Universalist Church of America
Off Center Cross of Universalist Church of America before the 1961 merger.
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| Abbreviation | UCA |
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| Formation | 1866 |
| Extinction | May 1961 (consolidation with American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association) |
| Type | religious denomination |
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Formerly called
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Universalist General Convention |
The Universalist Church of America was a Christian Universalist religious denomination in the United States (plus affiliated churches in other parts of the world). Known from 1866 as the Universalist General Convention, the name was changed to the Universalist Church of America in 1942. In 1961, it consolidated with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The defining theology of Universalism is universal salvation; Universalists believe that the God of love would not create a person knowing that that person would be destined for eternal damnation. They concluded that all people must be destined for salvation. Some early Universalists, known as Restorationists and led by Paul Dean, believed that after death there is a period of reprobation in Hell preceding salvation. Other Universalists, notably Hosea Ballou, denied the existence of Hell entirely.
Members of the Universalist Church of America claimed universalist beliefs among some early Christians such as Origen.Richard Bauckham in Universalism: a historical survey ascribes this to Platonist influence, and notes that belief in the final restoration of all souls seems to have been not uncommon in the East during the fourth and fifth centuries and was apparently taught by Gregory of Nyssa, though this is disputed by Greek Orthodox scholars. According to the Universalist historian Rev. George T. Knight, in the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six known theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa) were universalist.
The first verifiable and undisputed believer in universal salvation is Gerrard Winstanley, author of The Mysterie of God Concerning the Whole Creation, Mankinde (London, 1648).
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