I'd say that Unitarians were God's thoughtful people, but they make no particular claims about God. In some parts of the country that takes real courage.
My first wife and I joined a Unitarian church in suburban DC and raised our kids there. She and I were from different religious backgrounds - in a way, I was from different religious backgrounds, raised in Judaism but with Catholic and Southern Baptist relatives. We both practiced Buddhist meditation (and found others there that did the same.)
Unitarians tend to be intellectual, verbal, literate, thoughtful, and from a variety of backgrounds. Some are atheist, some are agnostic, others believe in God in a variety of Eastern and Western forms. Some would describe themselves as "ethically Christian," although others would not - and it is not an exclusively Christian group. The running joke among Unitarians was that the name "Jesus" is only heard when someone falls down the stairs, and that the only sacrament is the black coffee brewed after services.
The Unitarian Universalist (or UU) denomination is the product of a merger between Unitarianism and Universalism, two centuries-old Christian denominations. Unitarianism was founded on the belief that the Trinity was illogical and that there could only be one divinity. Universalists believed that God was too merciful to condemn anyone to an eternity in hell, and that even the most evil person would get out of there eventually (after fifty thousand years or so). Eventually they merged and abandoned all dogma. (You can read the Knoxville church's website for a summary of beliefs.)
When my work sent me to Hungary, I arrived in the only nation on earth that ever had a Unitarian state (during the reign of King John Sigismund, who decreed religious tolerance in 1568). Ralph Waldo Emerson is the closest thing to a saint that UU's have. An ordained minister in the church, his Harvard Divinity School address was revolutionary in its day.
Emerson rejected all claims of the supernatural in the Bible. He said that miracles were "monster," in the original meaning of that word as "against nature." In a characteristically striking turn of phrase, he said they were "not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain." Emerson was telling us that the beauty of the manifest world should be enough.
Is it worth killing a person for believing that?
My current (and future) wife and I were married by the Rev. Forrest Church at All Souls Unitarian in Manhattan. (Dr. Church is now teaching us how to face death.) When at several points in my career jobs came up in the Deep South, I always checked to see if there was a Unitarian Church nearby. One of those job possibilities, which I chose not to pursue, was in Knoxville.
Jim Adkisson of Powell, Tennessee was the man with his finger on the trigger. He had mental health problems, and a hard and bitter life. He apparently left a letter explaining that he hated the church for its liberal beliefs and opinions. And the church had a sign outside indicating it welcomed gays and lesbians.
Who really killed those Unitarians? Was it the preachers who spread hatred and intolerance? The politicians who court and flatter them instead of condemning their hate speech? The media machine that attacks liberals, calls them "traitors" and suggests you speak to them "with a baseball bat"? The economic system that batters people like Jim Adkisson until they snap, then tells them their real enemies are gays and liberals and secular humanists?
If you ask me, it was all of the above.
You killed them, Pat Robertson. You killed them, Pastor Hagee. You killed them, Ann Coulter. You killed them, Dick Morris and Sean Hannity and the rest of you at Fox News.
The shooting began while the children of the church were putting on a musical based on "Annie." One broad-shouldered church member blocked the bullets from hitting other people, and died. You don't need to believe in dogma to be a hero. Remember that song from "Annie"? It probably got on your nerves like it got on mine. "The sun'll come out tomorrow."
The sun coming out. That's natural. It's one with the blowing clover and the falling rain. But a man driven insane, then programmed by society to kill people just because they're loving and tolerant?
That's monster.
RJ Eskow blogs:
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Right wing hate media is a new form of *violent* pornography.
Violent pornography objectifies women as objects for the purpose of violent se-x and even torture and murder. Violent hate media objectifies other people as "liberals" who deserve to be beaten and killed.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “It is to the credit of human nature, that...it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, UNLESS THE CHANGE BE IMPEDED BY A CONTINUALLY NEW IRRITATION OF THE ORIGINAL FEELING OF HOSTILITY.” (emphasis added).
It is that "constant new irritation" of "hostility" that the far right hate media provides, like a mental crystal meth to those who immerse themselves in this filth, until they all but lose the human ability to love instead of hate, which becomes second nature.
It is that "constant new irritation" of "hostility" that the far right hate media is collectively making hundreds of millions from, with the unspoken hope against hope that the Adkissons of our society will act upon them.
