Unity School of Christianity

Founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889, Unity is one of the fastest-growing New Age church systems. They do not claim to be a church, rather they claim to be a school which “seeks to help anyone, regardless of church affiliation, ‘to find health, peace, joy and plenty through his day-by-day practice of Christian Principles.’” (Confronting the Cults, by Gordon R. Lewis, p.131)

Charles Fillmore was born near St. Cloud, MN, in 1854, and married Mary Caroline Page (“Myrtle”) in 1881. The couple ended up moving to Kansas City, MO, where Charles set up a real estate office.

The origin of Unity began in 1886 when the Fillmores went to see a lecture given by “mental healer” Dr. E.B. Weeks. Myrtle, who had suffered for years with tuberculosis and malaria, was immediately taken by Weeks’ talk. “One of his statements transformed her life: ‘I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness.’ Since life is intelligent, she began to reason, it can be directed by thinking and talking. ‘Then it flashed upon me,’ Mrs. Fillmore wrote, ‘that I might talk to the life in every part of my body and have it do just what I wanted. I began to teach my body and got marvelous results.’ Mrs. Fillmore spoke words of truth to each life center silently and aloud until the organs responded. After asking for divine forgiveness for misusing her body she determined to entertain no anxious or negative thoughts. In two years Myrtle Fillmore was no longer an invalid.” (Confronting the Cults, p.132)

Charles, supposedly crippled from infancy, wasn’t ready to accept his wife’s new healing technique and began studying “mind science” and Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. After several months he decided to apply his wife’s healing principle to himself. “My chronic pains ceased. My hip healed and grew stronger, and my leg lengthened until in a few years I dispensed with the steel extension that I had worn since I was a child.” (Confronting the Cults, p.132).

The Fillmores then began counseling and praying with others to heal them. This required more and more time, so Charles then left his real estate business and published his first paper in 1889. The Fillmores borrowed ideas from Christian Science and New Thought (a healing movement developed from P.P. Quimby’s system), and added in ideas from the Eastern religions Charles had studied, including the teachings on reincarnation. Pressure from Mary Baker Eddy forced them to stop using terms common to Christian Science, although they had a long relationship with New Thought.

Originally named “Modern Thought” in 1889, the Fillmores’ teachings became known as “Christian Science Thought” in 1890, then “Thought” in 1891, and finally “Unity” in 1895.

Myrtle died in 1931 and Charles then married his private secretary. Charles died in 1948 and the leadership of Unity passed to his two sons, Lowell and Rickert. Unity is headquartered in Lees Summit, MO.

Weekly publications of Unity are Daily Word and Weekly Unity. Monthly publications include Good Business (for working people), Progress for young people, Wee Wisdom for children, and Unity for sick people. Unity also operates “Dial-A-Prayer.”

Doctrines: Similar to Christian Science, with Hinduism mixed in. The Fillmores’ attitude toward doctrine can be summed up in a statement Charles wrote in an early edition of Modern Thought: “He who writes a creed or puts a limit to revelation, is the enemy of humanity…. Creeds have ever been the vampires that sucked the blood of spiritual progress in the past, and life can only be kept in the present movement by latitude of thought tempered always by the power that moves the world, love.” (Confronting the Cults, p.133).

Much of Unity’s teachings, like Christian Science, are also in line with gnosticism. “According to gnosticism, God is impersonal and one’s eventual goal is to reach oneness with this impersonal God. Gnostics view Jesus Christ as a human being who possessed, in some great way, the expression or presence of God. To them, Jesus refers to the man and Christ refers to the divine influence. Rather than agreeing with the Bible by declaring that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 5:1), gnostics, including Unity, separate Jesus from the Christ. Unity is not as interested in theology as it is in prosperity and happiness. A survey of the literature of Unity will clearly show that the stress is on material and worldly happiness, not spiritual happiness.” (Handbook of Today’s Religions, by Josh McDowell and John Stewart, p.132)

Below are some samplings of Unity doctrines. Reference citations below are from Handbook of Today’s Religions or Confronting the Cults.

God: Like Christian Science, Unity’s God is a force or energy which permeates the universe.

a. “Though personal to each one of us, God is it, neither male nor female, but principle.” (Myrtle Fillmore, How to Let God Help You, 1956, p.25).

b. “The Father is Principle, the Son is that Principle revealed in creative plan, the Holy Spirit is the executive power of both Father and Son carrying out the creative plan.” (Charles Fillmore, Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, p.629)

c. “God is all and all is God.” (Unity, August 1974, p.40)

d. “God is not loving…God does not love anybody or anything. God is the love in everybody and everything. God is love…God exercises none of His attributes except though the inner consciousness of the universe and man.” (Jesus Christ Heals, Unity School of Christianity, 1944, pp.31,32)

The Bible: “We believe that the Word of God is the thought of God expressed in creative ideas and that these ideas are the primal attributes of all enduring entities in the universe, visible and invisible. The Logos of the first chapter of the Gospel of John is the God idea of Christ that produced Jesus, the perfect man. We believe the Scriptures are the testimonials of who have in a measure apprehended the diving Logos but that their writings should not be taken as final.” (Unity’s Statement of Faith, part 27.)

Jesus: “Christ consciousness” that is within all of us.

a. “The Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, but the Bible does not here refer to Jesus of Nazareth, the outer man; it refers to the Christ, the spiritual identity of Jesus, whom he acknowledged in all his ways, and brought forth into his outer self, until even the flesh of his body was lifted up, purified, spiritualized, and redeemed, thus he became Jesus Christ, the word made flesh. We are to follow into this perfect state and become like Him, for in each of us is the Christ, the only begotten Son. We can, through Jesus Christ, our redeemer and example, bring forth the Christ within us, the true self of all is perfect, as Jesus Christ commanded his followers to be.” (Unity, Vol. 57, no.5, p.464, and Vol. 72, no.2, p.8)

Salvation: There is no necessity for salvation because sin and evil are illusions. “To eradicate physical ills and mental sickness and to attract happiness, all a person needs to do is to tap into, or become attuned, aligned, or united with the ‘Divine Mind.’” (New Age Cults & Religions, by Texe Marrs, p.329)

a. “There is no sin, sickness or death.” (Unity, Vo. 47, No. 5, p.403)

b. “The atonement is the union of man with God the Father, in Christ. Stating it in terms of mind, we should say that the Atonement is the At-one-ment or agreement of reconciliation of man’s mind with Divine Mind through superconsciousness of Christ’s mind.” (What Practical Christianity Stands For, p.5)

The Gospel: “The gospel of Jesus is that every man can become God incarnate. It is not alone a gospel of right living, but also shows the way into dominion and power equal to and surpassing that of Jesus of Nazareth.” (Charles Fillmore, The Revealing Word, p.88) Compare this to 1 Cor. 15:1-3.

Reincarnation: This belief is borrowed from Hinduism. “We believe that the dissolution of the spirit, soul, and body caused by death, is annulled by rebirth of the same spirit and soul in another body here on earth. We believe the repeated incarnations of man to be a merciful provision of our loving Father to the end that all may have opportunity to attain immortality through regeneration, as did Jesus. This corruptible must put on incorruption.” (Unity’s Statement of Faith, Article 22)

As anyone can see by comparing Unity doctrines to true Christian doctrines, Unity has nothing in common with the Christian faith as defined by the Holy Bible.