The place of Christianity in Unitarian Universalism

[Nozem]

I am new to Unitarianism, and when I attend the Unitarian Service last Sunday the congregation were invited to recite the Lord's Prayer-'for those who wanted to'. I found that difficult because it reminded me of school assembly. But I found reading the work of Maurice Nicoll 'The New Man' and 'The Mark' made me realise how much of the New Testament could well be mistranslated. To me there's a great deal of value in the Bible, but I refuse to accept that the Bible is the literal word of God, nor can I accept that Christianity embodies some sort of exclusive truth.

 

[lilithu]

That's interesting; I didn't know that Bible and Torah study weren't already included in most cases. I know that my local church (First UU Church of Columbus, Ohio) includes Judeo-Christian religion as part of its Sunday school RE program, and while I haven't received the adult RE schedule for fall I would be surprised if there wasn't something there. I hope there is because I would really like to study Christianity and Judaism.

I had kind of assumed this was the norm but maybe it's the exception.

Namaste, Stairs.

Judaism and Christianity constitute one third of the RE program at my church. The other two-thirds are world religions and UU history. I thought that was the way it is for all UU congregations. It's interesting to see how we vary.

Our adult RE program, now called Adult Spiritual Development, has traditionally been lacking in offerings on Christianity, because of this anti-Christian sentiment that we have been discussing. But a biblically literate friend and I started bringing it back last year. (I'm on the ASD committee.) We introduced a class called "Wrestling With God," which was bascially "bible stories for adults", going thru some of the more well known stories from the Jewish bible/OT but in a "new" way. I wanted to show that these stories need not be approached as an unquestionable historical record of reward and punishment. Rather, Jewish scripture is full of characters who "talk back" to God, argue with "Him", wrestle with their faith, and are not punished for it. These stories are opportunities for self-reflection and spiritual growth. We had a very small group and a couple were resistant at first. (They thought they had signed up for a class on using the bible to fight Christians.) But it ended very positively and I'm thinking of developing a curriculum out of it to share with other congregations.

Ideally, I would like "Wrestling With God" to become a series, perhaps alternating Hebrew scriptures and New Testaments for fall and spring. But I can't do it all by myself; I don't have the necessary depth of biblical knowledge and I have other types of classes to teach. (Doing UU history and UU theology this fall! )

You must have gotten your adult RE schedule by now. What kind of "Judeo-Christian" classes do you offer at your church?

 

[Green Gaia]

Judaism and Christianity constitute one third of the RE program at my church. The other two-thirds are world religions and UU history.

We RE teachers just found out the curriculum for the year last week and ours is similar. I must say I've very excited about it.

 

[Stairs In My House]

You must have gotten your adult RE schedule by now. What kind of "Judeo-Christian" classes do you offer at your church?

Yep, just got it yesterday. I said I'd be surprised if there wasn't anything there, and... yep, I'm surprised! Nothing like I expected. The only thing they have that's even close is a class on the Qabalah.

This is a bummer, but now that I think about it I think I understand why. A lot of people I see on Sundays are older and it was probably more common for people of their generation to grow up with a church education, so they might not realize that there are lots of "unchurched" people like me running around, not knowing our Corinthians from our Galatians. (Similar to what Maize said above.)

Luckily, I've gotten to know one of the RE co-directors a little and feel comfortable asking about/requesting more. Like your church, the children's RE has plenty of Judeo-Christian stuff so it's probably not an institutional-level issue. I think I'll also ask about it when my wife and I go to the On the Path to Membership class a week from Saturday.

If I do encounter any kind of negative response I will definitely post about it here because I agree with general sentiment of this thread that Judeo-Christian beliefs have just as much a place in UU as anything else. In this case, I suspect it's either just an oversight, or that they just didn't have anyone interested in teaching such a course for the adult RE program.

 

[Davidium]

We are a little different than other UU churches (being that we are a Lay-led fellowship) and we use the "covenant group" small group ministry structure in place of a dedicated RE system.

We have and RE director, but she focuses on the childrens RE.

And so, our RE is focused by the paths our myriad of covenant groups take (we have like 10 of them). So we have more rational RE in the Deist group, more spiritual searching in our Chalice circle, more academic in our adult forum.

And that's just a few... and they all decide upon thier path as a group. One group is studying Islam, another Mark Twain.

YoUUrs in Faith,

David