UUA Bookstore Presents Ron Cordes' Unitarian Universalist History DVD Series

Ron Cordes, a Unitarian Universalist in Bedford, MA, has created a six-DVD series tracing UU history from early Christianity through the present day. Newcomers and lifelong UUs will learn something from this wonderful resource, described in UU World as one of the most important video resources for teaching and learning UU history.

Part I examines the early roots of religious thought from the early Christian era through anti-Trinitarian thought and the Council of Nicea to the work of Michael Servetus.

It makes the case that there were two Reformations in the 16th century: a theologically conservative one catalyzed by Martin Luther and a liberal one based largely on the works of Servetus.Purchase today.

Part II explores how the ideas of Servetus and others came together in the mind of Dávid Ferenc in Transylvania and led to the formation of the first coherent Unitarian theology.

It documents these early influences on English religious liberals which helped form organized English Unitarianism. It concludes with the emigration of Joseph Priestley from England to America in 1794. Purchase today.

Part III covers the development of Unitarianism in America through 1860. It tells the story of the final split between the Unitarians and the Trinitarian Congregationalists in the 1820s and revisits the Arian/Socinian fracture that played out here.

It also explores the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker. Purchase today.

Watch a video clip from Part III of the video series. In it, Ron Cordes highlights the important role--more important, he argues, than Ralph Waldo Emerson's--that Margaret Fuller played in introducing Transcendentalism into Unitarian thought in the 19th century.

Part IV focuses on Universalism, including early German and English pietists and 18th-century English ministers.

It tracks the theological development of the movement through John Murray, Hosea Ballou, and others and explores the unprecedented explosion of Universalism across America during the first half of the 19th century and its precipitous decline after Ballou's death.Purchase today.

Part V follows Unitarianism and Universalism as they evolve from Christian Bible-oriented religions to our current non-creedal movement.

It discusses influences as diverse as Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Civil War, feminism, and the Social Gospel and chronicles the roles of such actors as Julia Ward Howe, Henry Whitney Bellows, Olympia Brown, John Haynes Holmes, and Clarence Skinner. Purchase today.

Part VI tells the story of a century long "courtship" between the two faiths as a classic love story. It discusses how Humanism helped bring them closer together and the role that liberal religious education had on laying the groundwork for the merger.

It then follows Unitarian Universalism through its 50-year existence and ends with some personal comments on what the future might hold. Purchase today.