Creeds for the Creedless

For Unitarians (71,419 members) and Universalists (44,349 members), formal creeds have long been an abomination: in matters of faith, every-conscience-for itself is the accepted rule. But last week it seemed as if both churches were feeling the need of a statement of faith--even if it made a creed of creedlessness.

Meeting in Rochester, N.Y. for their week-long Biennial Assembly, 700 delegates of the Universalist Church of America talked about cutting loose once & for all from "supernatural Christianity" and proclaiming a "truly universal faith." The Universalist Church, said the Rev. Brainard Gibbons of Wausau, Wis., should "proclaim a new type of universalism which is boundless in scope, as broad as humanity, and as infinite as the universe. For a long time, Universalists have been reaching beyond the narrow bounds of Christianity to pluck their grapes of knowledge from the vines growing in the boundless vineyards of truth, and the religious wine pressed from them cannot be contained in the old Christian bottles."

Major subject on the Universalist agenda was the perennial plan for merger with the Unitarians, who were also feeling cramped by Christian creeds. In the current issue of the Unitarian Christian Register, 127 Unitarian ministers of New England endorsed a five-point statement of faith. Said the Rev. Dilworth Lupton of Waltham, Mass.: "Behind the statement is our conviction that religion resembles art; it is bigger than any of its manifestations. And the conviction, too, that our Unitarian churches should be fellowships where, as in art centers, people holding various theories could come together for common enrichment."

Dr. Lupton's five points: P: We believe in universal religion which is greater than any of its present organized expressions at their best, greater than Hinduism, Judaism, or Christianity. P: We believe in a universal church where theists, humanists, Christians, Jews and all religious truth-seekers may come together, each contributing to the common enrichment of their church. P: We believe in the development of this universal religion in order to break down today's tensions and so forward the sense of world community . . . P: We believe in the right of each individual to his own convictions. P: We believe that the Unitarian movement should reaffirm its tradition of a creedless church, and begin immediately to create and foster such fellowships of universal religion.

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