Talk:Unitarianism

reduce material about Biblical Unitarianism in one Italian church

I've cut all this as hopelessly disproportionate. I know it's in the page history, but I'm putting it out here as well, in case anyone can find a better use for it. Maybe another article? But given that the whole section on Biblical Unitarianism was tagged as of dubious relevance to this article, I do think the length on Italy is doubly unuseful. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:17, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

This Movement in Italy claims a strong Christian and biblical soul. From the analysis of documents that you can find on the official site of the CCI, it is clear that the doctrinal position of this Christian confession of faith is therefore akin to the so-called Biblical Unitarian movement and on the other hand, far from that of the non-Christian churches in the Unitarian Universalist Association who, although sharing a 16th-century origin, have been influenced by many non-biblical ideas (e.g., Universalism). That Association does included unitarian Christian churches such as King's Chapel, Boston, linked with the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship. The Christian Church in Italy has significant similarities with the Biblical Unitarian movement, although it maintains a cautious position on some doctrinal points. Wilbur wrote about the Unitarian Movement:

The religious movement whose history we are endeavoring to trace...became fully developed in thought and polity in only four countries, one after another, namely Poland, Transylvania, England and America. But in each of these it showed, along with certain individual characteristics, a general spirit, a common point of view, and a doctrinal pattern that tempt one to regard them as all outgrowths of a single movement which passed from one to another; for nothing could be more natural than to presume that these common features implied a common ancestry. Yet such is not the fact, for in each of these four lands the movement, instead of having originated elsewhere, and been translated only after attaining mature growth, appears to have sprung independently and directly from its own native roots, and to have been influenced by other and similar movements only after it had already developed an independent life and character of its own.

The Christian Church in Italy believes that God is only One Person in direct contrast with the doctrine of the Trinity which defines God as Three coexisting Persons in one Substance (Essence), merged into one being. So CCI adheres to strict monotheism by believing that Jesus was a perfect and holy man, virginally begotten in Mary, the promised Christ (i.e., Messiah), the Son of God, and is now at the right hand of God praying for the whole Church. A continuing non-Trinitarian unitarian Christian Church is the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, with all except two of its congregations in Northern Ireland.

The Christian Church in Italy rejects certain traditional Christian doctrines including the soteriological doctrines of original sin and predestination. The CCI is distinct from other religious movements which exalt Jesus as the only true God, as for example the Oneness Pentecostalism, the United Pentecostal Church International, and the True Jesus Church.

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Replaced Fiddlersmouth (talk) 01:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The word "settle"

Unfamiliar (to me) usage, meaning perhaps something like appointed or hired?  Can't find in Merriam-Webster.

Examples:  "...was by King's Chapel in Boston, which settled James Freeman (...) in 1782, ..." and "... Channing (...) was settled over the Federal Street Church..."

--Hordaland (talk) 08:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary gives as meaning 27b " (Chiefly Sc[ottish]. and U.S.) To appoint (a minister) to the charge of a parish; also, to appoint a minister to (a parish)." Unusually, it cites Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language as one of it quotes of usage, in 1818. " To be ordained or installed over a parish, church or congregation. A. B. was invited to settle in the first society in New Haven." So yes, the secular equivalent would be as you suggest. I note a flavour of permanence in the word: the congregation used to make do with travelling preachers and lay ministers, but last year Reverend Smith settled here. (Or "was settled"? The church settled Rev Smith?). Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:23, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Is Unitarianism Protestant?

thoughts?Ernio48 (talk) 16:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Historically, we might be justified in regarding the movement as a philosophically extreme form of Protestantism, but the term only has relevance in a Christian setting. Many modern Unitarians would be offended to be described as Christian. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 02:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad this article is getting some attention. I suspect it needs to be split, but first discussed more widely (i.e. at project level), This article is so unsatisfactory for the average person who might need it. If there's a reference to "Quakers, Unitarians, and Liberal Jews" in the news (e.g. [1][2]), and the curious reader googles an unfamiliar term, they will be led to:

https://www.unitarian.org.uk/

And at the top of that website: The Unitarians, Unitarianism explained, Unitarians, What is a Unitarian. One small-type mention of the full title of the organisation, that's all. But no one says General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches - the people are known as Unitarians. How can we best present this clearly to the casual reader? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:54, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I saw someone added a line about Protestantism to the lead the other day, so I've been looking to see how reliable sources describe Unitarianism when they're referring to pre-1960s (aka pre-merger with Universalism) Unitarianism. I wanted to look into it a little more before clarifying the statement in the lead, but I'm getting the sense that reliable sources are saying it had been considered a liberal or progressive Protestant denomination.

