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The courage of Unitarianism
Posted By katie allison granju
No, it is not a traditional faith. It never was.
Unitarianism was one of the earliest movements of the Reformation, and its history is old and really interesting. Michael Servetus is the Latinized named for Miguel Serveto, a Spanish theologian and a real Renaissance man in the literal sense of the word. Also an astronomer, mathematician, legal scholar, and meteorologist, he was a keen enough anatomist to have figured out pulmonary circulation and written a treatise on it. (No wonder so many smart people - professors and the like - go to the UU Church.) He didn’t exactly found a church, because he disliked dogma. He especially disliked the theology of the Trinity, and by several writings he more or less established the Unitarian philosophy. Of course he was eventually burned to death as a heretic by Calvinists in Geneva, in 1553.
The Unitarian idea was controversial but popular among educated people in Europe. So many controversial ideas were floating around during that time, you could get away with all kinds of heresy before getting killed. And Unitarians were targets, that’s for sure. But they were brave. Servetus knew he was writing and promoting official heresy, but he didn’t care. It needed to be told! And he knew the ultimate penalty, and he faced it.
Jul 30th, 2008
