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from Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation, White Plains, NY

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  • Vocation
  • Poems, Prayers, and Mary Oliver
  • The Arc of the Moral Universe, part 2
  • The Arc of the Moral Universe, part 1
  • Beatniks
  • War, Peace, and Remembering
  • Direct Experience of Transcending Mystery and Wonder
  • Queer Theory
  • Anti-Barbies
  • In The Spirit of Truth
  • How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Spirituality
  • Blessed Affliction
  • Introducing Liberal Religion
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Rev. Meredith Garmon
Minister, Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation
468 Rosedale Ave
White Plains, NY 10605
914-946-1660
cucwp.org
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What Is Liberal Religion?

What Religion is About

Unitarian Universalists believe . . . that your religion isn't about what you believe. So what is religion about?

1. Religion is about the way you live: the ethics and values that guide your life.

2. Religion is about community: the people with whom you choose to join in faith community, and the rituals, songs, and stories that affirm and strengthen community connection.

3. Religion is about experience: the moments of transcendence, awe, mystery, wonder, beauty, interconnection and oneness.

A faith congregation, liberal or conservative, aims to bring these three very different things together in such a way that each one reinforces the other two.

The Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism

What, then, makes religion liberal? James Luther Adams (1901-1996) identified these "five smooth stones":

1. Openness to New Truth. "Religious liberalism depends first on the principle that revelation is continuous. Meaning has not been finally captured. Nothing is complete, and thus nothing is exempt from criticism." Our religious tradition is a living tradition because we are always learning.

2. Freedom. "All relations between persons ought ideally to rest on mutual, free consent and not on coercion." We freely choose congregational relationship and spiritual practice. We deny infallibility and resist hierarchical authority.

3. Justice. We are morally obligated to direct our "effort toward the establishment of a just and loving community. It is this which makes the role of the prophet central and indispensable in liberalism."

4. Institution Building. Religious liberals "deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation....Justice is an exercise of just and lawful institutional power." Institution building involves the messiness of claiming our power amid conflicting perspectives and needs, rather than the purity of ahistorical, decontextualized ideals.

5. Hope. "The resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism."
(For Adams's full text, see HERE. For Liberal Faith, see HERE.)

Series Titles

  • A Hanukkah for Letting Go of Opinions (3)
  • A Natural and Religious History of Compassion (5)
  • Acceptance and Resistance (3)
  • All You Need Is Love (3)
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  • On Being a UU Buddhist (3)
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  • The American Idea (3)
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  • The Blues (3)
  • The Fourth P (1)
  • The Future Will Judge Us (3)
  • The Gift to be Simple (3)
  • The Half-Won Blessing (5)
  • The Meaning of Membership (4)
  • The Paradox of Generosity (3)
  • The Prophetic (2)
  • The Spiritual Practice of Generosity (4)
  • The Third Reconstruction (3)
  • Theme of Month (2)
  • Theology of Money (3)
  • There Is No God and She Is Always with You (3)
  • There's Something About Mary (3)
  • Things Get Difficult (1)
  • Timshel: Thou Mayest (3)
  • Tribe (3)
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  • Truth Who Needs It (3)
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  • Unitarian Identity (1)
  • UU Buddhism (3)
  • UU Minute (103)
  • Vision (1)
  • Vocation: Who Are You? (5)
  • Voting (3)
  • Vow (2)
  • Wandering (3)
  • War Peace and Remembering (2)
  • Welcome to Liberal Religion (4)
  • Welcome to Resistance (3)
  • What Do We Do Now Dr King? (3)
  • What Is Blessing? (2)
  • What Is Liberal Religion? (5)
  • What Other People Think (3)
  • White Supremacy (3)
  • Who Are These People? (3)
  • Who's In Charge Here? (4)
  • Wholeness (2)
  • Why Is There Awe (6)
  • Why Not Evil? (4)
  • Wicked (4)
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  • Wonder of Wonders (3)
  • Yay! Death! (3)
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