How indeed? It is a big question, and it’s not certain anyone knows the answer, but at the start of 2022, a group of around 25 assorted Unitarians from across the UK and further afield led by Dr Jane Blackall at Kensington Unitarians were going to give it their best shot.

Jane put together a six-week course, with Unitarians meeting for two hours every other Thursday evening, in which we discussed this funny thing called ‘modern UK Unitarianism’. Many of the writings, though certainly not all, came from the American Unitarian Universalist tradition, and we had many discussions about how UK Unitarianism is in an interesting position; neither the more traditional ‘Unitarian Christian’ approach of Eastern Europe and the Asian and African Unitarian churches, nor the ‘Unitarian Universalist’ approach found in America and many other Western countries. Instead, we find ourselves between the two, with many different theological outlooks in our 150+ UK congregations.

Perhaps we should learn from the title of Rev. Sue Woolley’s recent book, “United in Diversity”! Perhaps our diversity is what UK Unitarianism is, and we should embrace it. Certainly, many attendees towards the end spoke of the joy of being able to have constructive discussions with other Unitarians, rather than the “shouting matches” that we unfortunately sometimes see on Facebook and in the letters pages of the Inquirer. Perhaps also having an online space with Unitarians from other congregations made us feel more free and open, able to have spiritual and theological discussions without the constraints we might find in our congregations. It can sometimes be hard on a Sunday morning to switch from “Mabel, can you give me a hand to do the dishes and check the burglar alarm is on” mode to “Mabel, do you believe in God?”

Over the six weeks, we covered the following topics:

• 6th January – Introduction to Unitarianism: Reflection on our Experience
• 20th January – Unitarian Theology: Sources, Values, Principles
• 3rd February – The Unitarian Denomination: Our Wider Movement
• 17th February – Being Unitarian in Community: Commitment to a Congregation
• 3rd March – Deepening Your Unitarianism: Doing Your own Spiritual Work
• 17th March – Being a Unitarian in the World: Living Your Faith Every Day

Through our discussions, we developed our views and collected insights on all the topics above. As an example, here’s some insights from the first session, reflecting on our experiences:

• “Unitarianism is a Religion …we gather in community for a sacred purpose – for seeking and spreading the holy – and we engage with life’s ultimate concerns. Our churches deal with ‘serious things in a serious place’.
• Unitarians are Free to Believe …what their own life-experience tells them is true, and what the promptings of their conscience tells them is right, based on deep reflection and reasoning (it’s not just a case of ‘anything goes’).
• Unitarianism is Full of Contradictions! …as individuals and as a denomination we can be both rational and intuitive, humanistic and theistic, scientific and mystical (and we generally find it healthy to hold these in balance).”

It was an excellent and enriching course, and if it runs again, thoroughly recommended!