Customer Reviews

The Elements of Unitarianism (The Elements of .... Series)

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This is a positive account of the religious movement known as Unitarianism, written by someone who really knows his subject from the inside but is also objective enough to take an intelligent overview. I like the fact that the author treats with a range of contemporary issues that inevitably arise in a non-credal religion. Full marks for making a complex subject intelligible without making it banal.

George D. Chryssides provides a sympathetic but objective review of Unitarianism - from a British perspective.

The book's greatest drawback is its embarrassing historical errors. Writing of a leading English Unitarian, the Rev. Thomas Belsham, Chryssides tells us that "Belsham was one of the first members of the clergy to reject the biblical account of the six-day creation, believing it to be irreconcilable with Darwin's evolutionary theory . . . ." (p. 20). I regret to report that Rev. Belsham died in 1829, when Charles Darwin was but a toddler, and that Darwin's "Origin of Species" first saw print in 1859 - some three decades after Rev. Belsham's passing. See On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Harvard Paperbacks)

Chryssides proceeds to insert Darwin's theory into the wrong century of American religious history, as well, writing that "Darwinism also became an issue which divided the orthodox and liberal camps" during the eighteenth century's Great Awakening. (p. 26).

This is enough to make a reader cringe. One has to question the general reliability of any text on intellectual history that contains such egregious errors.

Still, Chryssides presents what is, for the most part, a reasonably accurate account of Unitarian ideas. He understands Unitarian values and attitudes, and he provides what is -- on whole -- a very serviceable introduction for readers seeking an introduction to Unitarianism. Those already familiar with American writers' accounts of Unitarianism's history, will find Chryssides's British perspective refreshing, and his writing lively.

If only he'd placed controversy concerning Charles Darwin's theories in the right century, I could have recommended his book unreservedly.

Eric Alan Isaacson