The Unitarian Church in nineteenth century America was split between more conservative and more liberal factions. One major battleground in the division was over Biblical literalism. For the conservatives, the Bible was literally true and unique in revealing all true knowledge about God and morality. For the liberals, although the Bible was an important doctrinal text, knowledge of God and morality were universal, revealed in different ways to different cultures. Such Universalists would argue that one could find eternal divine truths in the sacred texts of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and other faith traditions. The liberals also were closer to deism in upholding the possibility of human reason to discovery divine and moral truths.
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