The Door We Held Open: Unitarians, Ecumenism, and the Irony of Exclusion

There is a strange and rather laughable irony in the history of Christian unity in Britain.

Unitarians, who have often been treated as awkward cousins at the Christian family gathering, were among those who helped create the very spirit of openness, conscience, and religious liberty that later ecumenical movements would claim as their own. And yet, when the official structures of “Churches Together” were reshaped in 1990, Unitarians found themselves outside the door.

Not because they had abandoned the cause of unity. But because the doorway had been narrowed. To understand the irony properly, we might begin in Liverpool, with William Roscoe.

Roscoe was one of the great figures of Liverpool’s liberal dissenting tradition: lawyer, historian, poet, art collector, abolitionist, and briefly Member of Parliament. He was also a prominent Unitarian, a member of Renshaw Street Chapel, and a man whose faith was not a narrow possession but a moral force. Ullet Road’s own account describes him as one of England’s first abolitionists and notes that his opposition to the slave trade was courageous in a city whose wealth was deeply bound up with it.

Roscoe’s dissent was not theoretical. It cost him.

As MP for Liverpool in 1806–07, he supported the abolition of the slave trade. He also supported Catholic emancipation. In the debates of spring 1807, Roscoe “upheld Catholic claims” against George Canning. That matters. He stood for Catholic civil liberty at a time when such a cause was still controversial, and in a city where religious and political passions could turn ugly.

So here is the first irony.

A Liverpool Unitarian helped argue for the rights of Catholics in public life. He believed that conscience should not be chained by the state, that religious identity should not be used as a barrier to dignity, citizenship, or participation.

That was the Unitarian instinct at its best. Not tolerance as a polite hobby. Not vague niceness. But the hard, costly conviction that truth cannot be forced, that conscience must be free, and that religious difference should not make people strangers to one another.

This same instinct ran through much of Unitarian social and religious life. Unitarians were small in number, but their influence in social reform, liberal politics, education, and inter-denominational work was often far beyond their size. Alan Ruston’s survey of twentieth-century British Unitarianism notes that Unitarians were involved in inter-denominational social movements such as COPEC, where, despite their small numbers, they were “amongst the leaders.” When the British Council of Churches was formed, arrangements were made so that Unitarians and Quakers could join, in recognition of their long contribution and commitment to social concern.

That point is important. Unitarians were not being indulged as an eccentric footnote. Their contribution to Christian cooperation and social reform was recognised.

The British Council of Churches, formed during the Second World War period, had a Christian basis: “a fellowship of churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.” But that basis was tempered by an important provision. Bodies already represented in earlier ecumenical work could continue in membership even if they could not accept the basis in that exact form. This allowed the Society of Friends and the Unitarian and Free Christian Churches to be associated with the new body.

There it is: the old ecumenical settlement had room for conscience.

It recognised that Christian cooperation did not have to begin with doctrinal uniformity. It allowed for a broader fellowship of service, witness, and shared moral purpose. In its own imperfect way, it accepted that the churches could work together even where they did not speak the same theological language.

Then came the road to Churches Together.

In the 1980s, the British Council of Churches was seen as no longer sufficient. There was a desire for something more rooted, more committed, and more inclusive. The Roman Catholic Church, previously only an observer, was now to be brought fully into the formal ecumenical structure. Churches Together in England describes the absence of full Roman Catholic membership, and the absence of black-led churches, as serious weaknesses in the old BCC arrangement.

The process was called Not Strangers But Pilgrims. It was full of hope, language, prayer, consultation, and the dream of visible unity. In 1990, Churches Together in England and the other new ecumenical instruments were inaugurated.

And here the irony becomes almost comic. In becoming broader, the movement became narrower.

The Roman Catholic Church came in fully. But the old arrangement that had allowed Unitarians to belong disappeared. The new ecumenical structures were built around a more orthodox and Trinitarian understanding of Christian belonging. The door was opened wider for Rome, but it was closed on the Unitarians.

One can dress that up in polite institutional language. But the plain version is this:

The Unitarians, who had long worked for religious liberty and Christian cooperation, were pushed out of the central ecumenical structure because they did not meet the new doctrinal test.

There is something almost laughable in that. Not laughable because it is funny, but because history sometimes has a cruel sense of humour.

A tradition that had helped argue for Catholic emancipation, that had stood for freedom of conscience, that had often been willing to work with others across difference, found itself treated as being beyond the boundary of Christian fellowship.

And this is where William Roscoe should be remembered. Roscoe did not stand for Catholic emancipation because he was Catholic. He stood for it because he believed conscience mattered. He believed that civil and religious liberty could not be reserved only for those who already belonged to the approved circle. If freedom is real, it must reach beyond one’s own tribe. That, at its best, is the Unitarian instinct.

Not simply to ask, “Will there be room for us?” But to ask, “Who else is being kept outside?”

And perhaps that is why this history still matters. It is not just about institutional membership, committees, statements of faith, or the machinery of ecumenical life. It is about the deeper question: what kind of unity are we really seeking?

A unity that only welcomes those who already agree is not really unity. It is agreement wearing Sunday clothes.

The harder work is fellowship across real difference. The harder work is learning to stand beside those whose language of faith is not our own, whose theology unsettles us, whose presence asks us to become larger than our inherited certainties.

Unitarians have not always been perfect in this. No tradition is. But again and again, at our best, we have tried to keep the door open, not because difference is easy, but because conscience is sacred.

So perhaps the story is not simply one of exclusion It is also a reminder of vocation.

The Unitarian task has never been to wait politely for permission to belong. It has been to witness to a larger freedom, a wider fellowship, and a faith that trusts truth enough not to fear honest difference.

And if, from time to time, we find ourselves outside the official door, perhaps we may remember that some of the most important work of the spirit has always happened on the threshold.

That is where conversations begin. That is where strangers become neighbours. That is where the bridge is built. And yet, this is where I find myself standing: on the other side of the bridge, with a chasm between us. And the bridge itself… if there is still a bridge at all… looks too fragile to cross without care. It has not been well maintained. Some of its beams are rotten. Some of its planks are loose. One careless step, and a person could fall through.

So perhaps, for now, we stand where we are. We look across. We watch. We listen. We observe with humble eyes. But we do not forget our history. We remember those who built bridges before us. We remember those who crossed them at cost. And we remember, too, what happens when a bridge is neglected by those who still claim to believe in crossing over.