From its inception the Religious Society of Bell St Chapel; a Unitarian Universalist congregation in the west end of Providence has been dedicated to each persons free and responsible search for truth and meaning .
Below is a excerpt from a pamphlet published by the congregation in 1934.
The Religious Fellowship
Of Bell Street Chapel
Its Purpose – Its Nature – Its Message
The purpose of the Bell Street Chapel Fellowship is to deal in plain terms with the supreme things in human life as measured by the rational conclusions of science and history.
It is religious, not in the traditional, but in the ethical and scientific sense of the word – religious because it is an earnest and constructive movement devoted to the service of man in all that makes for the elevation and realization of his ideals.
This society has no fixed creed, because it recognizes the undeniable right of every man to think his own thoughts, and because it is unequivocally pledged to the support of truth as discovered by the growing intelligence of man. It has guaranteed to its minister perfect intellectual liberty, for the reason that to deny the teacher freedom to speak his idea of the truth is to deny men freedom to hear the truth.
The Sunday morning service is devoted to the work of educating the people to think for themselves, and to think rationally. No person can be free from political and religious oppression and corruption if he is either opposed to, or incapable, of free thought. This service, therefore, seek to lead people from the narrow, stilted, conventional path of humble submission to the authority of others out upon that broad highway where real men and women walk, with heads erect, fearlessly thinking out things for themselves.
The simple devotional service, with an address by the minister is held in the Bell Street Chapel, off Broadway, every Sunday morning at 10:00 o’clock. All persons who are interested in an intelligent faith and commonsense religion are invited to attend.
The Religious Fellowship
Of Bell Street Chapel
Its Purpose – Its Nature – Its Message
The purpose of the Bell Street Chapel Fellowship is to deal in plain terms with the supreme things in human life as measured by the rational conclusions of science and history.
It is religious, not in the traditional, but in the ethical and scientific sense of the word – religious because it is an earnest and constructive movement devoted to the service of man in all that makes for the elevation and realization of his ideals.
This society has no fixed creed, because it recognizes the undeniable right of every man to think his own thoughts, and because it is unequivocally pledged to the support of truth as discovered by the growing intelligence of man. It has guaranteed to its minister perfect intellectual liberty, for the reason that to deny the teacher freedom to speak his idea of the truth is to deny men freedom to hear the truth.
The Sunday morning service is devoted to the work of educating the people to think for themselves, and to think rationally. No person can be free from political and religious oppression and corruption if he is either opposed to, or incapable, of free thought. This service, therefore, seek to lead people from the narrow, stilted, conventional path of humble submission to the authority of others out upon that broad highway where real men and women walk, with heads erect, fearlessly thinking out things for themselves.
The simple devotional service, with an address by the minister is held in the Bell Street Chapel, off Broadway, every Sunday morning at 10:00 o’clock. All persons who are interested in an intelligent faith and commonsense religion are invited to attend.
