Unitarian Universalists (UU) have a diverse history.\u00a0 Most relish the freedom to draw on multiple spiritual sources, without being bound to a single tradition.<\/p>\n
UU Buddhists and UU Pagans claim a heritage that predates Christianity.<\/p>\n
UU Jews share with Unitarians in declaring the \u201cthe Lord is one,\u201d and, with Universalists, in affirming that \u201call the families of the earth shall be blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
UU Protestants share philosopher John Locke\u2019s respect for both biblical wisdom and the Enlightenment\u2019s regard for reason and science.<\/p>\n
UUs in early America were inspired by leader Joseph Priestley, a chemist who discovered oxygen and was a friend of Thomas Jefferson, to believe that Jesus was an extraordinary human, but not divine.<\/p>\n
Those Protestant UUs stressed the goodness of humanity, in contrast to their Puritan ancestors who saw humans as depraved.<\/p>\n
Another UU leader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, shocked the Harvard Divinity School faculty by urging future ministers to preach from their own souls, rather than relying on scripture.<\/p>\n
A generation later, UUs were the first to embrace Darwin\u2019s insights as complementary, rather than antagonistic, to their faith.<\/p>\n
UU women in the 19th<\/sup> century agitated for women\u2019s suffrage and were among the first to be ordained in the United States.<\/p>\n Other UU leaders were social reformers.\u00a0 They helped launch the U.S. labor movement; they befriended prisoners and demanded abolition of the death penalty; they were staunch abolitionists; and their writings on non-violence inspired Mohandas Gandhi.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unitarian Universalists (UU) have a diverse history.\u00a0 Most relish the freedom to draw on multiple spiritual sources, without being bound to a single tradition. UU Buddhists and UU Pagans claim a heritage that predates Christianity. UU Jews share with Unitarians in declaring the \u201cthe Lord is one,\u201d and, with Universalists, in affirming that \u201call the … Continue reading Our Diverse Roots [#33]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6446"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8796,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions\/8796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}