Unitarian Universalism in the context of "Religious liberalism"

A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination.

The term has been used in the context of various faiths, including Jainism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoroastrianism, Unitarian Universalism, Neo-Paganism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Wicca. It stands in contrast with a religious denomination. Religious people of a non-denominational persuasion tend to be more open-minded in their views on various religious matters and rulings. Some converts towards non-denominational strains of thought have been influenced by disputes over traditional teachings in the previous institutions they attended. Nondenominationalism has also been used as a tool for introducing neutrality into a public square when the local populace is derived from a wide-ranging set of religious beliefs.

Biblical unitarianism (otherwise capitalized as biblical Unitarianism, sometimes abbreviated as BU) is a Unitarian Christian tradition whose adherents affirm the Christian Bible as their sole authority, and from it base their beliefs that God the Father is one singular being, and that Jesus is God's son but not divine. The term "biblical Unitarianism" is connected first with Robert Spears and Samuel Sharpe of the Christian Life magazine in the 1880s. It is a neologism (or retronym) that gained increasing currency in nontrinitarian literature during the 20th century as the Unitarian churches moved away from mainstream church traditions and, in some instances in the United States, towards merger with Universalism. It has been used since the late 19th century by conservative Christian Unitarians, and sometimes by historians, to refer to scripture-fundamentalist Unitarians of the 16th–18th centuries.

A few denominations use this term to describe themselves, clarifying the distinction between them and those churches which, from the late 19th century, evolved into modern British Unitarianism and, primarily in the United States, Unitarian Universalism.

James Joseph Reeb (January 1, 1927 – March 11, 1965) was an American Unitarian Universalist minister, pastor, and activist during the civil rights movement in Washington, D.C., and Boston, Massachusetts. While participating in the Selma to Montgomery marches actions in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, he was murdered by white segregationists and white supremacists, dying of head injuries in the hospital two days after being severely beaten. Three men were tried for Reeb's murder but were acquitted by an all-white jury. His murder remains officially unsolved.