Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church

Presentation by Joyce Clayton (133rd Anniversary Service in 1985)

In an address on Unitarianism given by John Findly at the Los Angeles Unitarian Church some years ago, he said that theologically Jesus was a Unitarian. He pointed out that Jesus believed in one god when he said, "our Lord is one", and Jesus seemed to hold the idea of reason as an authority when he said, "Why judge ye not of yourselves what is right".
No doubt an argument could be put forward that might disagree with this opinion, but judging by these quotations and perhaps by other sayings attributed to Jesus, it does seem that he held opinions like those of early Unitarians.

After the death of Jesus, a small sect of followers believed that he thought conduct to be more important than belief, and this sect of Christians followed what they considered the simple teachings of Jesus for about four centuries. These first Christian communities were democratic and all things were held in common. The first church officials were the deacons who were responsible for the poor and the sick.

From a simple community of fishermen and manual labourers, grew a privileged clergy, a complicated creed, and a rigid, powerful, authoritarian church, which became increasingly wealthy.

As Christianity began to spread, beliefs of the Greeks and Persians became embodied into it. The change made the new religion, (i.e. Christianity) more acceptable in the Greek and Roman empires, and insistence on belief became all-important. "Only believe" was the only way to salvation from hell fire.

In the year 325 A.D. the emperor of Rome, Emperor Constantine, called together a council to settle a dispute among sections of the Christian Church. The controversy was over the nature of Jesus.

In a history of Unitarianism, Dr. Earl Morse Wilbur said, "The council lasted for six weeks and was marked by great bitterness and violence".

There were three groups-firstly the followers of Arius who held the view that Jesus was different from God. Secondly, there were those who believed Jesus was the same as God. This group was known as the Athanasians. The third group consisting of the great majority believed that Jesus was similar to God.

The first group were small and soon outvoted, the second group, who believed that Jesus was the same as God, were so unrelenting that the Emperor decided to give this group his support, and though in minority, the idea that Jesus was the same as GOD was adopted. So the creed known as the Nicene Creed affirmed the eternal deity of Jesus, and those who opposed it were declared to be enemies of Christianity

During the 5th century, Emperor Justinian incorporated Nicene Creed into Roman law, and no diverse belief was tolerated. Disbelief in this creed was a crime punishable by burning at the stake.

But in spite of such fearful punishment heresy was certainly not stamped out. Some men and women still declared that religion was the performing of good works, and that anyone who practices righteousness needs neither sacrament nor church. For such heresies many died.

The Inquisition began early in the 11th. Century under Emperor Frederick II. It was most cruel in Spain and France. In Spain alone about 20,000 Mohammedans and Jews suffered death by burning and thousands more fled from the country.
In 1517 the movement known as the Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther’s protest. against corruption in the Christian Church, but it also resulted in a greater freedom of expression.

With the invention of the printing press, ideas began to circulate, and as the Bible was now available to greater numbers, some began to question the preaching of the clergy. There was a new spirit of learning.

As a result of the Reformation, two main streams of Protestant thought emerged. The more conservative formed the Lutheran and Reformed churches, and the more radical became known as Anabaptists.

Dr. Wilbur said that primary concern of the Anabaptists, was to return to early Christian beliefs and to strictly conform to the teachings of Jesus and so emphasise the importance of living purposeful and good lives.

A Spaniard, Michael Servetus, at the age of seventeen, left Spain to study law in France. In 1531 Servetus published his books, "On the Errors of the Trinity" and "The Restoration of Christianity". The books produced a storm of opposition, and Servetus had to flee from country to Country.

Servetus denied the divinity of Jesus. He also believed that man was essentially good instead of innately evil as Christianity taught. He trusted his former friend, John Calvin, who betrayed him and Servetus suffered a terrible death by slow burning.

John Findly said that the martyrdom of Michael Servetus, not only marked the real beginning of modern Unitarianism, but also was a tremendous stimulation to religious tolerance all over Europe, and turned many from such injustices. The Anabaptists, who later became known as Unitarians, were arrested in Europe for their anti-trinitarian views. They were opposed by conservative Protestants as well as Catholics. Many were put to death and others escaped to countries, such as Holland, where greater freedom was tolerated.

The first Unitarian church was founded in Poland in l565 by an Italian, Dr. Georgio Biandrata. Later he was joined by Faustus Socinus. Socinus did not believe in the deity of Jesus nor in hell. He opposed war, capital punishment and oath taking. He believed that the Bible should be interpreted by human reason.

Socinus and his followers put their ideas into practice. They organised a programme for the care of widows and orphans. They refused to fight or go to court, and they refused to hold serfs.

At the same time as Unitarianism spread in Poland, it began in Transylvania (a part of what is today called Hungary) under the leadership of Francis David; Unitarianism became the official religion of the state. During the reign of the Unitarian King John Sigismund, religious tolerance was practiced, while in the rest of Europe, the terrible Inquisition continued.
After the death of King Sigismund, Francis David was imprisoned for teaching that Jesus was human not a deity.

