Let me be clear why I’m starting this blog: it is in part a positive response to the call by Bill Sinkford, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association to reclaim a “vocabulary of reverence.” First he preached a sermon he gave a while back in Fort Worth, and a few days article in the New York Times appeared highlighting his feelings and alluding to some hard feelings on the humanist and atheist edge of Unitarian Universalism. Again, to the positive, it is amazing, after more than a decade within institutional Unitarian Universalism to see the shift from latent hostility towards Christianity and theism to, well, qualified curiosity.
The Religion News Service contacted me — they wanted a story of their own — and I gave them a quote:
“For us to be more effective in that realm, we have to be comfortable with people for whom religious language is where they live,” he said. The Rev. Scott Wells, pastor of Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, agreed. Without religious language, he said, it is impossible to be a religious voice. “If we’re not willing to step up to the ecumenical and interfaith table, then we will find ourselves increasingly marginalized and could go the way of the Shakers,” he said.