17,394
edits
Changes
race
Unitarians were among the first to accept Darwinian [[evolution]] views as applied to religion and "higher criticism" of the Bible and have continued to modify their theology to accord with new fads. Since the 1930s the Unitarians have been influenced greatly by religious humanism--the belief that mankind should set aside unsolvable theological problems and concentrate on the application of the scientific method to the task of creating a better life
Unitarians were among the first to accept Darwinian [[evolution]] views as applied to religion and "higher criticism" of the Bible and have continued to modify their theology to accord with new fads. Since the 1930s the Unitarians have been influenced greatly by religious humanism--the belief that mankind should set aside unsolvable theological problems and concentrate on the application of the scientific method to the task of creating a better life
====Race====
Unitarians were leaders of the abolition movement and always advocated racial equality, but never attracted many black members. One exception was civil rights leader [[Whitney M. Young]], Jr. (1921-71), director of the [[Urban League]] during 1961-71. He bemae intellectually attracted to Unitarianism in the 1940s, and was a member of Unitarian churches from the 1950s until his death. While the white Unitarian denomination was proud to claim and honor him, in 1963 Young was bitterly disappointed that the denomination refused to deny privileges to churches maintaining racial segregation. He was also disappointed in the separatism of the Black Power movement in the denomination in 1967-70. Shaken by the discrepancy between the professed values of unity and the reality of division in the denomination, and caught in a religious dilemma between the intellectual Unitarianism that he believed in and the culture of the separate black church that increasingly nourished him, Young died in 1971 with his inner religious tension unresolved.<ref> Dennis C. Dickerson, "Black Leader In A White Denomination: Whitney M. Young and the Unitarians." ''Journal of Unitarian Universalist History 1998 25: 26-40. </ref>
== [[Unitarian Universalism]]==
== [[Unitarian Universalism]]==