Asides

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So, will I ever blog again? I’ve had some version of this blog for twenty years now and it has had its ups and downs, but I’ve written little in the last few years. My heart’s not been in it. It was a lot more fun when there was cross-talk between blogs, but I don’t expert to see so much of that ever again.

But even if the band got back together, I doubt I would ever go back to blogging the same way with a particular Unitarian Universalist Association beat (it’s hard to muster interest) or a self-imposed writing schedule (as I never had the readership to justify it.) Long form Universalist writing will go first to the Universalist Christian Initiative, which I desperately need to restart or close. But it seems worthwhile, so I’ll put my mind to that.

So let’s see if I can make a proper weblog of it; a place where I can log resources and thoughts that come to mind without getting too caught up in making a presentable article.

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About the Bisbee trial

Because of the controversy around the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association’s public censure of Todd Eklof, there’s been talk of heresy trials. Of course, there’s no trial yet, just the censure and waves of accusation, though some formal action could happen. (I wonder what the euphemism will be?)

There was a trial of a Universalist minister, Herman Bisbee, that’s widely regarded as a heresy trial — and a mistake. Naturally, it’s come up in the Facebook conversations (with Michael Servetus, whom I’ll leave for someone else to write about) so good to give some context to those unfamiliar with the situation. I’m going to pull together what I’ve written about it plus any original documents I can scare up.

But Charles Howe’s article at the Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography is detailed, and rather than re-write one, I’ll point to his.

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Up next

As my long-time readers have seen, I have written more here lately and hope to keep up the pace. Apart from historic connections between Unitarians and the Independent Sacramental movement I mentioned in my last update (that’ll be a longer piece), I’ll be writing next about:

  • Why Universalists gathered parishes and societies at all
  • Trying out short-format meditations tied to the Revised Common Lectionary
  • Why I don’t engage in apologetics
  • Notes about my eucharistic piety
  • What Universalist “convention churches” were
  • My tech-supported writing workflow
  • Clippings from the Universalist General Convention
  • Historic books I’ve started reading
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Up next

Up next, in no particular order,

  • A versatile order for communion for prayer breakfasts
  • The continuing series about the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM) and Universalism
  • ISM overlaps with the Unitarians from generations ago
  • Interesting finds from Universalist year books of the 1920s and 1930s: polity and public policy
  • My next sermon manuscript
  • Thoughts about shopping for church supplies
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The Universalist church the mortgage killed

For my last post, I was going to link to some research I assumed I had made into a blog post: a substantial Universalist church that was killed by bad planning, bad luck and a big mortgage. But I guess I didn’t write it.

I’ll see to that as soon as I find my notes.