I cannot resist telling this story about an English woman called Joan Boucher, who lived in the reign of Edward Vl. She was charged and found guilty of reading an illegal book - Tyndal’s translation of the Bible. Before her execution she was urged to recant and save herself.

In reply she calmly told the prosecuting clergy to light the fire and go home and study their Bibles.

Today, belief in the trinity is not important to Unitarians, but we honor the martyrs who died for what they believed to be
true. We honor them for the spirit in which they acted.

In 1550, in England a church was founded called the "Church of Strangers". It had about give thousand members-many of them were Socineans who fled from Poland when the Jesuits stamped out Unitarianism in that country.

It seems to me that the development of Unitarianism was not a steady growth but like most steps forward (as some one put it) "while individual waves advance and recede, the tide may still move in".

Unitarians of the sixteenth century thought of themselves as just Christian. They were troubled that Christianity had become a religion of ritual and dogma that had no appeal to rational minds. Belief in this dogma meant salvation and disbelief meant burning forever in hell-fire.

By the end of the seventeenth century Unitarians had shifted their stand from disbelief in the trinity as being very important, to the controversy on the divinity of Jesus.

One of the Unitarian ministers at this time, in Dublin, was accused of heresy and imprisoned for declaring that Jesus was not the supreme God. However, these early Unitarians continued to stress the importance of religion being a way of living. Their favourite texts were 'By their fruits ye shall know them' and 'love thy neighbour as thyself'. They believed that the spirit of the New Testament to he more important than doctrine, and they came to believe that the only doctrines that should be accepted, were those that were intelligible to human reason. In this way they hoped theological squabbles would cease, and so Christians might be reunited.

Of course the idea that a way of living is more important then ritual or dogma, did not begin with the teaching of Jesus. About one thousand years before his time the prophet Amos preached, 'I hate, I despise your assemblies' etc.... But let justice roll forth as a fountain of water, and righteousness as an ever flowing, stream

In 1771, a petition was signed by more than two hundred and laymen, which urged parliament to allow men of liberal as well as those with orthodox ideas, to become ministers of the Church of England. The petition met with no success, and many dissenters left the Church of England to join the Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, who after the To1eration Act of 1689, were able to build chapels and organise schools.

Before long dissenters began to part company over doctrinal differences, and an increasing number of ministers became Unitarian—some brought their congregations with them, others were ejected from their pulpits.

But in England until 1813 to he a Unitarian was, in law, a criminal offence. Among those who left the Church of England was Theophalus Lindsay, who in 1774 organised the first Unitarian congregation in England. It was held in Essex Street, London in an auction room. This site is still the Unitarian headquarters in England.

Lindsay preached at this first meeting. Benjamin Franklin (then in England on American government business), and the scientist and Unitarian minister, Dr. Joseph Priestly, attended.

Priestly's fame as a scientist and his belief in the idea of political equality, popularized his Unitarian views among thinking people, but he had many bitter enemies and was forced to leave England.

Priestly, of course, was not the only scientist to be persecuted. Throughout the centuries orthodox religions strongly opposed scientific discoveries. Bruno, Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus all suffered persecution. Darwin's "Origins of the Species" in which he gave many examples of the evolution of animal and plant life, met with tremendous opposition, and this kind of opposition from fundamentalists still exists.

The main evils that arose from fundamental religion, in addition to opposition to new discoveries, have always been the paralysis of self-help, the stagnation of thought, the arousing of fanaticism and the strengthening of ecclesiastical and political tyranny.

It is interesting to note that Darwin as a child attended a Unitarian chapel in Shrewsbury. According to John Findly, as he grew older, he became more and more agnostic, and so nineteenth century Unitarianism did not suit him.

The fact that the general outlook of the orthodox churches was so narrow, and as Unitarian churches had no dogma and could welcome new discoveries it gave Unitarians an opportunity to increase their numbers.

In trying to trace the history of the development of Unitarianism, it is apparent that the same ideas were thought of at the same time in different places in the world.

John Findly gave an illustration of heresy in Massachusetts in 1650. William Pynchon, a founder of the American city of Springfield, published a book, which disagreed with the doctrine of atonement (i.e. the redemption of mankind by the sacrifice of Jesus).

Pynchon’s book was burned and he had to flee for his life. He returned to his birthplace in England.

A century later, when the revivalist, George Whitefield, preached in Massachusetts, there was reaction to his "only believe" theology, and some turned to more rational thought - to Unitarianism and to Universalism. (They united in 1805). In 1825, one hundred and twenty five American Congregational churches became Unitarian.

The works of Dr. Joseph Priestly had considerable influence in America even before Priestly immigrated there. When Thomas Jefferson became Unitarian, he wrote, "I have read Priestly’s books over and over again, and I rest on them as a basis of my own faith".

