10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Unitarian Universalism

[CanonRay]

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2015/03/17/10-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-unitarian-universalism/36374



I thought this was very well written and gets to the heart of things.

[safeinOhio]

1. We can't answer your questions

But we can question your answers.

[cilla4progress]

2. Interesting.

What prompted your post?

I'm a UU, though I don't attend any church/fellowship. I was taught about UU by my parents who raised me in the "Ethical Culture Society." Every heard of it? Secular humanists. Very few and far between, so they started attending a UU fellowship (or church?). I raised my daughter UU and it has been a great influence for her in teaching her acceptance of the journey, rather than formulaic answers.

I now self-identify more as a pagan - which UU is the only "mainstream" religion to accept - they may still have a subgroup of them. I don't participate in any pagan groups, I simply find divinity in nature.

Nice to meet you!

[CanonRay]

5. I started attending a UU service when I moved to Oregon

I had flirted with it for years, also considered myself more pagan than anything else. "Divinity in nature" expresses it very well. This is the first congregation of any stripe I've ever joined (not counting being baptized a Catholic when I was a few days old). Found the article on the UUA facebook page, as I'm always looking for ways to better understand UU and my own beliefs.

[cilla4progress]

8. Neat!

I'm up in Washington state!

I found that our congregation here authentically lives its values.

As my daughter says, as pagans, we choose to be outdoors "worshipping" nature on Sunday mornings!

Our UU here does have Buddhist meditations on Wednesday evenings, which I hope to start going to soon.

[Trajan]

3. So ... that's it?

Not actually ten things HERE, but ten things, over at some website?

I'll pass ... If you don't have gumption enough to actually state ANY of the ten things directly, then why bother even thinking about ten supposed things? ...

[cbayer]

4. Thanks!

Great article. Not surprised that you are experiencing significant growth. I would anticipate that a lot of "nones" will become UU's over the next few years.

[Journeyman]

6. Thanks for posting. . .

[NeoGreen]

7. Very well stated...

...thank you for finding and posting the link.

Gratitude in All Things

Oh, and ignore the rude people.

NG

[CanonRay]

9. Thanks, I do try to do so

and I hope he/she has a better day than his/her morning seems to be going.

And welcome to DU!

[NeoGreen]

11. (Insert broad smile here)...

... thanks, and likewise to you.

I generally feel welcome here on DU.

However, I might humbly suggest that you may have been lead astray by my low post count.

While I do not count myself among the "old", I do not feel I am a newbie here at DU.
(mild chuckle)

Please, keep posting fine articles like the one above, I enjoyed reading it.



NG

[cbayer]

10. Ignore the rude people. This is advice I need to heed today.

Thanks.

[kwassa]

12. Having grown up in the Unitarian church, I've never heard of most of these things.

To me, this sounds like the writer's personal spin on what Unitarianism is about. Many Unitarians in the comments section of the article also disagree with the author, and with each other, about what Unitarianism is. The whole emphasis on gratitude is particularly nothing I ever heard growing up. UU was a secular humanist society, with no visible spiritual interests, when I attended.

The modern Unitarian church is very little like the historical church and historical figures that Unitarians lay claim to. Most of the historical church had more of a Christian bent, whereas the modern church, though it will not say it, has an anti-Christian bias. The word "God" is almost never heard there, which is funny, because this writer uses it multiple times in this article.

Strictly speaking, modern-day Unitarian Universalism is not Unitarian in theology. Despite its name, this denomination does not necessarily promote either belief in One God or universal salvation. It is merely the inheritor of the Unitarian and Universalist church system in America. Though there are Unitarians within the Unitarian-Universalist Association, there is no creed or doctrine that one must affirm to join a Unitarian Universalist congregation. This makes it very different from many other faith groups. Today, the majority of Unitarian Universalists do not identify themselves as Christians.[23] Jesus and the Bible are generally treated as exceptional sources of inspiration, along with the holy people and traditions around the world. Unitarian Universalists base their community on a set of Principles and Purposes rather than on a prophet or creed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unitarianism

[CanonRay]

13. As I indicated above, this was posted to the UUA facebook page

[Goblinmonger]

17. Unitarian Universalists very much so DO NOT have an anti-Christian bias.

Both of my children went through the UU fellowship and did the Religious Education and "passage to adulthood" program there. My wife and I are not currently members but that is more a reality of the fellowship being 30 miles away.

Everyone I have ever met in UU has been ridiculously accepting of whatever anyone wants to believe to get them through the day as long as it isn't bigoted bullshit. So, yeah, the UU organizations will publicly say that homophobic and sexist and other bigoted components of religion are not a good thing. And I know that here on DU that gets called "anti-Catholic bigotry" and other nonsense, but in the real world it is called standing up for progressive values. I know many people in the my fellowship that consider themselves Christians. Our pastor's (he's an atheist) wife is a Christian minister. As far as I know, they get along fine. She fills in when the pastor and assistant pastor aren't available and I've never seen anyone say anything but great and positive things about her even though she has Christian cooties.

So, I call bullshit.

[brooklynite]

14. I walked out of Unitarian Sunday School when I was 8 and never came back...

I figured out on my own that I should care for my fellow man, so I don't need to be reminded on a Sunday morning.

[E_Pluribus_Unitarian]

15. The article started some interesting conversations in UU-land.

As would be expected, not everybody was in total agreement with all of it. I think that UU is still a work in progress, and is being tugged in different directions. I personally believe that as an evolutionary faith in a post-supernatural world, UU needs to embrace its "free-thought" tradition far more than any specific theological one. That's going to take some doing, though, especially in a western culture that measures all religion by "belief" instead of attitude or priority. I introduced the term "Faith of the Free" some years ago as a focus upon that part of our "stubbornly protestant and broadly catholic" pluralistic heritage that recognizes the human origins of all religious tradition, and places the responsibility on the individual seeker to think for him/herself as to which of their teachings (if any) they can accept within an ethical community of learning and action.

If interested, you can find our little corner of the internet at this link, and a link to our Faith of the Free discussion group for further conversation. This is not formally affiliated with UUA in any way, but supports "the movement" in many ways...

https://www.facebook.com/FaithoftheFree

[CanonRay]

16. Thanks for the link...it looks very interesting