Unitarianism (Theology)

The Unitarianism (in English: is a specific Christian doctrine which holds that God is one and differs from the Christian Trinity : Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Under this doctrine, Jesus is the man who is closest to God, the divine. As for the Holy Spirit, it is: the Father, in Jesus - his privileged son.

The current Christian Unitarian originated currents of free inquiry prnicens strictly monotheistic , the best known is the Arianism during the debates over the councils Christological ^the fourth century.

The distinction must be made between Unitarianism Biblical Unitarianism said universalist. For Unitarian Universalists should not define Unitarianism as an exclusively Christian doctrine and Anti-Trinitarianism. This presupposes that Trinitarianism is the doctrine standard against which all others are measured. This overlooks the fact that the question of God is only asked by the three Abrahamic religions and that Islam and Judaism are responding by Unitarianism (God is one but also unique). Biblical Unitarianism, in part, has a more fundamentalist approach to the Bible.

Unitarianism is not to be confused with the Uniate Churches or the Churches United.

Unlike Christologies dominant Christian, those, for example, the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox patriarchs and evangelical churches , the Unitarians do not recognize the historic Trinity.

Added to this for some faith in human reason .

Alongside these Unitarian Christians, very present in Romania and Hungary , a Unitarian Universalist current attempts to develop areas of sharing, in which the reference to the Bible is neither mandatory nor necessary. Participants at meetings Unitarian Universalists can come from various spiritual paths, or may enroll in any religious tradition, everyone is free to put its research and its direction.

History

Unitarians claim to current non-Trinitarian Christianity in particular the Judeo-Christian Ebionites and Arians, which before the Council of Nicaea did not recognize the division of God in three persons.

The Judeo-Christian

After the death of Jesus , those who saw him as a prophet and awaited the promised coming of the Kingdom, banded together in small communities, rejecting any other magisterial than Jesus. They are now called Judeo-Christian .

These communities, sometimes rivals , were an integral part of Judaism that they met the requirements including circumcision , abstention from meat deemed impure, etc..

A large part of it recognized by Jacques the main pillar of Palestinian Christianity of the fact that he was the brother of the Messiah.

The debate between some of cescommunauts and Paul of Tarsus on the conversion of non-Jews gave birth to Christianity, sometimes called Pauline. Turned to the conversion of gentiles , that some call this current also Gentile Christianity , carried more quickly than the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70. From that moment, and according to this reading, the Judeo-Christians had no more spiritual center and the communities that developed were then especially those centered around the teachings of Paul and his followers .

Ebionism

But among the Jewish Christians groups who remained, some ended up giving birth to Ebionism. Ebionite comes from a Hebrew word meaning poor. Their doctrine is summed up in a way the Sermon on the Mount, text that could find inspiration in another apocryphal text Jew, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Appeared in the ^first century, the Ebionites continued to observe the Mosaic law , including circumcision and not retained in the oral tradition, which was then beginning to be written down as the four Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew .

To them Jesus was not God incarnate. He was born like everyone one man and one woman. Certainly, he had, as a prophet, a stature different from ordinary human, but if their was only exceeded by its virtues and its quality of prophet. As to whether he was the Messiah , the Ebionites did not comment, leaving it free to the faithful. The Ebionism eventually disappear quietly, blending into other communities.

Arianism

In the early ^fourth century comes a school of thought behind the creation of an orthodox Christian reaction: the Arianism , named after its founder, the priest Arius ( 256 - 336 ). It was probably a pupil of Meletius , organizer of the internal resistance in Alexandria during the persecution of Diocletian in 306. He found himself at the head of one of the communities of Alexandria and it enjoyed great consideration because he was a fiery preacher, poet, with strong arguments .

His ideas on the relationship of Jesus and his Father in heaven readopted in part with the Judeo-Christianity: Jesus without being a prophet, not God but a god. Many will be joining him, priests and laymen, leaving the doctrines Arius condemned as not being true to the Gospels. He was repeatedly anathematized, which did not stop him continuing to preach, then turns recording approvals and convictions (see Arianism ).

