Chapter 13 - Current issues, new directions

Summary

Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists worldwide are connected to one another, and identify with this faith, even in its various regional incarnations. This has always been the case. The burgeoning liberal movement in Eastern Europe did not appear spontaneously. The radicals read and were persuaded by Servetus, absorbed humanism, and were protected by Muslims. In Great Britain, Dissenters read and re-read continental Unitarian literature while the Church of the Strangers embraced outsiders. Even in America, where generations of students learned that Unitarianism was mostly indigenous, it is now known that the Socinianism of those earliest European heretics seeped in, despite the New Englanders’ attempts to fend it off. The spirit of freedom from abroad infused those who expanded Unitarianism into the West, building new congregations. Today, the international movement seeks new avenues of expansion, and new areas of growth that may help sustain the faith in its ancient strongholds. Technology fosters bonds by making outreach, support, and connection easier. The process of sharing with one another globally also reifies the faith itself, by acting on the religious imperative to grow and learn from one another.