Interfaith Group

I believe that Christians are a small minority of the overall UU membership around the world.

My personal story has a connection to this. My wife is a Christian, I'm an atheist, and we are members of a UU congregation. There is a strong statement in its bylaws that we welcome people of all beliefs. Unfortunately our congregation does not live up to that statement - in practice people of all beliefs except Christianity are welcome. This is, of course, just an anecdote from one UU but apparently it is common enough across other UUs that it has a name. In a hallway conversation about welcoming all beliefs, our UU minister (who is herself somewhat hostile to Christianity) laughingly referred to it as "ABC", which she explained means Anything But Christianity. I should clarify that there are some members of our congregation who do agree with and live up to our welcoming statement.

On the other hand, I do understand (and share) the feelings of our members who have wounds from interacting with Christianity, including those who know the history and are affected by it. One member did a lay-led service about the persecution of Michael Servetus, who was burned at the stake because he would not renounce his unitarian beliefs in favor of trinitarianism. The service was presented in a respectful way, not as a broad brush attack on Christians but rather as denouncing those who actually carried out such actions. It was well received by all, including our few Christians.

I'm on the board of trustees and have made sure to put myself on committees about amending our bylaws and refreshing our mission, vision, and covenant. One of my reasons is to try to keep the welcoming statement in bylaws, mission, etc., and also to have a chance to lobby some of our leaders on living up to it.

I've gone on for a while here because the topic of the relationship between UUism and Christianity is a complicated and nuanced business that even longtime UUs can find challenging. It's an interesting topic and one that can be illuminating, in my opinion, on the more general question of interfaith relationships.