President Jefferson began to break up the large estates, he proposed a tax supported state school system and libraries. He abolished the death penalty, except for murder and treason, in Virginia. He fought for religious toleration and was called an enemy of Christianity. Jefferson worked for the emancipation of slaves (although he owned slaves himself), and he stopped the importation of slaves from Africa to Virginia. Jefferson hoped that in his time, all the young would become Unitarians. A leading. American Unitarian, William Ellery Channing, preached Jefferson’s democratic ideas. Channing worked in the interest of labourers, paupers, criminals and slaves —for the abolition of capital punishment, employment for women, for assisting emigrants, for the aged, the sick, the debtors and for peace.

Theodore Parker carried on the work of Channing and Emerson, and was said to be even more radical. Parker included in a sermon,"... there are some who are affrighted by the faintest rustle which a heretic makes among the dry leaves of theology."

Parker was so forthright and honest that his colleagues were afraid to exchange pulpits with him. He was the most daring and dedicated of all American reformers. Findly said of him, “His genius lay in agitation both for a free religion and for social reform. The older so grew the more radical he became".

Many people believed that with the Parker way, Unitarianism would become just a political and ethical society.
Speaking of these great reformers, Findly said, "The were the giants of the human mind and spirit. Most of them suffered because they dared to be leaders instead of sheep. They are now honored for their personal integrity and courage, and for their discoveries. Books and martyrs can he burned, but these ideas are stronger than before".

A great step forward came in Unitarianism in America when the Western Unitarian Conference was held in 1885, and a resolution was passed that stated, "The Western Unitarian Conference conditions its fellowship on no dogmatic tests, but welcomes all who wish to join it to help establish truth, righteousness and love in the world".

It is a well-established principle that the Unitarian church is without creed, and that it welcomes all who meet in the spirit of freedom, reason and tolerance.

The key principles were, and still are, freedom of thought and congregational independence.

In this church most members like to think of themselves as Humanists, as do many Unitarians in other countries – particularly in America. In England the majority of Unitarians seem to be theists.
I think it was Stephen Fritchman in America who definitely put Humanism into Unitarianism, and Victor James did the same in Australia.

It is apparent that throughout the history of Unitarianism there were two great aims-the first the search for truth and secondly the aim was to help create a better life for all in this world. These two aims are apparent from the time of Servetus to the present. Our forefathers were not only concerned with false ideas in theology, but with the urgent problems of their day.

Stephen Fritchman said, "Unitarianism is more than a rational religion, it is a responsible religion".
Although in this century, particularly in England, some Unitarian churches seem to stand still and rest on the laurels of their forefathers, others still press on, and I believe the Melbourne Unitarian Church, as long as I have known it, is among those who continue to struggle.

Today on the 133rd. anniversary of this church, we think of Unitarians of past centuries. At great expense to themselves, they made the way clear for us to develop.

They not only blew away "the dry leaves of theology", but also gave us a tradition of struggle for a better world. We honour and take inspiration from them as we do from all reformers who by their ideas and works made our lives healthier, freer and more pleasant.

Those of us who have been in this church for many years, think of the fine people who have now gone from us who dedicated their lives to truth, peace and social justice.

For all thinking and caring people today there is no rest, for we know there is so much that is wrong that need not he wrong. We are faced with a world that is in danger of destruction-either by nuclear war or by the spoiling of our life-giving forests, rivers, seas and atmosphere.

We have the problems of the less privileged, of poverty, discrimination and unemployment. The wealthy gather in great wealth, while the people need homes, hospitals and better education. There is something very wrong with a world that restricts production of food while two-thirds of the people do not have enough to eat.

Years ago in a primary state school on the day that was once celebrated as "Empire Day" a bag of pennies was placed in the charge of each teacher with the instruction that the pennies were to be "scrambled" i.e. thrown among the children so that they could compete for them. This custom came about by a gentleman with a nineteenth century conservative mind, leaving an amount of money in his will for this purpose.

You can imagine the result of the scramble-the strong bullying type with a handful of pennies and the weak gentler type empty handed.

It seems to me that this is an illustration of the wretched system under which we live.

When will the people see that the fruits of the earth are for everyone The human brain has been clever enough to put men and women into space, so I cannot believe they have not the ability to work out and put into practice a system where all can share the good things and none shall go without.

The present system encourages the worst qualities in people as the scramble did with the children.

Bertrand Russel1 said we have the ability and knowledge to create a world of healthy, kind, intelligent people, but lack of love prevents it from being done.

Although we, in this church, are few in number, we are fortunate to have the means of working for the good life through our Beacon and broadcasts; and we can take heart that all around the world are growing numbers who work to bring in a better way of living.

So, in the spirit of our forefathers, we must continue to go on working with others to help create love and understanding in a more just, safer and happier world.