Voices of a Liberal Faith - Unitarian Universalists

Comment

Comment by Rev. Nate Walker on June 6, 2011 at 7:49pm

Transcript

Les Polgar: People often say that we've always been Unitarian universalist, but we just didn't know what to call it.

Sue Polgar: We were mixed marriage, Jewish and congregationalist, and we just tried Unitarianism, and we came for our children, and we stayed for ourselves.

Mo Kashmiri: I grew up in Texas to a Muslim community, and so, a lot of the community life was centered around the mosque. I feel like with Unitarian Universalism, I'm able to get that really strong an important, I think, feeling of building beloved community.

Elizabeth Andreason: Everyone here knows who I am, they know who the woman I've been in a relationship with 15 years is. They appreciate that relationship and they respect it, and I'm encouraged to come and be me. And that is the first place I've ever been able to be me.

Rev. Barbara Hamilton-Holway: I invite you to join me in appreciating the unspeakable beauty of what happens here, week after week. [SINGING: Bring many names, beautiful and good. Celebrate in parable and story.]

Rachel Holt: When people ask me what is Unitarian Universalism I like to pull out the first principal of the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Rev. Greg Stewart: We have a spectrum theologically, that runs from Christianity and Judaism to atheism, agnosticism.

Addison Gwinner: We're not the kind of church that says if you don't believe in our God, you're going to hell.

Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway: People who come out of a variety of faiths can come together here, knowing that their particular way of understanding truth and meaning will be appreciated and accepted.

Rev. Shana Lynngood: This is a place where you're welcome, where you're invited into a fuller relationship with yourself, with the spirit of life, with other people, to build a better world, and to build a better you.

Jodi Tharan: You walk in the door, and it's like hi how are you, come in, and immediately you feel that you have inherent worth as a person.

Cordelia Leoncio: It's just the most amazing thing to be nourished body and soul, by your community.

Brad Eller: People in my generation they'll say their spiritual, but they're not religious. They don't like organized religion. And the UUA church, I mean yeah, it's a church, but it's non-creed oriented; it's open, it's welcoming.

Jodi Tharan: I can bring my atheist mother here, and my Catholic ex-husband, and my modern Orthodox-trained Jewish children, and we're just all loved.

Rev. Greg Stewart: This liberal religious tradition has a very distinctive message, and it is attracting people that haven't been hearing it elsewhere.

Sue Polgar: It was liberating, it was freeing, it was challenging; all those things that I was looking for in a religious place and a religious community.

Valerie Gwinner: Once you start to have children, it's nice to have someone else trying to teach them similar moral values. You know, so it's really nice have it reinforce by a community in which you feel uncomfortable, and you feel like these values are truly shared and important.

Jennifer Webb: My oldest is now 3rd grade and so she's starting to get into more of the conversations about social justice, about neighboring faith, about what other people believe, about starting to identified what is important to her, and what is her beacon.

Miles Webb: We kind of believe in community outreach, and helping us become better by helping the community.

Rev. Vail Weller: In Unitarian Universalism we have a responsibility which is to provide people the opportunity to do the work that it takes, to figure out what their beliefs are.

Rev. Dan Harper : We also want them to have respect for the interdependent web of all existence, so that will be a part of our religious education. We want them to have respect for themselves and for their bodies. So