PeaceBang

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1. I think a lot of people leave the Christian church due to some fundamentalism on the part of the church in which they grew up. Or the people around them practicing it. I know that my defining atheist moment happened in sixth grade when, during a lesson in science class about evolution, one kid–who up until that point I’d thought was reasonably sane–started getting angry and started proclaiming that the world was created in 7 days and Adam and Eve were the first people. I remember turning to him, incredulous, as if he were stupid, saying, “But those are just *stories* to teach us a lesson. They aren’t real!”

   I was obviously raised by a liberal Catholic mother (who is now a self-proclaimed atheist who does not need religion). Still, it was at that moment that I decided I didn’t believe in Christianity because of what this one person–who didnt even attend my church–represented.

   Of course, over the years, I built up a lot of other bitterness related to Christianity due to the heated debates over gay marriage and pro-life/pro-choice, etc. etc. And I did so without really taking a close look at what I was criticizing.

   I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was someone who always felt spiritually drawn (I was very into my Catholic rituals when I was a practicing Catholic) who fell off the path due to the wrong messages. And now, due to the tragedy of losing my husband, I’ve felt a need to re-explore the path I abandoned. In this examination, I realized that in the purer sense of Christianity, Jesus’ message is clear. I’ve tried to point out to the anti-gay ilk that Jesus would have hung out with the homosexuals, the transgenders, the minorities and he would have embraced them all. I’m disgusted by the close-minded Christians.

   I’ve found that Christians who have adjusted their points of view to flow with the times (accepting evolution, deciding that not everything in the Bible is literal, understanding that the Bible may have some flaws in accuracy) discuss a Christianity I could whole-heartedly swallow. I would be in a Christian church if all of its practicers took a more liberal interpretation of their faith, and were acting as a socially conscious group (and some Christian churches are very socially conscious).

   As much as I love my UU church and what I’ve found in UUism, I must say that, yes, I’ve noticed a little bit of a tendency to tout themselves as the only “thinking religion.” Which I know is not the case…

   Some communities call some people more than others. That’s how we as UUs should look at it. What attracts one to a UU might not reach another person. But there are definitely other faiths that value questioning…

   Comment by Mars Girl — April 14, 2008 #

2. Not to put too fine a point on it, but does anyone really believe UUs practice the religion OF Jesus either? I mean, even the most “Christian” of us? Perhaps in some sort of vauge, transcendentalist-inspired “Absolute Religon” kind of way…but if Jesus wandered in off the street into one of our congregations on a Sunday morning, do we really believe he would feel more at home with us than he would over at Saint Mary’s or First Baptist?

   “Unitarianism” is/was by definition a religion ABOUT Jesus: a heretical Christological assertion (and profession of faith) in rejection of a more traditional “confessional” Christian Orthodoxy. It’s pretty simple. Let’s not make it any more confusing than it has to be.

   Comment by The Eclectic Cleric — April 15, 2008 #

3. EC says:

   “Unitarianism” is/was by definition a religion ABOUT Jesus: a heretical Christological assertion (and profession of faith) in rejection of a more traditional “confessional” Christian Orthodoxy.

   But I don’t think that’s accurate. Two centuries ago that was what the orthodox Congregational faction accused the liberal Congregational faction of believing, but in fact the liberals of the time were far more concerned with denying the Calvinist tenets of Total Incapacity and Limited Atonement than with the fine points of christology. The christological arguments about Jesus came later — almost as an afterthought — but the theological positions on human nature were, and I would argue still remain, primary. I would say instead:

   “Unitarianism” is/was by definition a religion about the value of human nature: an heterodox Arminian assertion (and profession of faith) that the human soul is not so inherently corrupt and powerless as to be incapable of choosing good over evil, and a corresponding heterodox neo-Pelagian assertion (and profession of faith) that our choices, actions, and personal character have moral and spiritual consequences. It was originally developed, and perhaps remains easiest to articulate, within a Christian theological frame of reference, but it does not necessarily require an exclusively Christian theological foundation.

   Comment by fausto — April 15, 2008 #

4. EC asks:

   Not to put too fine a point on it, but does anyone really believe UUs practice the religion OF Jesus either?

   Yes, I think many of us do, including many who are reluctant to associate it with his name.

   Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, “Lord, is it true then, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?”

   The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, “It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites - I take to me the services which thou hast done him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if a man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Does thou understand, Child?”…

   ”Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days,…”

   “Beloved,” said the Glorious One, “unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

   –C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

   Comment by fausto — April 15, 2008 #

5. I should have added above, to wrap up the point, that the religion taught by Jesus was not concerned with himself and his own spiritual leadership and authority (as is much of historical Christianity), but with affirming human worth and the moral and spiritual consequences of human choices and actions. In that sense, what we have historically called “Unitarianism” is and has always been what “the religion of Jesus” also was.

   Comment by fausto — April 15, 2008 #

6. I think it is a good point that the religion of Jesus was Judaism, but it is also worth pointing out that Judaism was not a homogeneous faith at that point in history, and the Judaism of that time was not the same as the Judaism of today. The main thing is that his own religion was not about worshiping himself as God. He had a lot of things to say about building a Kingdom of God, about justice, about overturning secular and religious assumptions about power and authority, about inclusiveness and about opposing the evils of an oppressive Empire. All of those things ring true today. One can believe in those things, even if they are believed in a modern context that is far removed from the world he lived in, without worshiping him as Divine or as a part of a Holy Trinity or as the product of the mating of God’s holy sperm with a virgin.

   That, to me, is what it means to say that one believes in the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus.

   Comment by Mystical Seeker — April 15, 2008 #

7. While I agree that Jesus taught about justice and other concerns of this world and did not see himself as founding a new religion with himself at the center, He certainly was strongly concerned with the spiritual realm and a strong relationship with God. That is where UU’s seem to fall down today. 19th century Unitarianism seems closer to the spirit of the “Religion of Jesus” than we do today. The question is, if one was really interested in the Religion of Jesus what group does best fit? Quakers, maybe?

   Comment by KJR — April 15, 2008 #

8. Randomly interjected…

   To use Borg’s terms, I suspect that the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus have immense value for religions of and those about Christ.

   -and-

   If all the people who would want and who would represent a more liberal interpretation of Christianity acting as a socially conscious group decide to wait until the Church (by which one can mean the whole of Christendom or a particular tradition, denomination, or congregation) is totally transformed before participating in it, such a transformation will never happen. That’s not intended to critize or antagonize Mars Girl - it’s something I have been contemplating about my own attitude and disposition toward religion, in particular religions that are of/about Jesus.

   Comment by tinythinker — April 15, 2008 #

9. Unitarian (but not necessarily Universalist) christology has traditionally been concerned with what Borg calls the “pre-Easter Jesus”.

   Nevertheless, it is my contention that both Unitarian and Universalist theology have traditionally been more concerned with affirming an optimistic view of human nature, and the corresponding moral imperatives that flow from it, than with christology.

   Even Borg’s “post-Easter Jesus” is (or at least can be seen to be) compatible with favorable views of human nature, even if not with most versions of Unitarian christology.

   Comment by fausto — April 15, 2008 #

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