Unitarians view salvation as an ongoing process of spiritual growth and development rather than a single event. They believe that humans are neither wholly good nor evil, and reject the idea that Jesus died to save humanity from sin. For Unitarians, salvation involves stages of admitting one's flaws, acknowledging one's need for change, turning to Jesus as a moral example of self-sacrifice, accepting forgiveness, and sharing one's experience with others to help bring about unity.

1. AN INTERPRETATION OF THE “WAY OF SALVATION”
FOR MODERN DAY UNITARIANS AND FREE CHRISTIANS
By Ian Ellis-Jones
Honorary Minister, Sydney Unitarian Church
Unitarians have always had a realistic view about human nature. We believe that
human beings are neither evil beyond measure nor good beyond credibility and do
not accept the view that Jesus died to save us from our sins. The doctrine of
vicarious atonement is, for Unitarians, not part of Jesus’ original, as opposed to
interpolated, teachings and more properly belongs to Mithraism and other pagan
mystery religions.
Unitarians have always affirmed that the world is not to be divided into the saved
and the unsaved, the chosen and the unchosen. Salvation comes from the same Latin
root as the word salve; and refers to a healthy kind of wholeness. Salvation is not
primarily connected with so-called sin, which is simply a symptom of an underlying
morbid condition. When a person is “truly saved”, that condition is offset.
Unitarians are also very careful not to limit salvation to just one idea or event at
one time. We are saved in stages, over time. For Unitarians, conversion or salvation
is an ongoing process of continually dying to self and rising to newness of life.
Salvation is simultaneously a past, present and future reality, involving a saving
coming to believe, a saving standing in faith, and a saving holding fast to the good
news of Jesus, who, as the Great Example (NOT the Great Exception), and our
Elder Brother, shows us the nature of the truly saved life.
Unitarians have always placed great emphasis on the development of character and
healthy-mindedness. We do not believe that we are saved by Jesus’ shed blood on
the Cross. It is what that blood represents that saves us – the power of suffering
love and self-sacrifice in the form of the givingness of oneself to others.
Unitarians don’t talk much about sin, but it should be remembered that the word sin
has an “I” in the middle. The essence of sin is selfishness, self-absorption and self-
centredness - an attempt to gain some supposed good to which we are not entitled
in justice and consciousness - and we all need to be relieved of the bondage of self.
That is what salvation is all about, and we must “work out our [own] salvation with
fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Further, because we are all one family, Unitarians
have traditionally affirmed that no one is saved until we are all saved. Goodness is
that which makes for unity, oneness, and wholeness. Evil is that which makes for
separateness.
Now, salvation, in the Unitarian sense, may be said to involve the following steps or
stages:
STEP 1 ADMIT
We see ourselves as we really are. We become aware, and surrender to the fact, of
our self-inadequacy, powerlessness, selfishness, self-centredness, self-
consciousness, frustration and sense of separation and of our need to be in proper
relation with ourselves and others and to a Power-not-ourselves (“God as you
understand God”). “Self is spiritual BO”, writes Billy Graham in Peace with God.

2. STEP 2 ACKNOWLEDGE
We acknowledge that the “penalty” for the above state of affairs is alienation,
emptiness, loneliness, life unmanageability and a state of “dis-ease”. We
acknowledge that we cannot break free ourselves as we surrender to the fact that
self cannot renounce or change self, that is, no effort of the self can remove the
self from the centre of its own endeavours.
STEP 3 TURN
We lay aside the old self, that is, we “repent” of our self-centredness, pride and
wilfullness, believing that the way of Jesus, involving self-sacrifice and love, is the
answer to our lives. His selflessness sits in quiet judgment upon our selfishness.
Jesus, the Way-Shower and Way-Maker, speaks to our time, saying, “Follow me.” He
possesses all that we need and contains in himself all that we ought to be. His living
personality and spirit, lying hidden in his words, is a powerful motivating force for
individual transformation as well as a source of inward power. As we contemplate
his suffering love we are moved to moral and spiritual transformation and become
set free from ourselves. Self is nailed to the Cross, which is the answer to self-
centredness and selfishness. We surrender to a Power-not-ourselves (a power over
ourselves, over situations, and over circumstances) that works for righteousness,
most compellingly and supremely revealed in the person of Jesus. We surrender to
God’s will (accepting and adjusting to whatever is, in the sincere belief that
“whatever is, is best”) and Jesus’ way.
STEP 4 TAKE AND TRUST
We claim forgiveness for our past wrongs and failings, for as we forgive life, life
forgives us. We release forgiveness to everybody, including ourselves, trusting that
what Jesus said and did is true. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
The Parable of the Prodigal Son makes it clear that forgiveness is not dependent
upon blood sacrifice or atonement but is the free gift of God, who recognizes
repentance a long way off and goes half way to meet it.
We become renewed in the spirit of our minds as we are lifted up into Jesus’
perfected consciousness. Jesus wins us to himself through his self-giving. We
become new persons, our “best selves” (“God in us”). Our old sense of isolation and
alienation is gone. We accept the fact that we are now changed persons and start
to act accordingly. We live in faith, trusting the Power-not-ourselves completely.
STEP 5 SHARE
Out of gratitude, we now desire to live selflessly for others and share our saving
experience of Jesus with them. We continue to re-surrender and rededicate
ourselves every day. We remain open to truth and ever willing to change, no matter
what. We work to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.