Roots Of Unitarian Advance

A very thorough history of Unitarianism throughout American history,.how it has organized itself, and what it has accomplished. Contents include: English Sources of American Unitarianism --- The Liberal Side of Puritanism --- The Growth of Democracy in the Churches --- The Silent Advance of Liberalism ---- The American Unitarian Association ---- The Denomination Awakening --- Unitarians and Reforms --- The Future of Unitarianism; and much more. Originally published in 1902. George Willis Cooke (1848-1923), born in Comstock, Michigan, was a Unitarian minister, writer, editor, and lecturer best known now for his landmark history of the Unitarian movement in the 19th century and for his work on transcendentalist writers and publications. An insatiable reader throughout his life, Cooke was largely self-taught. His first major work, published in 1881, was Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings and Philosophy. He wrote several other studies of transcendentalism, with particular attention to the utopian community, Brook Farm, and the transcendentalist periodical, The Dial. His book, Unitarianism in America, first published in 1902, was the standard work on 19th century Unitarianism for some time and is still the major source of information on Unitarian developments in the early decades after the Unitarian controversy.

In Children of the Same God, Susan J. Ritchie makes the groundbreaking historical argument that, long before Unitarianism and Universalism merged in the United States, Unitarianism itself was inherently multireligious. She demonstrates how Unitarians in Eastern Europe claimed a strong affinity with Jews and Muslims from the very beginning and how mutual theological underpinnings and active cooperation underpin Unitarian history but have largely disappeared from the written accounts. With clear implications for the religious identity of Christians, Jews, and Muslims as well as Unitarian Universalists, and especially for interfaith work, Children of the Same God illuminates the intertwining histories and destinies of these traditions.