Editor’s Note: Voices is a weekly commentary by a panel of Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.

More than once the topic of religion would come up in school, and my daughters self-identified Unitarian Universalist would hear, “You mean that church where they are witches and they burn cats on the altar?”

No joke.

There are people convinced we are a cult when, actually, Unitarians and Universalists are part of Christian history. Unitarians were the people who refused adherence to church doctrine, who called for reason in religion, and who believed that God was indivisible. Universalists were those who believed in the benevolence of God and universal salvation.

We were the heretics. Now a pejorative term, heretic simply means someone who chooses, from the Latin haereticus, to choose. For choosing to follow Jesus as a human teacher, a prophet rather than the son of God, heretics were imprisoned and executed. Their voices, beliefs, courage to be different and need to think for themselves grew into Unitarian Universalism.

Unitarians and Universalists uphold the teachings of Arius, who refused to elevate Jesus as an equal to God. They listen to the voice of Origin of Alexander, who in the second century proclaimed his belief in universal salvation and the benevolence of God. For over 300 years, Origin was revered. In 544, his teachings were condemned as heresy and his writing destroyed.

Dr. Michael Servetus, a devout Spaniard with both medical and legal training, thought the doctrine of the Trinity was a stumbling block to Jews and Muslims he knew. In 1531 he published a book, “On the Errors of the Trinity.” For 20 years he was chased by the Inquisition until finally he was captured, tried and, refusing to recant, burned at the stake.

King John Sigusmond of Transylvania, the only Unitarian king in history, reigned in a time of strident theological debate among Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Unitarians. He issued the first public decree for religious tolerance and sponsored a debate between one of the leading advocates for Unitarianism, Francis David, and members of the Orthodox Church.

Francis David told his opponents, “If I win, I shall defend to the death your right to be wrong. We do not have to think alike or love alike.” Francis David died in prison in 1579.

There have always been people who needed to choose for themselves. People who could not adhere to doctrine, who needed to reason out what is right, and whose faith grew out of their own conscience. UUism may be easier to understand as a living faith by noting the individuals who have been associated it: Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, William S. Cohen, Benjamin Franklin, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Francis George Shaw, Adlai Stevenson, William Howard Taft, Daniel Webster, Louisa May Alcott, Horatio Alger, P.T. Barnum, Bela Bartok, William Cullen Bryant, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Norman Cousins, e. e. cummings, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fannie Farmer, Robert Fulghum, Buckminster Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Hanes Holmes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Michael Learned, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Milton, Herman Melville, Paul Newman, Sylvia Plath, Beatrix Potter, Christopher Reeve, Carl Sandberg, May Sarton, Pete Seeger, Rod Serling, Robert Shaw, Rabindranath Tagore, Henry David Thoreau, Kurt Vonnegut, Dan Wakefield, Frank Lloyd Wright, N.C. Wyeth, Emily Dickinson – and that is just artists and politicians. I could go on for pages if I added peace activists, civil rights leaders, humanitarians and feminists.

In 1961, the two historic heretical traditions, Unitarian and Universalist, merged to better promote religious tolerance, interfaith cooperation and the free church tradition. UUs continue to evolve as an ever-widening and inclusive circle that welcomes all who thirst for spiritual meaning.

Some say this weakens our credibility. We believe it strengthens it because we are continually being fortified by courage and patience to live with the tension of inclusion rather than having to assert answers that could exclude someone’s piece of the truth. We are required, communally and individually, to encourage spiritual growth and to accept each individual’s right to search for truth and meaning.

No cats. No cult. Just people. Seekers, Wiccans, agnostics, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists and Humanists. The development of our faith, the relevance of our values and engaging faith into action are the focus of The Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor. We are always becoming something new, rooted in our history, while defining our relevance in the new millennium.

The holy that we share does not need a unified theology or a common reference to God. It requires honest acceptance, joyful singing and tenacious commitment. As Unitarian Universalists, we come together around our flaming chalice rooted in a history of dissent, the right to question and reason, and the dignity and worth of each of our beliefs. We continue to celebrate the strength which lies in our diversity and the hope which lies in our ability to connect across lines of difference, for in that achievement lies hope for the world.

The Rev. Elaine Beth Peresluha is minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor. The views expressed are solely her own. She may be reached via bdnreligion@bangordailynews.net.