convictions; it has been replaced by http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Mani… and Its…

Stories in this litany are used by permission. “A Child Discovers She’s Not Alone” by Rev. Pat Guthmann Haresch I remember in my UU childhood, I went to a grade school where there weren’t any other UU kids, and sometimes that felt isolating….

Excerpted from “Love and Power: The Universalist Dilemma” by the Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, first presented as the John Murray Distinguished Lecture at the UUA General Assembly in Boston, June 2003. Used with permission….

Psalm 65: A Psalm of David. A Song. (1)Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; and to you shall vows be performed, (2)O you who answer prayer! To you all flesh shall come. (3)When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions….

Here are some of the agreements made by the signers of the Cambridge Platform (or, more formally, as A Platform of Church Discipline Gathered Out of the Word of God and Agreed Upon by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches Assembled in the Synod at Cambridge in New England): Differences with t…

From Eugene B. Navias, Singing Our History (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 1975). The lyrics of “The Almighty Love” were written by Theodore Parker (1810-1860). In 1841, early in his ministry, Parker preached a controversial sermon, “The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity.”…

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition took place in the midst of a time of radical cultural and societal change in the United States….

1509-11 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) completed “School for Athens” fresco in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican. Set in classical times, the masterwork emphasizes reason, dialogue, and the liberal arts—a marked departure from Michelangelo’s nearby Sistine Chapel, painted around the same time…

1. Greeley Forges a Strong Presidency In 1961 the first General Assembly elects the Rev. Dr. Dana McLean Greeley, last president of the American Unitarian Association, to be the first president of the new UUA. Charismatic and deeply engaged in public issues, Greeley raised visibility, membership,…

Rule of Faith, Philadelphia Convention of Universalists (1790) Section 1. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. We believe the scriptures of the old and new Testament to contain a revelation of the perfections and will of God, and the rule of faith and practice. Section 2. OF THE SUPREME BEING….

It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals. Oh blow ye evil winds into my body’s fire; my soul you’ll never unravel. Even though disappointed a thousand times or fallen in the fight and everything worthless seem, I have lived amidst eternity….

These readings accompany Leader Resource 2, From Antitrinitarian to Unitarian. SECTION 1: Arius’s Letter to Eusebius (319 C.E.) But what is it that we say and believe, and that we have taught and teach?…

English translation of Origen’s De Principiis, Book I, Chapter 6.3, “On the End of Consummation” from Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicean Fathers Translations of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, Vol, 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994)….

Excerpted from “Of Madmen and Martyrs: A Unitarian Take on Knoxville,” a blog post by Sara Robinson published July 28, 2008 on the Orcinus website. Used with permission. We are an odd group, we Unitarians. Conventional wisdom says that we’re soft in all the places our society values toughness….

Conrad Wright writes, in Congregational Polity: A Historical Survey of Unitarian and Universalist Practice, that in the Unitarian Universalist tradition of congregational polity, “it is left to the individual to decide whether he or she belongs within the covenant of a particular local religious…

From Article II, Section C 2.1. Bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association. …

Excerpts from Theodore Parker’s sermon, “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity,” delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Charles C. Shackford in the Hawes Place Church, Boston on May 19, 1841. ……

You can download a word document of this timeline here. Timeline of UU History (PDF) Date Historical and Religious Events Unitarian Universalist Unitarian Universalist 230 C.E….

Though their numbers were modest compared to other denominations, the Unitarians and the Universalists were each well represented at the Parliament….

From Weaving the Fabric of Diversity, by Jacqui James and Judith A. Frediani (Boston: UUA, 1996). Complete this survey twice—once for the “Me” column and once for the “My Congregation” column. You will not be asked to share your responses. 1. Starting with the “Me” column, write the letter (T, M,…

Would you harbor me? Would I harbor you? Would you harbor me? Would I harbor you? Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew a heretic, convict or spy? Would you harbor a run away woman, or child, a poet, a prophet, a king? Would you harbor an exile, or a refugee, a person living with AIDS?…

Parts of a covenant include: The Foundation Alice Blair Wesley in her 2000-01 Minns Lecture series “Our Covenant” paraphrased James Luther Adams, saying, Strong effective, lively liberal churches, sometimes capable of altering positively the direction of their whole society, will be those liberal…

The words “Great Over-Soul and Inter-Heart” were written by Mary Safford (1895) and edited by Eugene B. Navias to be sung to the tune Duke Street L.M., Hymn 35 in Singing the Living Tradition. Ministers of the Iowa Sisterhood Mary Augusta Safford Eleanor Gordon Florence Buck Mary Collson Caroline…

This reading is for multiple voices, a narrator, and several individuals who represent early 20th-century Unitarians and Universalists. Excerpted and adapted from Elite: Uncovering Classism in Unitarian Universalist History by Mark W. Harris (Boston, Skinner House, 2011). Used with permission.

Excerpts from an 1818 imprint which can be viewed in its entirety online: Rees, Thomas, The Racovian Catechism, with notes and illustrations; translated from the Latin. To which is prefixed a sketch of the history of Unitarianism in Poland and the adjacent countries (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees,…

By any account, the year 1965 in the United States was one of upheaval and transformation. February Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City. Jazz pianist Nat King Cole died in Santa Monica, CA. His last album L-O-V-E rose to number 4 in the Billboard chart later that Spring. March The U.S.

Hymns In Singing the Living Tradition, the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook: Hymn 26, “Holy, Holy, Holy” Hymn 30, “Over My Head” Hymn 145, “As Tranquil Streams that Meet and Merge” Hymn 174, “O Earth, You Are Surpassing Fair” Hymn 287, “Faith of the Larger Liberty” Hymn 288, “All are Architects of…

Unitarian Universalist Principles (1961) The Association, dedicated to the principles of a free faith, shall: (a) Support the free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of religious fellowship; (b) Cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of…

Things Most Commonly Believed Today Among Us A Statement of Faith written by William Channing Gannett for the 1887 meeting of the Western Unitarian Conference in Chicago, adopted by a vote of 59 to 13. We believe that to love the Good and to live the Good is the supreme thing in religion; We hold…