@Carbon Caryatid:, as far as splitting the article. What are you thinking needs to be split, since there are already articles for Unitarian Universalism, Biblical Unitarianism, and Universalism (to name a few). I think we might be ok with the existing articles if they all stuck to their topic. Instead, they all try to cover a little bit of everything. IMO Unitarian should redirect to Unitarian Universalism and this article should be called Unitarianism (Christianity) or something like that, but that's a discussion for another time. —PermStrump(talk) 20:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I crossed out that last line, because as I'm reading more, I realize that doesn't quite make sense either. I think this set of articles needs to be restructured, because I don't think they'd be helpful at all for people who never heard of Unitarianism, but every time I think of something that might be a good way to organize it, I read something else that makes me change my mind. I suppose I understand how it has been left the way it is for so long. —PermStrump(talk) 22:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

This should be the main article on Unitarianism

The redirects to this page are: Christian Unitarianism and Unitarian Chapel, neither of which get many hits. This page gets the most pageviews out of all articles in the Unitarian family — Unitarianism, Unitarian Universalism, Universalism, Nontrinitarianism, Socinianism, History of Unitarianism, General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (British Unitarianism), and Biblical Unitarianism (listed in order from most to least pageviews). The disambiguation page (Unitarian), describes this page as, "a liberal Christian theological movement..." and it defines Unitarian Universalism as, "a liberal pluralistic religious movement that grew out of Unitarianism". So this page that gets the most hits is only about a minor aspect of Unitarianism.

The majority of people are not coming to this page looking for information specifically on the Unitarian movement within Christianity, because it's almost never used that way in reliable sources except in talking about the history of the modern Unitarian movement. The predominant usage of "Unitarianism" today is unequivocally in reference to the modern liberal, pluralist, humanist Unitarian congregations that go by various longer names depending on the country, e.g., Unitarian Universalism in the U.S., the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the U.K., etc.,[3][4] that fall under the umbrella of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.

IMO this should be a summary-style umbrella article with hatnotes at the top of each section that lead to more information about the various subtopics related to Unitarianism. I also think Unitarian and Unitarians should redirect here and the disambiguation page should be Unitarian (disambiguation).

That was really hard to articulate. I hope it made some sense. —PermStrump(talk) 02:25, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, User:Permstrump, that this set of articles offers a very tricky mess of overlap, and as they stand are unhelpful to our readers. I am delighted that finally someone is digging into current scholarly material, and looking at how people use Wikipedia, and can confirm the modern usage I had always understood.

If I am correct, you are proposing a re-working of the set of articles connected to the word or idea "Unitarian". I suggest you alert a wider group of editors, partly to solicit help and partly to pre-empt edit-warring. You can do so by modifying and re-posting what you've written above, using relevant wiki-projects. I can see three:

For obvious reasons the discussion of re-organising a group of related articles needs to take place on one page, lest arguments get split and missed; for courtesy and to encourage participation, brief notes should be posted to other talkpages, pointing editors towards the main discussion. So my question is, if you are prepared to begin this process, where should the discussion take place? My inclination would be at WikiProject Religion, because a) it's the most neutral of the three (no one is disputing that Unitarian* is a religious topic), and b) the UU work group is very low in activity and WikiProject Christianity is very high, skewing the results one way or the other.

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. I can't lead on this long-overdue re-organisation, but I can help. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:04, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Carbon Caryatid Thanks for the insight! I'll try to start a larger conversation in a few days when I'll have more time to dedicate to following up. —PermStrump(talk) 02:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Is Unitarianism part of Christianism?

I am surprised by the fact that Unitarianism appears within the title of Christianism. Christianity is defined by the notion that Christ is God, so it should not be. That is the reason, for instance, that although Islam believes Christ is a profet and inspired by God (as does Unitarianism), it is not a Christian faith. I do not know how to fix this in the Wikipedia page, but it is essential to make that distinction. I understand the confusion might be brought up by the origin and relevance of Christi within the Unitarian faith, but it is nontheless a non-Christian movement. In this theological sense, it should be put in a similar category with other non-Crhsitian faiths of Christian origins, as for instance denomintions like the Mormons.

Many Christians have difficulty with the divinity of Christ. The Gnostics certainly viewed Christ differently from Trinitarians, but must still be viewed as Christian. Early Unitarianism was heavily Christocentric, it simply rejected the Trinity. While the modern church holds a diversity of faith, it still has an important place in Liberal Christianity, and is yet more important in the history of the movement. Your restrictive definition of Christianity excludes many branches of the faith. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 01:26, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Explanation missing from articles on trinitarianism and unitarianism

The theological differences arise from the misuse of the word persona, which originally meant the mask held by an actor. The meaning of the word also came to include the modern English use of the word person. God can be a trinity of personas without there being three persons inside. The Father, Son and Spirit are simply 3 separate roles by which God interacts with man. No one can see the face of God and live, so He must show Himself through a filter/mask. Each persona is fully God because it's the same actor holding the mask. 2602:304:B183:4220:4C37:D167:A5A0:2CDB (talk) 00:46, 20 March 2017 (UTC)David