History of Unitarianism
Along with the fundamental doctrine, certain characteristics have always marked those who profess unitarianism: a large degree of tolerance, a historical study of scripture, a minimizing of essentials, and a repugnance to formulated creed.
Martin Cellarius (1499–1564), a friend of Luther, and Hans Denck (1500–1527) usually are considered the first literary pioneers of the movement; the anti-Trinitarian position of Ludwig Haetzer did not become public until after his execution (1529) for Anabaptism.
Servetus expanded his ideas on the nature of God and Christ 20 years later in his major work, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity), which caused his burning at the stake in Calvin's Geneva (as well as in effigy by the Catholic Inquisition in France) in 1553 .
Nowadays, most Unitarians see Servetus as their pioneer and first martyr, and his thought was a remarkable influence in the beginnings of Polish and Transylvanian anti-Trinitarian churches,[10] even though his Arian views on Jesus Christ (for example, retaining belief in the pre-existence of Christ) were different from those of the Polish Socinians (rejecting belief in Jesus' pre-existence), and again from the generation of Thomas Belsham (rejecting also the virgin birth), and very different from what the Unitarian Church generally believes today.
Sozzini's grandson Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. in 1665-1668 published Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant (Library of the Polish Brethren who are called Unitarians 4 vols.
For 20 years (1639–1659), the Arians were tolerated, but public opinion widely considered them as collaborators with Sweden during The Deluge, and in 1660 the Polish Diet gave anti-Trinitarians the option of conformity or exile.
John Sigismund, adopting his court-preacher's views, issued (1568) an edict of religious liberty at the Diet of Torda, which allowed Dávid (retaining his existing title) to transfer his episcopate from the Calvinists to the anti-Trinitarians, Kolozsvár being evacuated by all but his followers.
Of the line of twenty-three bishops, the most distinguished were George Enyedi (1592–1597), whose Explicationes obtained European vogue, and Mihály Lombard de Szentábrahám (1737–1758), who rallied the forces of his Church, broken by persecution and deprivation of property, and gave them their traditional statement of faith.
His Summa Universae Theologiae Christianae secundum Unitarios (published 1787), Socinian with Arminian modifications, was accepted by Joseph II as the official manifesto of doctrine, and so remains, though subscription to it has not been required since the 19th century.
They began to become a formal denomination in 1774 when Theophilus Lindsey organized meetings with Joseph Priestley, founding the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Church in London.
Those burned included the Flemish surgeon George van Parris (1551); Patrick Pakingham (1555), a fellmonger; Matthew Hamont (1579), a ploughwright; John Lewes (1583); Peter Cole (1587), a tanner; Francis Kett (1589), physician and author; Bartholomew Legate (1612), a cloth-dealer and last of the Smithfield victims; and the twice-burned Edward Wightman (1612).
Fausto Sozzini had died on the road, after expulsion from Kraków, Poland on 4 March 1604, but the Racovian Academy and printing press continued till 1639, exerting influence in England via the Netherlands.
The formation of a distinct Unitarian denomination dates from the secession (1773) of Theophilus Lindsey (1723–1808) from the Anglican Church, on the failure of the Feathers petition to parliament (1772) for relief from subscription.
[18] During the 19th century, the drier Priestley-Belsham type of Unitarianism, bound up with a determinist philosophy, was gradually modified by the influence of Channing (see below), whose works were reprinted in numerous editions and owed a wide circulation to the efforts of Robert Spears (1825–1899).
English Unitarianism produced some well-known scholars, e.g. John Kenrick (1788–1877), James Yates (1789–1871), Samuel Sharpe (1799–1881), but few popular preachers, though George Harris (1794–1859) is an exception.
The next year, a movement against subscription began in the General Synod of Ulster, culminating (1725) in the placing of the advocates of non-subscription, headed by John Abernethy, D.D., of Antrim into a presbytery by themselves.
Before the War of Independence Arianism showed itself in individual instances, and French influences were widespread in the direction of deism, though they were not organized into any definite utterance by religious bodies.
As early as the middle of the 18th century, Harvard College represented some of the most advanced thought of the time,[citation needed] and a score or more of clergymen in New England preached what was essentially Unitarianism.
William Hazlitt (father of the essayist and critic), visiting the United States in 1783–1785, published the fact that there were Unitarians in Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Hallowell, Maine, on Cape Cod, and elsewhere.
The next period of American Unitarianism, from about 1800 to about 1835, can be thought of as formative, mainly influenced by English philosophy, semi-supernatural, imperfectly rationalistic, devoted to philanthropy and practical Christianity.
In 1800, Joseph Stevens Buckminster became minister of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, where his brilliant sermons, literary activities, and academic attention to the German "New Criticism" helped shape the subsequent growth of Unitarianism in New England.
The Story of Essex Hall,[30] written in 1959 by Mortimer Rowe, the Secretary (i.e. chief executive) of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches for its first twenty years, claims that the BFUA and AUA[further explanation needed] were founded entirely coincidentally on the same day, 26 May 1825.
The Western Unitarian Conference later accepted the same position and based its "fellowship on no dogmatic tests", instead affirming a desire "to establish truth, righteousness and love in the world.
Therefore it declares that nothing in this constitution is to be construed as an authoritative test; and we cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our practical aims.
The fourth period, beginning about 1885, has been one of rationalism, recognition of universal religion, large acceptance of the scientific method and ideas, and an ethical attempt to realize what was perceived as the higher affirmations of Christianity.
This phase was shown in the organization of The International Council of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers at Boston on 25 May 1900, "to open communication with those in all lands who are striving to unite pure religion and perfect liberty, and to increase fellowship and co-operation among them.
Beyond its own borders, the body obtained recognition through the public work of such men as Henry Whitney Bellows and Edward Everett Hale, the remarkable influence of James Freeman Clarke and Thomas Lamb Eliot, and the popular power of Robert Collyer.
The denomination's president, Dawn Buckle, a retired lecturer in education, denied that the movement was in a terminal phase and described it as a "thriving community capable of sustaining growth".
This includes both groups looking back to the early Polish, Dutch, and English "Socinians" of the 17th century such as the Restoration Fellowship of Sir Anthony Buzzard, 3rd Baronet, and those looking to the later "biblical unitarianism" of Robert Spears.
Often labeled and considered as a "pioneer" or "precursor"[49][50][51] (in a spiritual manner) to the Unitarian movement in Denmark was the Icelandic theologian Magnús Eiríksson (1806–1881), who lived in Copenhagen from 1831 until his death in 1881.
