The First Universalist Church of Camp Hill was the largest Universalist church in the southeastern United States in the first half of the 20th century. Universalism, a Christian denomination with roots in the European Enlightenment, was brought to the American colonies by religious sojourners and was flourishing by the time of the Revolutionary War. Its defining tenet was universal salvation, the belief that a gentle God would not condemn any soul to a literal hell. The Universalist Church of America merged with the Unitarian Association in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association. Established in 1846 as Liberty Universalist Church, the congregation changed its name in 1909. Its original meeting place was a brush arbor on the present site of Mt. Lovely Baptist Church, soon replaced by a simple cabin that served until 1884, when a larger wood-framed church was built on this site. As membership grew, a striking brick sanctuary designed by Birmingham architect Daniel A. Helmich was completed in 1907 with local labor using mostly indigenous material.