Friday, February 13, 2009

Questions and Answers - Reply

This is a reply (I can see an ongoing discussion and it might be interesting to see it take place across our two blogs) to Tim Trussell-Smith's response to a question I asked of him which can be found at:
Checking In: Questions and Answers.

Tim,
You are a sharp one! Yes, the question was actually based on something I ran across as I perused the First Parish Church of Dorchester, Unitarian Universalist website that you linked to. I quote:

Unitarian Universalism is a religion in which each church member has a right to state honest feelings without being constrained by any dogma. Unitarianism, which evolved from the Puritan tradition, taught a reasoned exploration of religious truth and rejected Trinitarian Christianity. Universalism rejected the harsh Calvinist beliefs that humans are depraved and alienated from God, and taught that God's love for creation is unconditional and that no one is separated from this all-conquering Love. The two denominations merged in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.

As Unitarian Universalists we believe we are free to work out our own theological beliefs using a well-disciplined search for truth.


I noticed, of course, right away, the items that UU rejects: trinitarian christianity (looks like a rejection of Jesus as God) and "harsh Calvinist beliefs ..." (looks like a straw man for rejection of Scripture as inspired text). Then, it goes on to speak about a "well-disciplined search for truth."

To my mind to reject the possibility of these 2 being true has already hampered the search for truth. Therefore if the UU is in reality searching for truth and arrives at the conclusion that Jesus is in fact God and that Scripture is in fact the inspired Word of God, then he is either forced by that original rejection to reject the truth he has found or to reject the rejection of that truth and thereby reject the beliefs that he started with.

This is the point behind the original question as you so astutely observed.

With great love,
Uncle Richard
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