Mark W. Harris Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism (2003)

Podstrony

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.This commission struggled with the continuing theologicalproblem of finding religious consensus in a movement that empha-sizes freedom of belief.The third commission was on Educationand Liberal Religion and was chaired by Irving Murray.This com-mission recommended that our children need to be able to declaretheir faith by the time they emerge from our education classes, thatthey must be educated in a spiral curriculum rather than a linearone, that there be more parent and adult education, and that theUUA must make a greater financial commitment to education.Thefourth commission on Religion and the Arts, chaired by JohnHayward, called for greater variety and drama in worship services.The fifth commission on Ethics and Social Action, chaired byDonald Harrington, recommended, among others things, the estab-lishment of a UUA Department of Social Responsibility, whichsoon became a reality.The sixth and final commission, World Re-ligion and Outreach, chaired by Floyd Ross, called for more inter-faith work on the local level and a greater understanding of non-Western religions, but the recommended Department of WorldChurches was never implemented.In his concluding remarks PaulCarnes said that the denomination must be more critical in itssearch for truth, and less whimsical in accepting a noncritical free-dom as the foundation of sound conviction.Carnes said that soundreligious convictions must be both reasoned and held in communityFREEMAN, JAMES (1759 1835) " 195and not casual, verbal opinions or feelings of the individual.Theneed to discriminate among many truths was an important chal-lenge to UUs.FREEDOM OF THE WILL.One of the key issues separating the lib-eral Arminians from the Calvinists.Liberals in the 18th century re-jected the notion that human beings have an inherent corrupt natureknown as original sin.A totally depraved creature in the Calvinistsystem is not free to choose between good and evil but is predeter-mined to walk in sin and is only saved from this state by a gift ofgrace from God.Early liberals believed that human nature was mal-leable and that human character was determined by the influences ofthe environment.Human beings were seen as free moral agents whocould choose the good not based on any inherited characteristic, butsolely as a result of training and experience.Liberals were particu-larly opposed to the idea that there was nothing they could do morallyto change their situation, but were condemned to choose the sinfulpath.Liberals believed humans are free moral agents and have theability to alter their character for the better by making good respon-sible choices.After the Unitarian controversy, Unitarianism went beyond theview that humans were born morally neutral to say that people wereactually born good while possessing the freedom to perfect their verynature.William Ellery Channing elucidated this in Self-Culture.Hesaid that no bounds can be set to human growth.Self-culture was pos-sible because we have an inherent power to act on, determine, andform ourselves.The denial of original sin and the free choices onemakes to transform human character to produce a righteous personwere crucial changes from a completely God-centered world inhab-ited by depraved creatures who had no free moral agency to a morehuman centered world inhabited by creatures who can exercise theirfreedom to perfect themselves.FREEMAN, JAMES (1759 1835).The first avowedly Unitarian min-ister in America, Freeman was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts,on April 22, 1759.He attended Boston Latin School and then HarvardCollege, where he graduated in 1777.He trained troops on Cape Codfor a time and then sailed to Quebec in 1780, where he was detained196 " FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION (FRA)after being captured by a privateer.When he returned to Boston in1782, he preached in several places and was invited to be a reader atKing s Chapel.Their rector, Henry Caner, had been a Tory who leftthe city, leaving the congregation with no minister.After Freeman wassettled there, he asked if he could change the liturgy in the Book ofCommon Prayer.In a series of sermons he outlined his doctrinal prob-lems with the Trinity and he amended the liturgy according to theforms of Samuel Clarke in England.The changes were approved inJune 1785, and King s Chapel became the first declared Unitarianchurch in America.The church published the Book of Common PrayerAccording to the Use of King s Chapel.Two years later Freeman was ordained by the church accordingto congregational polity, after he found that Episcopal ordinationwas not possible.In 1788 he married Martha Curtis Clarke.FrancisWilliam Pitt Greenwood was made Freeman s associate in 1824,and two years later Freeman s health had deteriorated so much, hegave up the ministry to Greenwood.He lived on a country estateoutside Boston for another nine years and then died on November14, 1835.Freeman was a member of the first elected Boston SchoolCommittee in 1792 and was a founder of the Massachusetts Histor-ical Society.FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION (FRA).This was founded in re-sponse to the 1866 meeting of the National Conference of Unitar-ian Churches in Syracuse, New York, where the congregations haddeclared their allegiance to Jesus Christ and the radicals had failed toconvince the group to declare itself nonsectarian or organize to in-clude independent congregations as well as Unitarian.On the tripback to New Bedford, Massachusetts, William J.Potter began to ru-minate on the idea of creating a new organization that would promotecomplete spiritual freedom from irrational doctrines and traditionalauthorities.In October eight people met at the home of Cyrus Bartol,who was interested in revolting from the Unitarians and perhaps or-ganizing a new denomination.Two additional meetings were held,and finally a group headed by Potter, Edward C [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

bezglutenowo.pev.pl