About Unitarian Universalists

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