In the 16th century, it was possible to launch a full-scale attack on the Christian orthodoxies of the day. You just had to take into account the likelihood of being denounced, physically attacked, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and burned alive.

Today the Unitarian Church is very loose on doctrine. In the 16th century Unitarianism, antrinitarianism, or Arianism was a Christian movement centered on the idea that God is strictly one, not a Trinity. As an atheist, I’m outside the argument, but the idea that God has a three-way split personality seems odd to me. When the Bible started becoming available to the general public, people started to notice that it never says that God is a Trinity. The earliest Christians didn’t hold such a belief. By the time Gutenberg published his Bible, though, denying the Trinity or saying that Jesus wasn’t literally God was heretical.

The first heretic Howe discusses in detail is Michael Servetus, who was born in Spain. He published a book in 1531 called On the Errors of the Trinity. He regarded the Logos and the Holy Spirit as modes of God’s expression, not as persons. John Calvin provided information to the Inquisition to initiate Servetus’s prosecution.

In 1553 he was arrested, but he managed to escape prison. He was convicted, sentenced, and executed in absentia (being burned in effigy). Later that year he was recaptured and burned in person. It would be an interesting bit of alternate history if he had avoided recapture, and the date is about right…

Ideas like his got a more tolerant reception in other places, especially Poland and Transylvania. The Polish Minor Reformed Church split off from the Calvinists in 1565. It adopted the revolutionary idea that “since in matters of faith no one in the true church of God may lord it over another, nor be forced, each should enjoy freedom of conscience and be allowed to publish writings on the subject, provided nothing was written calculated to anger another or openly contrary to Christ’s command.”

In Transylvania, Francis (or Ferenc) Dávid began speaking against the trinitarian position in 1566, and his activity led to a milestone in religious freedom, the Edict of Torda. King John Sigismund declared that “in every place the preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel each according to his understanding of it.” Further on it said that “it is not permitted that anyone should threaten anyone else by imprisonment or removal from his post for his teaching.” This applied only to teachings grounded in Christianity, but it was a huge step forward.

These early steps led in time to the Enlightenment, which stressed freedom of thought and the supremacy of reason. It wasn’t a uniform progression; the gains in one year were often wiped out in a later one. In 1658, Poland exiled everyone who wouldn’t accept the trinitarian position. Francis Dávid was sent to prison for life in 1572 and died there in 1579.

This history is fascinating to me as a 16th century buff, and it has a lot to say to us when we face today’s rising opposition to free speech. People may be shouted down, mobbed on Twitter, or fired from their jobs, but in the United States they don’t risk prosecution or execution for their heresies. If people speaking at risk of imprisonment or death had the courage to maintain their positions during the Reformation era, cancel culture and online insults should look mild by comparison.

I recommend For Faith and Freedom both for its historical insights and for the examples of courageous dissent that it offers.

This view was originally published on my blog and has been lightly edited. ( )

Outstanding overview of early Unitarianism before its migration to America. Must reading for UU scholars to build an understanding of the dedication and sacrifice of our ancestors to keep our free faith alive. ( )