The Universal Foundation for Better Living, or UFBL, is a

New Thought The New Thought movement (also Higher Thought) is a spiritual movement that coalesced in the United States in the early 19th century. New Thought was seen by its adherents as succeeding "ancient thought", accumulated wisdom and philosophy from ...

denomination that was founded in 1974 by

Johnnie Colemon Johnnie Colemon (February 18, 1920 – December 23, 2014) was an influential minister and teacher in the New Thought movement. She is often referred to as the “First Lady of New Thought”. Colemon founded several large organizations within th ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Colemon founded the foundation as an association for

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

New Thought ministers after breaking away from the

Unity Church Unity, known informally as Unity Church, is an organization founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889. It grew out of Transcendentalism and became part of the New Thought movement. Unity is known for its '' Daily Word'' devotional publica ...

for "blatant racism". Rev. Colemon is often referred to as "the First Lady of New Thought".

History

After founding the first predominantly African American Unity Church in 1954, Colemon broke away in 1974. Named the Universal Foundation for Better Living, the foundation had 22,000 members in the late 1980s, with a 32-acre facility in the Chicago-area. The foundation adheres closely to the principles taught by

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

and

Myrtle Fillmore Mary Caroline "Myrtle" Page Fillmore (August 6, 1845 – October 6, 1931) was an American who was co-founder of Unity, a church within the New Thought Christian movement, along with her husband Charles Fillmore. Before that she worked as a sc ...

. Today the denomination has more than 30 churches across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, with a majority of African American members. Colemon appointed Mary A. Tumpkin as President of the foundation in 1995, where she served until she died in November 2013.Finley, S.C., Alexander, T. (2009) ''African American religious cultures, Volume 1.'' ABC-CLIO. p 281. In 2015, Sheila R. McKeithen became the foundation's third President.

References

External links

Universal Foundation for Better Living
official website New Thought denominations Panentheism Christian organizations established in 1974 {{NewThought-stub