On this day in the middle of the 18th century, the “Father of American Unitarianism” Reverend Jonathan Mayhew delivered a sermon on social justice that would later be called “the spark that ignited the American Revolution.”
The sermon itself had a rather cumbersome title, A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers, but its message was simple: rulers have the right to reign only so long as their reign is just.
Earlier this year, a guest posting at the Unitarian Universalist Growth Blog discussed the perennial problem of high membership turnover in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), eliciting comments that highlight the tension between UU and its Christian origins, Christian origins that American Unitarian Reform (AUR) has chosen to embrace rather than hold at a safe arms’ length.
As a matter of etiquette among general friends and allies, Reformed Unitarians tend not to contrast ourselves with UU as often we do Trinitarians. But, to understand the issues facing “Unitarianism” in America, it is appropriate occasionally to revisit the philosophical history of American Unitarianism, and explain the differences between our two divergent paths.
Or, more accurately, between the path of AUR and other Christian Unitarians, and the lack of an explicit path in the UUA.
