At least, I used to say that until Pagans got all uppity and serious and wanted to be counted as a ‘real’ religion. I do a lot of work in churches of one sort or another. These are, by and large, Christian outfits-and there is a baffling array of people practicing an amazing array of faiths which have something to do with a fellow called Jesus-or maybe Joshua-who was around somewhere a couple of thousand years ago.
This fellow was the King of the Jews-but his current day followers are not at all fond of the idea that he was a Rabbi and do everything they can to distance themselves from Judaism, many going so far to drop that whole Old Testament bit from their Bibles.
For the most part, these are more or less normal people. These are the kind of people that show up on TV, in Films, and generally appear under Average in the dictionary. Unitarian Churches are a whole other kettle of fish-this wear the New Normal people like to hang out. Gays, interracial couples, witches, hippies, dropouts, bikers, punks, and just every kind of weirdo you can imagine who might stand out a little in a traditional Sunday crowd.
Robert Fulghum is likely the only Unitarian you’ve ever heard of, and the odds are good you didn’t know he was a Unitarian. He wrote one of my all time favorite Self Help/Guilt Trip books called All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten-a great read for all of us who never went to Kindergarten.
The people who attend Unitarian Churches are not into that whole Spiritual, Religious, or Holy aspect of faith. In fact, they don’t care what you believe, or if you believe in anything at all. They are a nice catch all group who claim friendship with virtually every form of belief or non-belief that has ever, or will ever, exist.
In short-these people are odd.
One of the hallmarks of True Believers is that, well, they Believe. They want you to Believe as well-and some of them are willing to do good old fashioned things like torture and murdering people to get their point across. Most modern True Believers like to remind me at this point that The Inquisition was a long time ago and it was not Fundamentalist Bible Thumpers that flew airplanes into the World Trade Center. It was, however, True Believers who flew those planes into the World Trade Center. Christians are perfectly happy for the rest of the world’s population to go to Hell and Burn for all Eternity. It’s What Jesus Would Do.
Unitarians don’t worry about this kind of stuff. If you want to be believe in hell, or heaven, or Valhalla, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster, that’s fine with them. As a result Unitarian Churches have even more of a feeling of a social club than most churches-and there are a lot of churches that seem to be nothing but a gathering of friends who get together to eat once in a while.
Unitarians are, by and large, a lot happier and willing to smile than the hard liner who know that the Rapture will come any second. I like to think that the ones most vocal about where they will end up are the ones mostly likely to be left behind. I would love to be standing next to Kirk Cameron when the Rapture happens and see the look on his face when God says, sorry, you were wrong.
Unitarians are a lot like people who speak Esperanto, they tend to take themselves a little too seriously. They don’t want to admit that what they are doing is just as silly as what everyone else is doing and they love to share stories about how regular churches ruined their lives.
They are a take no shit from anyone kind of group that welcomes everyone and if you don’t like it you can go fuck yourself. You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I kind of fit in.
But they are an odd lot.
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Appreciating your cynicism this morning, especially as I head out to a Pastoral Search Committee meeting. You make excellent points. When asked why I am on this committee, my reply is that I prefer to choose my teachers. What I don’t say is that I want to make sure we don’t hire some fundamentalist freak.
I’d look for someone with that whole Prosperity Ministry idea-not only did it make Rick Warren bloody, mind bogglingly, more money than God rich, but people who practice this kind of faith like to spend money-you know, on things like portraits.