The International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU) was an umbrella organization founded in 1995 comprising many Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist organizations. It was dissolved in 2021 along with the Unitarian Universalist Partner Church Council to make way for a new merged entity. Some groups represented only a few hundred people; while the largest, the Unitarian Universalist Association, had more than 160,000 members as of May 2011—including over 150,000 in the United States.
Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America Christian denominations with Unitarian and Universalist doctrines, respectively. However, modern Unitarian Universalists see themselves as a separate religion with its own beliefs and affinities. They define themselves as non-creedal, and draw wisdom from various religions and philosophies, including humanism, pantheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, and Earth-centered spirituality. Thus, the UUA is a syncretistic religious group with liberal leanings.
Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious movement characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Unitarian Universalists assert no creed, but instead are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth. Unitarian Universalists do not have an official, unified corpus of sacred texts. Unitarian Universalist congregations include many atheists, agnostics, deists, and theists; there are churches, fellowships, congregations, and societies around the world.
Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to:
Religious humanism or ethical humanism is an integration of nontheistic humanist philosophy with congregational rites and community activity that center on human needs, interests, and abilities. Religious humanists set themselves apart from secular humanists by characterizing the nontheistic humanist life stance as a non-supernatural "religion" and structuring their organization around a congregational model.
English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestants who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. A dissenter is one who disagrees in opinion, belief and other matters. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities.
German Christians were a pressure group and a movement within the German Evangelical Church that existed between 1932 and 1945, aligned towards the antisemitic, racist, and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles. Their advocacy of these principles led to a schism within 23 of the initially 28 regional church bodies (Landeskirchen) in Germany and the attendant foundation of the opposing Confessing Church in 1934. Siegfried Leffler was a co-founder of the German Christians.
Daniel Schenkel was a Swiss Protestant theologian.
Christianity is the largest religion in Germany. It was introduced to the area of modern Germany by 300 AD, while parts of that area belonged to the Roman Empire, and later, when Franks and other Germanic tribes converted to Christianity from the fifth century onwards. The area became fully Christianized by the time of Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth century. After the Reformation started by Martin Luther in the early 16th century, many people left the Catholic Church and became Protestant, mainly Lutheran and Calvinist. In the 17th and 18th centuries, German cities also became hubs of heretical and sometimes anti-religious freethinking, challenging the influence of religion and contributing to the spread of secular thinking about morality across Germany and Europe.
Freedom of religion in Germany is guaranteed by article 4 of the German constitution. This states that "the freedom of religion, conscience and the freedom of confessing one's religious or philosophical beliefs are inviolable. Uninfringed religious practice is guaranteed." In addition, article 3 states that "No one may be prejudiced or favored because of his gender, his descent, his race, his language, his homeland and place of origin, his faith or his religious or political views." Any person or organization can call the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany for free help.
Hermann Ulrici was a German philosopher. He was co-editor of the philosophical journal Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik. He also wrote under the pseudonym of Ulrich Reimann.
Ludwig Fahrenkrog was a German painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer. He was born in Rendsburg, Prussia, in 1867. He started his career as an artist in his youth, and attended the Berlin Royal Art Academy before being appointed a professor in 1913. He taught at the School of Arts and Crafts in Bremen from 1898 to 1931. He was also involved in the founding of a series of modern Pagan religious groups in the early 20th century, as part of a movement to create what its adherents referred to as a "Germanic religious community".
Religion in Scouting and Guiding is an aspect of the Scout method that has been practiced differently and given different interpretations in different parts of the world over the years.
Secular coming-of-age ceremonies, sometimes called civil confirmations, are ceremonies arranged by organizations that are secular, which is to say, not aligned to any religion. Their purpose is to prepare adolescents for their life as adults. Secular coming of age ceremonies originated in the 19th century, when non-religious people wanted a rite of passage comparable to the Christian confirmation. Nowadays, non-religious coming-of-age ceremonies are organized in several European countries; in almost every case these are connected with humanist organisations.
Since its emergence in the 1970s, Neopaganism in German-speaking Europe has diversified into a wide array of traditions, particularly during the New Age boom of the 1980s.
Unitarianism, as a Christian denominational family of churches, was first defined in Poland-Lithuania and Transylvania in the late 16th century. It was then further developed in England and America until the early 19th century, although theological ancestors are to be found as far back as the early days of Christianity. It matured and reached its classical form in the middle 19th century. Later historical development has been diverse in different countries.
Jakob Wilhelm Hauer was a German Indologist and religious studies writer. He was the founder of the German Faith Movement.
More than 60 percent of Berlin residents have no registered religious affiliation. As of 2010, at least 30 percent of the population identified with some form of Christianity, approximately 8.1 percent were Muslim, 1 percent were Jewish, and 1 percent belonged to other religions. As of 2022, the number of registered church members has shrunk to 15 percent for EKD Protestants and 9 percent for Catholics.
Zentrum für Migrationskirchen comprises eight Protestant churches from four continents, situated in the former church hall of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich in Zürich, being a unique centre in Switzerland for the so-called migration churches.
