There was an extraordinary range of personal beliefs among the participants in my 2003 small group workshop in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. They were the delegates, staff and visitors attending the annual meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists....

In July 2003, I went on an eight-day spiritual retreat at a Benedictine monastery in Wisconsin. The night before I left Chicago to drive to the monastery, as preparation for the journey, I made a series of decisions about what kinds of clothes I would need while on this retreat. I was thorough. I...

James Luther Adams, from "The Evolution of My Social Concern." Used with permission, Herbert F. Vetter, Harvard Square Library....

In 1789, Hosea Ballou attended the Baptist revival held in his hometown of Richmond, New Hampshire. Moved by the preaching during this event, which was touted as "The Great Reformation," Ballou, age 19, stepped forward to be baptized....

I was recently back in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and wanted to share some of the great ideas for young adult ministry that I saw at the church I grew up in: First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus....

Dr. Anthony Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He serves as a trustee of Meadville Lombard Theological School. This article is abridged, with permission, from one published in Religious Humanism (Winter-Spring 1998)....

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a leading 19th-century philosopher, father of the Transcendentalist movement. Before he became a philosophical and literary luminary, he was a Unitarian minister and served the Second Church in Boston between 1829 and 1832. In pursuing ministry, Ralph Waldo followed in the...

Read the story aloud, and ask the questions as they come up to encourage interaction and deeper thinking about the concepts. Or, if you are familiar enough with the ideas, tell the story in your own words, being sure to emphasize the four themes: freedom of thought, or noncreedalism; on-going...

Excerpted from Cathedral of the World. Copyright 2009 by Forrest Church. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston. Imagine awaking one morning from a deep and dreamless sleep to find yourself in the nave of a vast cathedral....

After many years in a congregation, she’d had enough. Knowing the people as well as she did, she knew that what they said on Sunday and what they did on Monday did not always equate....

Every religion has factions that disagree about "doctrine"—that is, the official beliefs of that religion. Even ours. Even though Unitarian Universalism is a free religion without a set doctrine or creed, there are plenty of ways to disagree about what it means to be a UU. One such disagreement...

By Daniel Quinn, in Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (New York: Bantam/Turner Books, 1992). Used by permission.This story (Ishmael said) takes place half a billion years ago—an inconceivably long time ago, when this planet would be all but unrecognizable to you. Nothing at all stirred...