Unitarianism is historically a Christian theological movement named for the affirmation that God is one entity, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism, which defines God as three persons in one being. Traditional Unitarians maintain that Jesus of Nazareth is in some sense the “son” of God (as all humans are children of the Creator), but that he is not the one God himself. They may believe that he was inspired by God in his moral teachings and can thus be considered a savior, but all Unitarians perceive Christ as human rather than a Deity. Unitarianism is also known for the rejection of several other Western Christian doctrines, including the soteriological doctrines of original sin and predestination, and, in more recent history, biblical inerrancy. Unitarians in previous centuries accepted the doctrine of punishment in an eternal hell, but few do today.
The Unitarian movement was not called “Unitarian” initially. It began almost simultaneously in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Transylvania in the mid-16th century. Among the adherents were a significant number of Italians. In England, the first Unitarian Church was established in 1774 on Essex Street, London, where today’s British Unitarian headquarters are still located. Since the theology was also perceived as deist, it began to attract many people from wealthy and educated backgrounds, although it was only at the late second half of the 18th century that it started to gain some wider traction within Christendom. In the United States, it spread first in New England, and the first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by King’s Chapel in Boston, from where James Freeman began teaching Unitarian doctrine in 1784, and was appointed rector and revised the prayer book according to Unitarian doctrines in 1786. In J. Gordon Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions, it is classified among “the ‘liberal’ family of churches”.
“Unitarianism” is a proper noun and follows the same English usage as other theologies that have developed within a religious movement (Calvinism, Anabaptism, Adventism, Wesleyanism, Lutheranism, etc.). The term existed shortly before it became the name of a religious movement, and thus occasionally it is used as a common noun that would describe any understanding of Jesus Christ that denies the Trinity or which believes that God is only one person. In that case it would be a nontrinitarian belief system not necessarily associated with the Unitarian religious movement. For example, the Unitarian movement has never accepted the Godhood of Jesus, and therefore does not include those nontrinitarian belief systems that do—such as Oneness Pentecostalism, United Pentecostal Church International and the True Jesus Church and the writings of Michael Servetus —and which maintain that Jesus is God as a single person. Although these groups are unitarians in the common sense, they are not in the proper sense. To avoid confusion, this article is about Unitarianism as a religious movement (proper noun). For the generic form of unitarianism (the Christology), see Nontrinitarianism. Recently some religious groups have adopted the 19th-century term “biblical unitarianism” to distinguish their theology from Unitarianism. These likewise have no direct relation to the Unitarian movement.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Unitarianism, Unitarian, Polish Brethren, Fausto Sozzini, Faustus Socinus, Socinus, Socinius, Racovian, Racovian Catechism, Anti trinitarian, Non trinitarian, Unity of God, Trinity is unscriptural, Trinity false teaching, Trinity, Tri unity, Triunity, One God, Jesus is not God, Nicean Creed, Athanasian Creed, Nicean, Athanasian, Christology, Socinian
Bible reference(s): Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 16:13, Matthew 16:16, Mark 8:27, Mark 8:29, Mark 12:29, Mark 12:32, John 17:22, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Ephesians 4:6, 1 Timothy 2:5
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Unitarianism,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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