The AUR liturgical year opens with a series of holidays emphasizing the multi-cultural, multi-faith scope of American Reform Unitarian Christianity. All Corners Day on November 12 honors “Pious Outsiders” from other nations and faiths. The Thanksgiving season is famously devoted to peaceful cooperation between different ethnic and religious communities. And, these holidays culminate on January [...]
Posts Tagged ‘st. paul’
American Unitarian Reform’s Virgen de Guadalupe
Posted in holidays, idiom, teachings, tagged christian, christmas, st. paul, unitarian, virgin of guadalupe, virgen de guadalupe, epiphany, apocalypse, syncretism, multi-culturalism, aztec, hinduism, good samaritan, parable, roman catholicism on 12 December 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Ascension Season – 40 Days of Faith, Hope, Love
Posted in holidays, Virtues, tagged agape, ascension, christian, corinthians, jesus christ, st. paul, unitarian on 8 April 2010 | Leave a Comment »
[An earlier version of this homily was published here in 2008] The post-Easter season leading up to Ascension Thursday is a time to celebrate the complementary virtues that are reconciled in the wholeness of the Divine Word. There are many ways to speak of these complementary virtues: as knowledge and life represented by the Trees of Paradise, [...]
A Homily on Homosexuality
Posted in teachings, Virtues, tagged bible, bibliolatry, christian, gay marriage, gay rights, homosexuality, letter to the romans, st. paul, unitarian on 11 March 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In America’s capital, gay marriage is now legal, highlighting the role of religion in the struggle for homosexual rights. AUR’s official stance is that the push for gay marriage is well-intentioned but misguided: although we do believe in equal rights and dignity for gays and straights before the law, we also believe that the government should [...]
There is no Plan C – Conquering False Hope with Faith
Posted in teachings, Virtues, tagged christ, epistle to the romans, faith, faith healing, hope, jesus, letter to the romans, logos, prayer healing, rationalism, son of god, st. paul, virtue on 30 April 2009 | 1 Comment »
Today is Loyal Thursday, and during these 12 Days of Trust — celebrating the virtue of Faith — it is important to remember the fallibility of Hope. Faith is the complement of Hope, and its antidote when Hope becomes false: Faith, rather than meaning credulous obedience to dogmatic authority, is simply what we modern Americans would call “stick-to-it-iveness”: [...]
Reform Unitarian Thanksgiving
Posted in holidays, teachings, Thursday worship, tagged centurion, christian, interfaith, justin martyr, pagan, pilgrim, samaritan, sectarianism, st. paul, thanksgiving, unknown god, wampanoag on 27 November 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Thanksgiving is often recognized as an inter-cultural holiday, celebrating the cooperation of Pilgrims and Native Americans, but it is also an interfaith holiday. After all the Wampanoag were not Christian. For American Reform Unitarians* the interfaith nature of Thanksgiving actually reinforces its Christian importance, for we see Christianity not as a religion defined against others, [...]
Homosexuality and What Paul’s Letter to the Romans Really Says
Posted in teachings, tagged bible, bibliolatry, gay marriage, homophobia, homosexuality, letter to the romans, st. paul on 14 January 2008 | 4 Comments »
There are numerous scriptural arguments against homosexuality, but none as commonly used as Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which describes the apostle’s vision of the Gospel for the mixed Jew/Gentile church in Rome. Paul wrote it in the 1st Century, long before the idea of “sexuality,” when people spoke merely of various sexual acts. Even [...]