From the Reformation

Antitrinitariens of the Radical Reformation

The first part, theological and social movement which is best known contemporary of Martin Luther is that of the Anabaptists of Thomas Mntzer. Among the various strands of this radical reform , some were anti-Trinitarian positions while having quite diverse:

1. Some challenged just as the Holy Spirit is a person, which could pray (eg Johannes Campanus in Jlich ).
2. Others, such Cellarius in 1527 , believed that the divinity of Jesus was that every man may take when it was inhabited by the Holy Spirit.
3. A third group antitrinitarians saw Jesus as a man deified after his death and having sat through the Resurrection, among the celestial beings ( Sozzini ).
4. Others were finally in Jesus: a prophet, not existing, born of Joseph and Mary, not deified (cf. the "Judaizing" of Transylvania )

There was therefore antitrinitarians in all countries of Western Europe: Germany, Holland, Alsace, France, Switzerland (Basel, Zurich and Geneva) in Graubnden and northern Italy.

It should be emphasized the important role played by antitrinitarians Italian , favorable to the Anabaptists and having their center in Venice. In 1550 , in the same city, the Italian Synod of Bishops Anabaptists, representing approximately seventy congregations, adopted a confession of faith in 10 articles, the first article stipulated that faith in Jesus synod real man and not God!

The reaction was immediate: the Inquisition rages against all Italian reformers what they are, pushing them to the exodus to the Grisons , to Switzerland , etc.. Calvin greeted a group of Italian reformers who organized a church soon Reformed Italian in Geneva. Among the refugees there were antitrinitarians: Blandrata George (who was a classmate of Francois Rabelais in Montpellier and was professor at Pavia ); Alciati and Gentile , and Gribaldo , who lived in Fargo ( Switzerland ) often visited his friends in Geneva , or, another visitor to Geneva, Lelio Sozzini. The latter two tried in 1553 , but in vain, to influence for clemency, opponents of Michael Servetus. Persecuted by Calvin Biandratra, Alciati and Gentile fled from Geneva in 1558 and went into Poland.

Distribution

Regarding the broadcast history of Unitarianism during the Enlightenment:

• Main article: Little Church in Poland.
• Main article: Unitarian Church of Transylvania.

Persecutions

Until today, the sport of political and religious ambitions of powerful neighbors, Transylvania has experienced periods of oppression varied, but the independent spirit of its people has allowed the Unitarian Church to exist clandestinely despite persecution. The first oppressions at the end of the ^sixteenth century , were Calvinists. Then came the Catholic persecutors, when Hungary was occupied by the Austrians between 1690 and 1867. Unitarians could yet enjoy a relative freedom in Hungary , a country then under the thumb of the Turks. They created this center in Pcs (southern Hungary ).

The Unitarian Church of Transylvania with its subsidiaries in Hungary , was a breath of fresh air by 1821, when the anti-Trinitarian English and Hungarian Unitarians are discovered each other. These links were realized by a material and moral support offered to the oppressed. These brothers also adopted Anglo-Saxon name of Unitarians in Great Britain, and especially the United States of America where Unitarians there were hundreds of thousands, not counting those who, while belonging to other Churches were personally sympathetic Unitarian.

Some martyrs

In fact, the history of Unitarians in Europe is a Western history of persecution which they were victims of the hands of clergy - especially Calvinists and Catholics: retractions obtained under threat, exile, executions, etc..

15 April 1539 a woman of 80 years, Helene Weigel, after ten years spent in prison following a denunciation (that of the bishop in this case) was burned at the stake in Cracow. She believed in the unity of God and therefore repudiated the Trinity. His wholesale rejection of dogmas and rites of the Church Catholic was the cause of his condemnation. Before the executioner put fire to the fagots, she exclaimed: "The soul of the rest in the truth can not be damned."

