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 reason and conscience to be final authorities in matters of religious belief;
We honor the Bible and all inspiring scripture, old and new;
We revere Jesus, and all holy souls that have taught men truth and righteousness and love, as prophets of religion;
We believe in the growing nobility of Man; We trust the unfolding Universe as beautiful, beneficent, unchanging Order; to know this order is truth; to obey it is right and liberty and stronger life;
We believe that good and evil invariably carry their own recompense, no good thing being failure and no evil thing success; that heaven and hell are states of being; that no evil can befall the good man in either life or death; that all things work together for the victory of the Good;
We believe that we ought to join hands and work to make the good things better and the worst good, counting nothing good for self that is not good for all;
We believe that this self-forgetting, loyal life awakes in man the sense of union here and now with things eternal—the sense of deathlessness; and this sense is to us an earnest of the life to come;
We worship One-in-All — that life whence suns and stars derive their orbits and the soul of man its Ought, — that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, giving us power to become the sons of God, — that Love with which our souls commune.

Unitarians Face a New Age Statement of Doctrinal Agreements and Tensions

A summary of the conclusions drawn from the Study of Values by the 1936 Unitarian Commission of Appraisal. Published in Unitarians Face a New Age, the commission's report.

Unitarians Agree

In affirming the primacy of the free exercise of intelligence in religion, believing that in the long run the safest guide to truth is human intelligence.
In affirming the paramount importance for the individual of his own moral convictions and purpose.
In affirming that the social implications of religion are indispensable to its vitality and validity, as expressed in terms of concern for social conditions and the struggle to create a just social order.
In affirming the importance of the church as the organized expression of religion.
In affirming the necessity for worship as a deliberate effort to strengthen the individual's grasp of the highest spiritual values of which he is aware.
In affirming the rational nature of the universe.

Unitarians Disagree

As to the expediency of using the traditional vocabulary of religion, within a fellowship which includes many who have rejected the ideas commonly associated with such words as "God", "prayer", "communion", "salvation", "immortality".
As to the wisdom of maintaining the definitely Christian tradition, and the traditional forms of Christian worship.
As to the religious values of a purely naturalistic philosophy.
As to the adequacy and competency of man to solve his own problems, both individual and social.
As to the advisability of direct action by churches in the field of social and political problems.