1. Why Unity?
Unity is a spiritual resource for daily living and considered by its members as positive, practical Christianity. Unity teaches the practical application in everyday life of the principles of Truth taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ, as interpreted in the light of modern-day experience. Unity is a way of life that leads to health, prosperity, happiness, and peace of mind.

Unity affirms the freedom of each individual to advance spiritually according to his or her own level of understanding. Respect for and faith in the spirit of God in every person makes it unnecessary to set down fixed creeds or impose limiting beliefs. Each individual is encouraged to follow the Unity teachings in determining personal responses in his or her life.

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2. What are Unity's basic teachings?
We encourage people to explore and apply Unity teachings based on their own spiritual understanding. We believe this spiritual understanding is enhanced through reflective prayer and meditation. The five basic ideas that make up the Unity belief system are:

God is good and everywhere present.
The spirit of God lives within each person, therefore, all people are inherently good.
We create our life experiences through our way of thinking.
There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our connection to God.
Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.* (*From the Unity Headquarters website "What is Unity")

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3. What is Unity?
Unity is positive, practical Christianity. Unity teaches the practical application in everyday life of the principles of Truth taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ, as interpreted in the light of modern-day experience by Unity School of Christianity and the Association of Unity Churches.

We believe that all people are created with sacred worth. Therefore, we recognize the importance of serving all people within the Unity family in spiritually and emotionally caring ways. We strive for our ministries, publications, and programs to reach out to all who seek Unity support and spiritual growth. It is imperative that our ministries and outreaches be free of discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, creed, religion, national origin, ethnicity, physical disability, or sexual orientation. Our sincere desire is to create spiritually aware organizations that are nondiscriminatory and that support diversity.

In our effort to reach out to all people as did our Way-Shower, Jesus Christ, we support: the modification of our facilities to make them accessible to all people, regardless of physical challenges; the translation of our materials into Braille and other languages; and respect for the wonderful variety of human commitments and relationships. We encourage ministers, teachers, and others within Unity to honor the strength of diversity within their spiritual communities. It is with love and in celebration of our unity, in the midst of our wondrous diversity, that we affirm this position.

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4. What are the basic beliefs of the Unity teachings?
First: God, Divine Mind, is the Source and Creator of all. There is no other enduring power. The nature of God is absolute good; therefore, all manifestations partake of good. What is called "evil" is a limited or incomplete expression of God or good. Evil's origin is ignorance.

Second: We are spiritual beings, ideas in the Mind of God, created in God's image and likeness. The ideal expression for every human being is the pattern every person is seeking to bring forth. Each individual manifests the Christ in his or her own unique fashion. The perfect expression of the Christ is, therefore, different for each person.

Third: Jesus was a special person in history who expressed perfection and thereby became the Christ, or Jesus Christ. He was a Teacher who demonstrated the importance of thoughts, words, and deeds in shaping the life and world of the individual.

Fourth: Jesus' teaching was based on prayer, which to Him was conscious communion with God. Preparation for prayer involves the use of the spoken word, the creative power of God, which is made practical through denials and affirmations. Unity teaches that repeated use of statements of Truth (denials and affirmations) establishes right patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. This is one way individuals use the creative power of God to take dominion over mind, body, and affairs.

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5. Does Unity believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ?
Yes, Unity teaches that the spirit of God dwelt in Jesus, just as it indwells every person; and that every person has the potential to express the perfection of the Christ, as Jesus did, by being more Christ-like in everyday life.

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6. The Twelve Powers?

The Twelve Powers were intuited by Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity Movement, via internal realization and by study related to eastern teachings and the Tree of Life teachings of the Kabala.

They are the ethereal counterparts to the endocrine system of the physical body. By cultivation and attention to these centers, by the law of mind action, they are stimulated to bring forth the quality and capacity they represent. For example, focusing on the throat power center allows the logos power in speech to be activated.

Focus on the heart allows divine love to come into action, etc.

Colors were added to the mix of the Twelve Powers teachings at a later date and were not initiated by Charles Fillmore. The corresponding disciples were an aspect of Charles Fillmore's original understanding. Doubting Thomas, the July disciple, for instance, is the unawake part of each of us that remains so until awakened by the Christ within. This faculty then is livened and becomes the power of true spiritual understanding, not of the world, but of the spirit.

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