27 October 1553 the Spanish physician Michael Servetus , condemned by the Calvinist Geneva, suffered the same fate. He denied the divide of the divine essence in three distinct persons. To top it off, like the Anabaptists , he advocated adult baptism. John Calvin approved the sentence, however, regretted that the stake was not replaced by decapitation , less cruel.

The Bonfire of the Dutchman Joris David in 1559 in Basel is worth quoting. Indeed, after having scandalized the clergy by his writings, he came to end his days near Basel under a false name and died there in 1556. Three years later, his identity was discovered, he was condemned, therefore, they exhumed his body burned with his writings!

30 April 1632 at Geneva , the Rev. Nicolas Antoine was pinioned by the hangman and his body burned. He preached the unity of the divine essence, without distinction of persons, obedience to the law given by God to Moses on Sinai , the need for believers to be circumcised, the observance of Sabbath and abstaining from unclean meats. He believed that the Messiah at his second return would again be a man. He denied the doctrine of original sin , preached individual responsibility in obtaining hello and thought that the New Testament contradicts the Old.

The English Socinians

The period of John Biddle (1615-1662) to Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) can be considered the passage of Socinianism rather fundamentalist beginnings of liberal Unitarianism . There was a great brainstorm idea at the time, with thinkers in recognizing ideas such as Socinianism ( Paul Best and John Biddle ), the Sabellianism ( John Fry ) Arianism ( John Knowles , Thomas Collier , William Whiston and Paul Hobson ) and universalism ( Richard Coppin , John Reeve and Muggleton Ludowicke ).

Unitarianism Bible-fundamentalist, however, has continued until today with the Christadelphians and other Adventist Unitarian groups such as the Church of God of Abrahamic faith or the Church of God (Seventh Day).

Contemporary Unitarianism

Unitarianism was retained in its Christian version of history in the churches of Transylvania to Hungary, Great Britain, Norway and Boston, United States (including the King's Chapel). In addition, associations nominally "Christian Unitarian" emerged from the late ^twentieth century and the beginning of this century in Britain, France, Italy and in Black Africa (Burundi, Congo Brazzaville, Congo Kinshasa).

To this Christian component were added, from 1961, universalism, a legacy of the Universalist Church of America (hello advocating for all). The Unitarian-Universalism is born of the merger on that date of the American Unitarian Association (AUA, 1825-1961) and the above named Universalist Church (1779-1961). The American congregations had already started to agnostics and atheists in spiritual search from the last quarter of the ^nineteenth century. Going further, the Unitarian-Universalism places when with him, all human religions on the same level, Christianity, always respected, is more central or in a majority position in this movement.

The Unitarian movement and is now more varied. Some of these sensitivities are found worldwide within the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists ( English : International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, ICUU). For more information on the French ICUU, see the website of the Assembly of Unitarian Christians fraternal (AFCU) Doctrines

Like all living traditions, Unitarianism (some prefer the anglicism Unitarianism) has diverse faces.

If originally the anti-Trinitarian Christian churches, were relatively conservative, the coming to New World and the creation of the United States, often around Unitarian personalities, brought him a new lease early.

For example, the pastor and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson - one of the few theologians have found favor in the eyes of Nietzsche - developed a philosophy of life where the idea of the interdependence of living and the world plays a key role.

Subsequently, interested in developing contacts with people from other spiritual paths, but also to distance themselves from Christianity "classic", many Unitarian Universalists are declared. For them, the question of the unity of God was no longer central. The unit was now to look at human beings, but also in terms of the relationship of the human world.

Finally, as the mainstream of the Unitarian-Universalism merged and Unitarian Universalist communities in the United States in 1961:

The congregations are humanists, agnostics, atheists, theists, Christian liberal neo-paganism and spiritualists of the earth. The congregations are bound by a number of common principles, each person deciding the belief that leads to these principles.

These principles are: freedom of conscience and thought, value and dignity inherent in every person, justice and compassion in human relations, responsibility in the protection and promotion of life, commitment democratic principles.

