Highlights

This concern for the soul (however conceived and in whatever number) is not, of course, confined to the Christian Church. In Buddhism, for instance, there is an important 'All Souls' Festival called Ullambana.

we may define the soul as the immaterial essence or animating spiritual principle embodied in either human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or in the universe conceived of as a whole. Within some cultures and philosophies everything, including animals and apparently inanimate things, also has a soul of some description.

the names 'Unitarian' and 'Universalist' are for us derived from adjectives which modify the noun Christianity. So a Unitarian is a Christian who, essentially, affirms the unity of God and who consequently strongly affirms the humanity of Jesus. A Universalist is a Christian who is of the opinion that, however conceived, every soul, and that does mean every soul, will somehow obtain salvation - even if that soul is not a Christian one. Universalist Christians may, or may not, be Unitarians. As it happens I am a Christian who is both a Unitarian and a Universalist.

Unitarian-Universalism (remember written with a hyphen) explicitly defines itself as a new, post-Christian religion.

when someone tells you they are a Unitarian it is worth finding out - simply for clarity's sake -- whether they mean Unitarian Christian or Unitarian-Universalist.

we "strive for a broader understanding among religious groups and endeavour, in a spirit of enquiry, to appreciate truth, beauty and goodness in whatever form of religion or philosophy these may be found."

Unitarianism - in challenging the validity of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity - is what is known as a Christian heresy

the word Unitarian is utterly redundant as an adjective attached to any other religious tradition with perhaps the single exception of Hinduism where the Unitarian tradition is represented by the Brahmo Samaj (the Society of God). But Judaism and Islam, for example, are already 'unitarian' (lower case u) in outlook.

But universalism is a "global" heresy not limited in any way to particular historical, cultural, and religious context.

It is a sad fact but all the world's religions have, in some form or other and at various times, tried to claim that a soul's ultimate salvation is absolutely dependent upon being a member of the right religion, namely their own and has claimed there will be damnation, or at least utter perdition or oblivion, for all those souls who practise any other faith. The theological conviction that unites all universalists in all the various world religious traditions is an absolute rejection of these notions. All universalists have proposed that it is grotesque in the extreme to imagine anything worthy of the noble name(s of God or the Absolute that would either allow this or behave in such a fashion.

So universalist Christians, Hindus, Moslems, Zoroastrians and Manicheans, Jains, Jews, Buddhists, (the list is endless...) - all say, in their own languages and historical and religious contexts, that God, the Absolute simply does not give birth to the world and suffuse it with 'Its Essence' in order to discard any of those 'pieces', or 'reflections', or 'sparks' forever. The 'reconciliation of each with all' may take a very, very long time - but the ultimate outcome is, to a universalist, not in any real doubt: in the end universalists believe that all souls find salvation, healing and wholeness.

The connecting link that binds these varied universalists together is a train of theological thought, intuition, and argument which holds that when you consider God's unity then it becomes impossible to imagine anything that does not come from God - God being seen as the Absolute reality. For this reason it becomes impossible to imagine anything that does not return to God in the end because, in truth, it has never left this Unity. Here is found the intimate connection with the Unitarian position.

But the universalist affirmation of this ultimate unity in God does not, at the same time, result in the abandonment of different religious traditions in favour of some lowest common denominator religion. What it does mean, is that each individual religion calls forth an understanding of the universal that is deeply rooted in the different times and places and in the different ways of worship and even belief that humans hold. In short, universalists, believe they are called to be true to the universal truth that they have been bequeathed in their particular traditions. Without those particular and distinct traditions there would be no way of intuiting this underlying unity.

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References

Brown, Andrew James. “The ‘All’ in All Souls and All Saints.” Caute, 26 Nov. 2007, https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2007/11/all-in-all-souls-and-all-saints.html.