Arthur W. Foote II (January 18, 1911-December 9, 1999) was a Unitarian minister who chaired the commission that prepared the first hymnal after the Universalist and Unitarian consolidation. A humanist, he emphasized self-reflection and spirituality through the use of art, music, and poetry.
Brooke Herford (February 21, 1830-December 21, 1903) was a Unitarian minister, noted preacher, and author, who served several important churches in Great Britain and America. In addition, he was a religious enthusiast who travelled tirelessly throughout Britain spreading with great success the Bible-based message of Unitarian Christianity.
Clemens Taeslar (June 25, 1887 – February 23, 1969), a German, was a poet, Goethe scholar, popular lecturer, and minister who embraced a liberal theology. Influenced by British and America Unitarians, he adopted the term ‘unitarian’ in the 1920s to describe his unique conception of the relationship between God and the world.
Charles Edwards Park (March 14, 1873-September 20, 1962) was a Unitarian minister who served First Church in Boston, Massachusetts for forty years. One of the leading exponents of Unitarian Christianity during the first half of the twentieth century, he authored books and articles on religion, prayer, local history, and the graphic artist, Frederic Goudy.
Michael Servetus (c.1506-October 27, 1553), a Spaniard martyred in the Reformation for his criticism of the doctrine of the trinity and his opposition to infant baptism, has often been considered an early unitarian. Sharply critical though he was of the orthodox formulation of the trinity, Servetus is better described as a highly unorthodox trinitarian.…
Von Ogden Vogt (February 25, 1879-August 2, 1964), or V. Ogden Vogt as he preferred, was minister at the First Unitarian Church of Chicago for two decades, a lecturer on Religion and Fine Art at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and the author of books and articles on church art, architecture, liturgy, and worship.…
Henry Noble Couden (November 21, 1842 – August 22, 1922) was Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives for twenty-five years (1895-1921). After being blinded in a Civil War battle he returned to school to study for the Universalist ministry.
Laelius Socinus, or Lelio Sozzini, (January 29, 1525-May 4, 1562), a peripatetic Italian Bible scholar, was a pioneer theologian of the radical branch of the Reformation. In his few surviving writings he laid the foundation for the unitarian theology that his nephew Faustus Socinus later promulagated in Poland.…
Charles Rhind Joy (December 5, 1885- September 26, 1978) was a Unitarian minister, American Unitarian Association official, and an international humanitarian worker affiliated with the Unitarian Service Committee, Save the Children Federation, and CARE. He wrote popular articles for magazines and authored numerous books.
John Murray (December 10, 1741-September 3, 1815), a preacher from the British Isles, became the most widely-known and respected voice of American Universalism during the last three decades of the eighteenth century. The legal conflict surrounding his ministry was instrumental in undermining the monopoly of the established church in Massachusetts and in bringing about the legal organization of the first Universalist churches in New England.
Peter Charadon Brooks Adams (June 24, 1848-February 14,1927) was a lawyer, historian, and writer, who served as an informal adviser to President Theodore Roosevelt. Although reared Unitarian, he was agnostic for many years. Late in life he returned to the Unitarian fold at the family church in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Henry Wilder Foote (February 2, 1875-August 27, 1964) was a Unitarian minister, scholar, teacher, and hymnologist. As Chair of a joint Universalist and Unitarian commission on hymnals, he oversaw the editorial compilation and production of Hymns of the Spirit (1937) which became the standard hymnbook used by both groups up to their 1961 consolidation.