What We Believe
The Five Basic Unity Principles
1. God is absolute good, everywhere present. There is only one Power, one Presence: God.
• God is good without opposite. There is no other power. God is omnipotence—all power. God is omniscience—all wisdom. God is omnipresent—there is no place that God is not.
• Since God is omnipresent, we cannot be separated from God. Oneness is our natural state.
2. Human beings have a spark of divinity within them, the Spirit within. Our very essence is of God, and therefore, we are also inherently good.
• As a wave has its being in the ocean, you have your being in God-ness. A wave is not the whole ocean, but it is made of exactly the same stuff as the ocean and can never be removed from the ocean.
• Jesus is our great example, our way-shower. He demonstrated what is possible when we live in awareness of our Oneness, consciously and willingly aligned with our Divinity.
• We are expressions of the divine in human form.
3. Human beings create their experiences by the activity of their thinking. Everything in the manifest realm has its beginning in thought.
• Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs have the power to create our experience of life.
• We create not just as individuals, but as groups. We are all connected in the One Mind
• We may not always know the larger meaning of our circumstances at the time we experience them. What may seem to be a terrible event may turn out to be the catalyst for our highest possible good. By using our free will, we always have the choice to experience good.
4. Prayer and meditation heighten the connection with God-Mind and therefore bring forth wisdom, healing, prosperity and everything good.
• Affirmative prayer is the activity that allows us to know our Oneness.
• Spiritual practice (prayer and meditation) is not something we do for God, but is something we do to maintain our awareness of the omnipresence of God.
5. Knowing and understanding the laws of life, also called Truth, are not enough. A person must also live the Truth that they know.
• We cannot not live these laws—they apply to everyone, all of the time, whether we “believe” in them or not.
• Living the Truth means that we show up in all of the activities of our lives—work, play, family relationships—with a consciousness that what we do and how we behave matters.
• Living the Truth means that we do the personal and spiritual work necessary to remain conscious and aware of our Oneness.
• Living the Truth means that we recognize our Divinity and act in ways that express that Divinity.
God
God is Spirit, the loving source of all that is. God is the one power, all good, everywhere present, all wisdom. God is divine energy, continually creating, expressing and sustaining all creation. In God, we live and move and have our being. In Unity, some other ways we name God are Life, Light, Love, Substance, Principle, Law, and Universal Mind.
The Nature of Humankind
We are each individual, eternal expressions of God. Our essential nature is divine and therefore inherently good. Our purpose is to express our divine potential as realized and demonstrated by Jesus and other master teachers. The more we awaken to our divine nature, the more fully God expresses in and through our lives.
Jesus
Jesus expressed his divine potential and sought to show us how to do that, too. Jesus is the master teacher of universal truths and is our Way Shower. In Unity, we use the term Christ to mean the divinity in humankind. Jesus is the great example of the Christ in expression. Unity believes that Jesus’ call to, “follow me,” and his assurance that, “these and greater things shall you do,” are central to his message that we are all called to awaken to, and to manifest, the Christ Consciousness within us.
Sin
The original meaning of sin was simply to "miss the mark" of spiritual perfection. We can choose behavior that produces an undesirable effect in our lives, thus creating hardship or suffering. In other words, we are punished by our sins, not for them.
The Bible
Unity founders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore studied the Bible as history and allegory and interpreted it as a metaphysical representation of humankind's evolutionary journey toward spiritual awakening. In addition, Unity recognizes that the Bible is a complex collection of writings compiled over many centuries. We honor the writings as reflecting the understanding and inspiration of the writers at the time they were written. The Bible continues to be a valuable spiritual resource for us.
Prayer and Meditation
Affirmative prayer is the highest form of creative thought. It includes the release of counterproductive, negative thoughts, as well as holding in mind statements of spiritual truth. Through meditation, we experience the presence of God. Prayer and meditation heighten our awareness and transform our lives.
About Our Wings
The “Unity Wings” symbol appears in many Unity publications and is prominently displayed in many Unity churches all over the world. Its origins are so ancient they are lost in the mist of pre-history. In ancient Egypt it represented the sun, as it did in ancient Hebrew times. Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore adopted this artistic creation as a Unity symbol as early as 1891 in the first issue of Unity Magazine. In the April 1923 issue Charles gave this explanation: "The winged globe or sun disc represents the relationship existing between Spirit, soul, and body. Soul (the wings) gives wings to the body (the disc). Spirit is the (invisible) enveloping Principle, like the atmosphere in which both soul and body exist, and from which they draw their original inspiration."
Statement for Peace
Unity stands for peace in the presence of conflict; for love in the presence of hatred; for forgiveness in the presence of injury. Unity honors the many names for God, the many paths to God, the many ways to worship God; for there is only one power and presence of God and that God loves each one of us equally. It is therefore the position of Unity Worldwide Ministries and Unity to urge all nations, their leaders, and their people to turn to God, by whatever the name, for guidance during these challenging times and pursue peace, not war, for this is what honors the God of all our faith traditions. Unity stands for peace in our lifetimes.
Honoring Diversity Within the Unity Movement
We believe that all people are created with sacred worth. Therefore, we recognize the importance of serving all people in spiritually and emotionally caring ways. We strive in our ministries, publications and programs to reach out to all who seek Unity support and spiritual growth. Everyone is welcome here, regardless of race, color, gender, age, creed, religion, national origin, ethnicity, physical disability, or sexual orientation.