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Whether we think about it or not, we live in a religious pluralist world. The person next to you, even in your own family, is a whole person with their own beliefs that are different from yours. Even if you are in the same religion. Being human is to have your own set of rules to live by, including how we handle our religions.
What makes a UU church really great is that we embrace pluralism and look for ward to hearing the different viewpoints. Many religions spend time and energy getting everybody onto the same page; to some extent we do this, as well. Physical, tangible, secular things are what we “push,” to make the world a better, safer place for more people, not to have the same religious practice or correct theology. Getting out the vote is for everyone, studying specific theological terms is not, and judging some beliefs to be more correct than others is definitely not for everyone.
Secular thought and action, grounded in our values (which are pluralist and might include Christianity, Buddhism, Atheism, etc), lifted up in communal worship, is what we pluralists do. Truth be told, many churches are pluralist, in that not everyone at that congregation believes the same things, but in UU churches it is lifted up as a strength.
Unitarian Universalists happily acknowledge t and of having church friends who are different but also alike, thee value of pluralist worship, and spending energy getting to know about other people’s beliefs and practices.
Some people want to call us non-denominational and that is not accurate.
Or they call us multi-faith, which is inaccurate; while our practices are multi-faith, our religion is specifically the faith called Unitarian Universalist.
This month as we ponder that theme of pluralism, may you embrace our pluralist ways for their strength!
Pluralistically Yours,
Rev. Amy
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