![\"\"](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/R_IdmkKtsRI\/AAAAAAAAA0Y\/mumok3yp0tE\/s1600-h\/flamingchalice.GIF\")
<\/a>Over at UU World Online<\/a>, Doug Muder<\/a> has contributed another of his thoughtful essays, this one Unfinished with Christianity<\/a>. Within a context of how he finds it hard to have an \u201celevator speech,\u201d a succinct statement of liberal religious faith, Doug argues much more expansively (and I\u2019m sure, persuasively) than I write here how we need to struggle with our faiths of origin and as Unitarian Universalists, whatever else may also be true, our faith of origin is Christianity.<\/p>\n
I, too, have had that trouble coming up with brief statements. (And it\u2019s not just because I\u2019m a minister and therefore by definition a gasbag\u2026)<\/p>\n
I know when I try to describe Unitarian Universalism to people I have to say a few things along the line of how somewhere in the first part of the twentieth century Unitarian Univeralism shifted from a liberal Christian faith to a liberal faith with Christians. And others, many others\u2026<\/p>\n
Then I find I have to observe while we may for the most part be \u201cpost-Christian,\u201d we remain protestant, that is we have a distinct spiritual culture that is Protestant Christian to most observers. In fact I suspect a Martian visiting would think we are Christian, even our most fervent Humanists, at least when gathered together on a Sunday\u2026<\/p>\n
For me, like for many others, I think, this is additionally difficult as we have found some core to our Unitarian Universalism that is to some degree idiosyncratic. So, I\u2019m a Zen Buddhist<\/a>. Even ordained as a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in more or less good standing with the North American institution<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019ve tried to reconcile this with my oft repeated self-description of having a Buddhist brain, a Christian heart and a Humanist stomach\u2026<\/p>\n But more and more these days I think of that Christian part.<\/p>\n On a couple of occasions lately I\u2019ve found myself saying I\u2019m a Zen Christian\u2026<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t work, completely, either.<\/p>\n And it certainly doesn\u2019t unpack what it is we are collectively, we who claim and are claimed by Unitarian Universalism.<\/p>\n I suspect this is a conversation that will go on for some time.<\/p>\n So\u2026<\/p>\n More anon\u2026<\/p>\n Over at UU World Online, Doug Muder has contributed another of his thoughtful essays, this one Unfinished with Christianity. Within a context of how he finds it hard to have an \u201celevator speech,\u201d a succinct statement of liberal religious faith, Doug argues much more expansively (and I\u2019m sure, persuasively) than I write here how we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/33904114-4534535475546564933?l=monkeymindonline.blogspot.com\")