Monday, September 03, 2007

Unitarians

I went to the Unitarian church on Sunday and it was so beautiful that it made me cry.

All their hymns were about affirming that the truth can be found in all religions and in films and books and poetry too, and there was a strong sense of the mystical oneness of the Divine. One of their booklets mentions the dictum of The Life of Brian - "you must all think for yourselves". (Which is also the message of Project Ijtihad).

When I came out I was walking on air - it was fantastic!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! I think Robin Edgar must show up with every UU post! :)

I miss our little UU Church. I had such a problem with it for a while because it was so anti-Christian (despite all of their talk of tolerance). But to their credit, they've come a long way. I think the process is in place in UU to be open and accepting even if the human element gets in the way sometimes.

Yewtree said...

Yes, how sad. I deleted his post because he's a troll.

Regarding the anti-Christian thing - it's because the only massively visible form of Christianity is fundamentalism. I have enormous difficulty with the idea of calling myself a Christian in case anyone thought I was one of those bastards! So I'm very happy to call myself a Unitarian. No-one's perfect.

Robin Edgar said...

You deleted my post because it exposed and denounced U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy that burst your little bubble about how wonderful the U*U "church" is. . . You "memory-holed" legitimate criticism of some of the serious failings of the U*Us.

Yewtree said...

Wrong. I deleted your post because you came along with a rusty pin and tried to burst my balloon. I forgive you, but please go away. The British Unitarians are not even the same organisation as the UUA in Canada and the USA.

All human institutions are fallible. No matter how much they try not to be, the mere fact of trying to band together means that someone, somewhere is excluded. In this case, someone who was asked to moderate their behaviour and then asked to leave. If you'd behaved that way in a Wiccan coven, you'd have been out on your ear a lot faster - the Unitarians of Montreal are to be commended for their patience in trying to resolve this issue.

It is not for me to judge, because I don't know all the facts of the case. But insofar as I am in possession of anything resembling a fact, it seems that your reaction is out of all proportion to the alleged initial crime.

Anonymous said...

One of the things I find interesting about the Unitarians (at least here in the States) is that no two churches seem to be the same. The first one I went to tended to be very intellectually-oriented and I found the sermons to be very dry. The second one I went to tended to focus on practical, personal spirituality and growing as a person. Then my friend Belinda told me about the one she went to, which was basically a spiritualist church.

The first church I went to wasn't for me. I doubt the one Belinda went to would be for me, either. However, I've enjoyed the three or four times I've attended the other church, and hope to go back soon.

Yewtree said...

Practical, personal spirituality and growing as a person sounds good to me.

I am still a Wiccan and always will be, but after having a visitation from Yeshua and Kwan Yin, what's a woman to do? Also I realised that a genderless Divine Source is more profoundly queer & liberating than all the other options - and then I had an experience of the Love that pervades everything. I still believe in wights/loas/genii loci but I'm not going to propitiate them, though I'm happy to libate to them.

I am lucky in that my chosen Unitarian church is very affirming of all paths.