Speaking of belief and theology, it is important to note that the Unitarian-Universalism itself as a way to practice the religion rather than religious doctrine. Religion is a constant search for meaning, goals, values and deep into the life of a person. It asserts that all individuals have the right to conduct their own research and all those do not go to the same beliefs.

Although some liberal Christian congregations are still, today only 20 percent of UU Christians would qualify. So the Unitarian Universalist religion can not be regarded as wholly Christian.

Dissemination of Unitarianism

Worldwide

Unitarians are mostly found in the U.S. (more than 150,000 adults enrolled in congregations an estimated total participation at 630,000), Romania (80,000 memmbres identified in 1992), Canada (5,400 members), Great Britain (unless 5,000 members), Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland.

Outside North America and Europe, there is a strong presence in India (10,000 members in countries Kashi) and, more recently, the Philippines (2,000 members). Smaller communities exist in most other European countries, Latin America and some countries of Black Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Burundi, Congo Brazzaville and Congo Kinshasa).

Speaking Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland), they are few, no more than a hundred, present either in the course of liberal Protestantism or in both French Unitarian Association (Fraternal Assembly Christian Unitarians - twenty members - and Unitarian Fellowship of Nancy - a dozen members -).

Biblical Unitarian - Universalists not - come together in organizations or more conservative churches, such as the Church of God of Abrahamic faith or the Church of God (Seventh Day) , or the grouping of churches Truth & Fellowship.

France

Associations dissolved

French associations are characterized by a small number of members. Sometimes only a founder member and 2 or 3.

• The first Francophone Unitarian Association, the "Unitarian Association Francophone (AUF, 1986-2006), was Theodore Monod as the first honorary president. The AUF was divided in 1996 and Theodore Monod then sponsored the Assembly of Unitarian Christians fraternal (AFCU).
• Unitarian Universalist Association-Paris-Ile de France (2003-2006)
• The Fraternal Unitarian (2006-2008)
• The Cultural Association of dieunites (ACDD, 2008)
• The Coalition francophone Unitarian Universalist (RUUF) (2005-2008), founded in Quebec in November 2005 and attended the Unitarian French (AFCU RFUU and had signed a cooperation agreement in July 2006).

Associations existing

• In 2010, the Assembly of Unitarian Christians fellowship, a member of the Federation's network of courts, and liberal Catholic movement founded in 1996, had 22 members.
• Unitarian Brotherhood founded in Nancy in December 1990 has changed its name to "French Church Unitarian / Unitarian Brotherhood." It organizes regular worship and has a dozen faithful.

Some theologians

• Dvid Ferenc 1 510 - 1 579 founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania.
• Sebastian Castellon in 1515 - 1 563 non-Unitarian, but have reservations about the doctrine of the Trinity. He wrote: "The belief in the Trinity is in no way necessary for salvation." In his work for the defense of Michael Servetus, Calvin Against the libel, Sbastien Castellon wrote: "Killing a man is not defending a doctrine is to kill a man."
• John Biddle ( 1,615 - in 1662 ), author of treatises antitrinitarians, founder of English Unitarianism ( 1654 ), was imprisoned until his death. After 1689 and the Toleration Act, could be preached Unitarianism in England and then in the eighteenth ^century in the American colonies (New England).
• James Relly ( 1722 - 1 778 ) preaches a doctrine neighboring universalism ( 1774 ). In 1961 , a stream near Christian, Universalism, became Universalist Church of America in 1941, located in Boston in 1817 by Hosea Ballou ( 1771 - 1852 ), merged with the American Unitarian Association, founding an association of 1,100 churches : The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
• Theophilus Lindsey ( one thousand seven hundred twenty-three - 1808 ) created in London ^the 1st Unitarian congregation.
• Pastor Joseph Priestley ( one thousand seven hundred thirty-three - 1804 , who discovered oxygen, publishes in 1782 a history of the corruptions of Christianity. In 1794 , he was expelled during a riot at his Unitarian Church of Birmingham. He emigrated to the United States America where it will strengthen Unitarian tendencies of the liberal wing of the Puritans of New England.
• In 1787 , the largest Anglican church in Boston (King's Chapel) changes from Anglicanism to Unitarianism.
• James Martineau ( 1805 - 1900 ).
• William Ellery Channing ( 1 780 - 1 842 ), a pioneer in the fight against slavery.
• Theodore Parker ( 1810 - 1860 ).
• James Luther Adams (A faith in free men, 1946 ), another pioneer in the struggle against slavery.
• Sir Anthony Buzzard , (1935 -) author and professor at the faculty of the Atlanta Bible College.

