Are Unitarians Open To Change?

This is the talk given by the Eric Stevenson on the 11th March, 2012.

Last Sunday after Fellowship, Davey, Colin and I had an important conversation with a visitor looking for a religious sea change. He had submitted his world view to the Religious Preference web site and Unitarian came up for his recommended religion of choice. But he could not see what it was in a religion without doctrines and dogmas that would sustain his private search for, and practice of a post modern spirituality. We looked to Davey who has been a Unitarian since birth in his big UU congregation in the States. Davey’s answer was definitive! The Unitarian commitment to the life changes involved in progressive religious thought is not only a private one. It is shared It is the sharing that makes us tick.

But there is something else that draws Aussie Unitarians together. I suspect that most Australian Unitarians (and some American ones I know!) are not dyed–in-the-wool like Davey. Most of us have had the experience of leaving a traditional congregation for a free thinking one, or at least of having changed from the doctrinaire religious belief in which they were brain washed. We have left that world behind and all now embrace the name “Spirit of
Life”. What does that imply? As we have stated in our Opening Words this automatically commits us to a living, developing, growing, evolving and consequently changing spiritual journey. That is why I felt so at home when I came here. I was in the process of leaving a congregation in which the Spirit was old and grey. If it wasn’t already dead it was dying! The doctrinal system was a closed book. An exploration of a divergent world view was a no-no!
The raising of doubt about authoritarian beliefs was a no-no. How then did we arrived here?

To read the complete talk, click here.