Recently I meet someone who shared that their religious background was in a church of Unitarianism. Because I didn’t know what that was, I did some research to find out what are the beliefs of Unitarianism.
Firstly the beliefs of Unitarianism differ somewhat from what I believe as a Christina. There are few key areas where my understandings are different to the beliefs of Unitarianism as described on Wikipedia.
God is one
Unitarianism (from Latin unitas “unity, oneness”, from unus “one”) is a nontrinitarian Christian theological movement that believes that the God in Christianity is one singular person.
Wikipedia
Mine and most other branches of Christianity define God as one being in three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and NOT one singular person.
Jesus is not God incarnate
The Unitarianism belief is that Jesus is NOT God incarnate.
Unitarian Christians believe that Jesus was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is a savior, but he is not God incarnate.
Wikipedia
Me and most Christians believe the Christian doctrine that God became flesh, assumed a human nature, and became a man in the form of Jesus, the Son of God and that He is the second person of the Trinity.
No Original Sin belief
The idea of original sin is NOT part of the Unitarianism beliefs.
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct.
The biblical basis for the belief are generally found in Genesis 3 (the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), in a line in Psalm 51:5 (“I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”), and in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21 (“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned”).
Wikipedia
So, as can be seen, these are the beliefs of Unitarianism and they are different to most other branches of Christianity – like mine.