Some famous Unitarians

• John Milton ( 1608 - 1,674 ), English poet.
• Isaac Newton ( 1 642 - one thousand seven hundred twenty-seven ), English physicist, who was a member of the Unitarian Church of England.
• Robert Burns ( 1759 - in 1796 ), Scottish poet.
• Paul Revere ( in 1735 - 1810 ), American hero.
• John Adams ( 1 735 - 1,826 ), President of the United States of America.
• Thomas Jefferson ( 1743 - one thousand eight hundred twenty-six ), President of the United States of America.
• John Quincy Adams ( 1 767 - in 1848 ), President of the United States of America.
• Phineas T. Barnum ( 1810 - 1891 ).
• Bla Bartk ( 1881 - one thousand nine hundred forty-five ), Hungarian composer.
• Ambrose Bierce ( in 1842 - 1914 ), American humorist and novelist.
• Neville Chamberlain ( one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine - one thousand nine hundred and forty ), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• Charles Dickens ( 1812 - 1870 ), English writer.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson ( 1,803 - 1882 ), American writer.
• Millard Fillmore ( 1800 - 1 874 ), President of the United States of America.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne ( 1804 - in 1864 ), American writer.
• Herman Melville ( one thousand eight hundred nineteen - 1,891 )), American writer.
• Linus Pauling ( 1901 - one thousand nine hundred ninety-four ), chemist.
• Sir Henry Tate ( 1818 - in 1899 ), English patron.
• Frank Lloyd Wright ( 1869 - one thousand nine hundred fifty-nine ), American architect.
• Michael Balint ( one thousand eight hundred ninety-six - 1,970 ), Hungarian psychoanalyst converted from Judaism.
• Andr Malet (? - 1989 ), French translator and biographer of Rudolf Bultmann.
• Jean-Jacques Cato Chenevire (1783-1871)
• Albert Schweitzer ( one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five - in 1965 ), pastor, theologian, doctor, French organist.
• Theodore Monod ( 1902 - 2 thousand ) naturalist, writer, traveler.

This article includes material from copyleft Unitarian Correspondence, Oct. 2002.

References

See also

• Protestantism , Edict of Nantes
• Jacobus Arminius , Socinianism
• Arianism
• Little Polish Church , Unitarian Church of Transylvania , Bahaism Unit
• Theological liberalism

External Links

Links to Unitarian

• Church E F rance nitarienne U / F U raternit nitarienne N ancy
• U E Church nitarienne en ancophone (EUFRA) with his address book
• A SSEMBLY F raternelle hrtiens U of C nitariens (AFCU) (see links sorted by country)
• I nternational C ouncil of U and U nitarians niversalists (ICUU) (English)
• Unitarians
• Overview of Unitarianism (in English)
• Trinity and the "church fathers"
• 21st Century Reformation
• Radical Reform - The journey of a Sabbath Observer

See also

• Book Unitarian findings: Study of the Gospels followed by: The Gospels and the ecology of Marie Claire Lefeuvre-Weber (professor of literature), published by L'Harmattan, collection "other Christians", Paris, 161 p., September. 2006, ISBN: 2-296-01304-X; public.

"A lay person can offer his vision of the Gospels? Yes, of course, unpretentious, simply, with words every day as a letter to her children .... "

• Protestantism portal

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