We Are Unitarian Universalists

We are brave, curious, and compassionate thinkers and doers. We are diverse in faith, ethnicity, history and spirituality, but aligned in our desire to make a difference for the good. We have a track record of standing on the side of love, justice, and peace.

We have radical roots and a history as self-motivated spiritual people: we think for ourselves and recognize that life experience influences our beliefs more than anything.

We need not think alike to love alike. We are people of many beliefs and backgrounds: people with a religious background, people with none, people who believe in a God, people who don’t, and people who let the mystery be.

We welcome you: your whole self, with all your truths and your doubts, your worries and your hopes. Join us on this extraordinary adventure of faith. Get involved!

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In the video below, Reverend Lee Paczulla, minister of the Wellsprings congregation in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, describes a bit about our history and what Unitarian Universalists believe.

 

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The Company We Keep

Historically, Unitarians, Universalists and Unitarian-Universalists have been prominent in social justice movements — abolition of slavery, sufferage, civil rights, environmentalism as well as in the arts. Below are the names of some that might ring a bell.

Famous and Infamous UUs

  • Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), abolitionist and the author of Little Women and other books.
  • Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), activist and the organizer of the women’s suffrage movement.
  • P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), well-known showman, the owner of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and a founder of Tufts University.
  • Clara Barton (1821-1912), founder of the American Red Cross.
  • Béla Bartók (1881-1945), Hungarian composer.
  • Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone, founder of the Bell Telephone Company
  • Sir Tim Berners-Lee (1955- ), physicist, inventor of the World Wide Web.
  • Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), science fiction writer.
  • Luther Burbank (1849-1926), American Botanist of the early 20th century.
  • William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), abolitionist, founder of Unitarianism in America.
  • e.e. cummings (1894-1962), 20th century American painter and poet who is noted for his unorthodox style and technique.
  • Charles Darwin (1809-1882), scientist and evolutionist, author of Origin of the Species.
  • Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist.
  • Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist.
  • Dorothea Dix (1802-1887), crusader for the reform of institutions for the mentally ill.
  • Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), scientist, writer, statesman, and printer.
  • Robert Fulghum (1937- ), writer and Unitarian minister who is the author of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
  • Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), inventor and futurist.
  • William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), abolitionist and the editor of The Liberator.
  • Horace Greeley (1811-1872), journalist, politician, editor and owner of the New York Tribune, and champion of labor unions and cooperatives.
  • Edvard Grieg (1843-1907), Norwegian composer.
  • Gary Gygax (1938-2008), creator of Dungeons and Dragons
  • Bret Harte (1836-1902), writer and the author of The Luck of Roaring Camp.
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), 19th century American novelist and the author of “The Scarlet Letter.
  • John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964), co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), lawyer and member of the U.S. Supreme Court (1902-1932).
  • Herman Melville (1819-1891), writer and the author of “Moby Dick.”
  • Paul Newman (1925-2008), actor.
  • Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726), physicist and mathematician.
  • Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), British nurse and hospital reformer.
  • Thomas Paine (1737-1809), editor and publisher of “Common Sense.”
  • Theodore Parker (1810-1860), a renegade Unitarian minister of the mid-19th century and a leading figure of the Abolitionist movement
  • Linus Pauling (1901-1994), chemist who won the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.
  • Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), poet, author of “The Bell Jar.”
  • Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), conservationist and the author of “Peter Rabbit” and other children’s stories.
  • Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), scientist and the discoverer of oxygen.
  • Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), actor who is best known for his portrayal of Superman.
  • Paul Revere (1735-18 (18), silversmith and patriot.
  • May Sarton (1912-1995), poet, author.
  • Pete Seeger (1919-2014), songwriter, singer, and social activist.
  • Rod Serling (1924-1975), screenwriter, TV producer.
  • Michael Servetus (1511-1553), theologian, Unitarian martyr.
  • Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), Governor of Illinois, candidate for President, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
  • Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), essayist and naturalist who is the author of “Walden Pond.”
  • Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), writer who is the author of “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), poet, educator, author of “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
  • Walt Whitman (1819-1892), poet, humanist.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), architect.
  • N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), illustrator.
  • Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), composer of Battle Hymn of the Republic
  • John II Sigismund Zápolya (1540-1570), King of Hungary