What is the Unity Church?
When I was a child, a friend of mine regularly received a magazine for kids called “Wee Wisdom.” It was filled with games, Bible stories, moral teachings, and such. I always assumed it was published by a Christian publisher, as I imagine did his parents who were members of a mainline Protestant church. That particular little children’s magazine was fairly benign but is no longer published. In any case, it was published by a pseudo-Christian movement called the Unity School of Christianity (Unity). Unity is a doctrinally unbiblical movement begun in the late 19th century by Charles Fillmore (1854-1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845-1931). In this two part series we will analyze the Unity School of Christianity. In this first installment, we examine the movement’s leadership and history. In part two we will look at Unity’s beliefs and compare or contrast them to those of historic biblical Christianity.
What is the Unity School of Christianity?
Today, Unity is a coalition of about 1,000 congregations and study groups around the world. Its current President and COO is Guy Swanson, a former CPA from Kansas City, Missouri. The current CEO is Jim Blake, a former business executive. Both men reside at the movement’s world headquarters and training school called Unity Village located in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The chairperson of the organization’s five member Board of Directors is Rev. Marilyn Muehlbach. Unity is especially known for its line of devotional publications including Daily Word, which is often read by well-meaning Christians. Unity is also known by the designation “New Thought,” and should not to be confused with Unitarian-Universalism or the Unification Church.
Although Unity purports to be a Christian organization and has a theistic worldview (tinged with Far Eastern Thought), its theology is obviously out of the boundary of historic Christianity as we will see in part two. First, though, let’s survey the origin and history of the Unity School of Christianity.
History of Unity
Charles Fillmore was a railroad worker and business man from Minnesota. Myrtle Page was a chronically sick school teacher from Ohio. In 1876, they met in Denison, Texas, where they were both living at the time. Though Myrtle was nine years older than Charles, they married in 1881. Soon afterward, with Myrtle ill with tuberculosis, they moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Desperate for help for Myrtle’s illness, in 1886 the two of them attended a class led by Eugene B. Weeks, an advocate of metaphysical healing from the Illinois Metaphysical College in Chicago. Weeks was a disciple of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) – the man some call the father of Mind Sciences including Christian Science and Religious Science.
Hearing Weeks’ message, Myrtle was convinced she could beat her illness through prayer and meditation based on the principle, “I am a child of God, and therefore I do not inherit sickness.” According to their story, over the next couple of years Myrtle’s health greatly improved so she and her husband Charles began to study and write about the spiritual truths and practices they had discovered. In 1889, they began publishing a monthly magazine titled Modern Thought (later renamed simply Unity). The next year they formed the Society for Silent Help, a prayer ministry based on their philosophy of New Thought. They generically named their movement “Unity” and changed the name of their organization to the Society for Silent Unity.
In 1903 the couple established the Unity Society of Practical Christianity as the first Unity church. In 1914 they created an umbrella publishing organization called the Unity School of Christianity. The organization purchased 58 acres of land near Lee’s Summit, Missouri in 1919 and began construction of Unity Farm. Later it became Unity Village, the world headquarters of the Unity movement and the location of its publishing house.
In 1922 the Fillmores began a radio ministry on WOQ in Kansas City. Also, about that time, they began publication of a devotional magazine entitled Unity Daily Word, which was renamed Daily Word in 1939. Today it is distributed bi-monthly and remains the movement’s most widely circulated publication.
Myrtle Fillmore, the “Mother of Unity,” died in 1931 at the age of 86. Her metaphysical beliefs are still the foundation of the movement to this day. Two years later Charles Fillmore retired as pastor of the Unity Society of Practical Christianity but continued as president of the Unity School of Christianity. That same year he married his second wife, Cora Dedrick (1876-1955). Together they traveled the country spreading the message of Unity and helping start new Unity congregations. Fillmore died in 1948 at age 94. He was succeeded as president by his son Lowell Fillmore (1882-1975).
Another of Unity’s most prominent personalities was poet James Dillet Freeman (1912-2003), a native of Delaware and of Cherokee and Choctaw descent. Freeman joined the Unity staff on a permanent basis in 1933. Starting in the Unity School’s prayer ministry, he later formed their ministerial training program and served in various other leadership positions. Oddly, Freeman never claimed to actually be a member of Unity. He was, nonetheless, known as the movement’s “Poet Laureate” having dozens of his poems published in numerous magazines, journals, and books until his death at age 91.
In 1953, Unity expanded its media work with a television program titled The Daily Word featuring the Fillmore’s granddaughter, Rosemary Rhea (1925-2012). In later years Unity sponsored short TV devotions by celebrities entitled The Word for Today.
In 1966, the Association of Unity Churches was organized in order to support Unity ministers and congregations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. By 1989, when Unity celebrated its centennial year, the movement had spread worldwide. The first Unity World Conference was held in Birmingham, England in 1995. A second world conference was held in Mexico in 1998.
In the early 2000s, Unity underwent several organizational structural changes. In 2005, an online program, called dailyword.com, was initiated.
In part two we will examine the expressed beliefs and doctrines of Unity. We will analyze them carefully in the light of biblical truth and historic Christianity.
© 2018 Tal Davis