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What are Unitarian Universalists?
Question:
"I've been seeing advertisement in television commercials and on road signs for the 'Unitarian Universalists.' What is this group? What do they believe?"Answer:
The Unitarian Universalist church is a theologically liberal organization, as they have recently made clear in a series of television promotions. The Unitarians were a group that denied the Trinity in the early days of our country. Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian. Universalists were originally a group that believed that rejected any idea of final judgment--all would be saved.
The Unitarians and Universalists joined forces in 1960 to form the Unitarian-Universalist Association (UUA). This is the group funding the recent promotional campaign.
As with many liberal religious groups, the UUC attempts to have it's cake and eat it, too, both denying Scripture and claiming it. They claim that Scripture has religious value for the individual and they encourage it as a source of personal inspiration and strength. This is in keeping with the UUA's purpose of offering hope through all of the world's religions.
This attitude fits well in a society where the possibility of "religious truth" has been generally rejected. It is replaced instead with "religious belief," the purpose of which is not to understand or explain the world, but to provide personal satisfaction and hope.
According to such groups like the UUA, personal religious beliefs are neither right nor wrong. They somehow transcend categories of "true" and "false"--this is supposedly what makes them religious. These religious claims cannot be verified and have no real connection to reality. In some sense religious beliefs are irrational or trans-rational.
What is odd about this should be fairly obvious. First, how can one find hope or personal satisfaction in beliefs that are neither true nor false? In what sense can befuddled thinking offer one hope?
Second, while every religious group maintains some diversity of belief--it is another thing entirely to value contradiction of belief. Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam cannot all be true as they make mutually exclusive claims. The recent ads promote the"many beliefs, one faith" stance of the UUA. Diversity of belief is an odd distinctive--the world already has that.
The UUA is not Christian. It seems more to be a philosophic organization promoting an odd blend of humanism and new age spirituality. One cannot find Jesus there.
