Friday, January 11, 2008

universal not unitarian

I wonder if the new heresy will be a confusion of the idea of "catholic". Some people think that it means the church is open to all new movements, that we don't close ourselves off to things. Yet, throughout the history of the church, this is a common theme. From Basil and Tertulian battling early heresies to Gregory the Great's attempt to unite the church under himself, to St. Thomas Aquinas infamous "you have heard it said...but I say" style of Socratic method, the church has had to distance herself from incorrect ideas in order to cleave more closely to Christ.

The Unitarian community in this country will take anyone regardless of what they believe. We are universal, not because you can believe whatever you want or because the church should be open to everything but because we need to communicate Christ to all the world.

3 comments:

Paul Wilczynski said...

Just a clarification ...

If you are referring to Unitarian Universalists in the U.S., it would be more proper to say that they do not impose a specific set of beliefs.

Robin Edgar said...

Further clarification. . .

The Unitarian*Universalist community in America, Canada, and elsewhere in the world, can be quite unwelcoming to God believing people in general and Christians in particular. In fact their is a fair amount of anti-Christian, and specifically anti-Catholic sentiment expressed by Unitarian*Universalist U*Us, including some intolerant U*U ministers. Come to think of it, maybe U*Us will take anyone regardless of what they believe. . .

Robin Edgar said...

Oops! That last link was supposed to go here. There is some recent discussion of the anti-religious attitude of fundamentalist atheist "Humanist" U*Us going on here.

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