A mad man can take the ideas of any group and distort and pervert them for his own terrible use. History gives us numerous examples where the best and most noble of ideas are tortured to suit the madness of mankind
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Right.
And the Columbine Massacre and all those suicides are the fault of heavy metal and goth culture icons.
You killed them, Ozzy, and you kiiled them Judas Priest, and you killed them Metallica.
Jeez Louise, RJ.
It's just like ol' Pete Townsend said, 30 years ago: "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss".
Let's get real here: the overwhelming majority of people who listen to Marilyn Manson or Pat Robertson don't do anything destructive to themselves or to others. And then there are those who do.
It's simply absurd to blame either Marilyn or Pat for the destructive behaviors of those who act out the dark impulses we all share. Anyone who does that - on the left or on the right - is either short a few IQ points, or has an axe to grind, or both.
His show follows Randi Rhodes and I usually hear the beginning of this show. I normally turn it off within a few minutes. This was his opening tirade.
If you can imagine, his radio show is much more venomus tha the TV show.
It is very sad to me that this man took out his rage, frustration, fears and hate on a group that would have welcomed him with open arms.
Let's call it for what it is and always has been.......SCAPEGOATING, HATE-MONGERING, INCITING, DEMAGOGUERY.......All wrapped up in those pretty red, white and blue ribbons!
Disgusting and sadly unsurprising.
When I heard about this shooting last night, it felt like someone had opened fire on my family. Yet what I hang onto today is the same thing I hung onto when 9/11 happened: I work in a blood bank and on 9/11, just when it seemed that darkness and evil had taken over and God had left the scene, I looked over the overlook into our lobby and saw people--hundreds of people--lining up to donate blood. They restored my faith in humanity. For even though evil walks among us, good is more powerful and will shout it down. Even though men fly planes into buildings, thousand line up to help within an hour, and even though men open fire on children in a church play, a heroic usher throws himself in front of bullets and other heros wrestle the man to the ground, saving many more lives.
Our only response to evil must be to be even more good, to do even more good. As the famous and very wise phrase tells us: better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
That said, my heart is very heavy today and I hope we will all keep the members of the Tennessee Valley UU Church in our hearts and prayers.
I was raised in a great Unitarian Universalist (UU) church, also in the DC suburbs (I wonder if we are talking about the same wonderful church, Cedar Lane?) and in the past few years, I have really begun to appreciate on a deep level just how much of a profound influence growing up UU was in my life, and I feel it has shaped all the things about myself of which I am most proud. I have in the last few years come full circle in my own religious journey back home to UU-ism, and have been thinking a lot recently about joining a local church. I am so grateful for everything that UU-sm has given me, which is hard to even put into words, but involves respect for all creation, tolerance for diversity, a questioning mind and heart, the bravery to be the voice of dissent when I feel I need to be, and a celebration for differences between people alongside an understanding of our universal humanity that unites us.
It is sad that this hate-filled, bitter man chose to take that out on a church that is so accepting, welcoming, tolerant and loving to all people. It is also sad that it seems, throughout history, the most peaceful, spiritual, good people are the ones targeted by hate and fear.
...CONTINUED IN NEXT COMMENT BY ME...
"SmackWaterJack, he bought a shotgun... because he was in the moot for a little confrontation, he couldn't take no more abuse so he shot down the congregation"
Breaks ones heart, but as you've clearly pointed out, and correctly so, there is shared blame, many have blood on their hands indeed.
"Now Big Jim the Chief stood for law and order, said, we got to clean up the streets for our wives and daughters."
And so it goes... Agape.
"When will they ever learn, when will we ever learn?"
Name one incident where a conservative has disrupted a Democratic political event.
A lefty would have thrown a pie.
No, you can't. McCain is stalked all over the country by lefties who heckle and disrupt his speeches. Name one incident like this that's ever happened at an Obama event.
A lefty would have thrown a pie? Oh, please. I don't have time to list all the violence committed by lefties in recent years, but here are some:
an anti-war activist shot and killed an airman. Demonstrators invaded a Republican campaign office and broke the arm of one of the volunteers. A woman was run off the road because she had a Bush sticker on her car. Anti-war protesters have caused serious injury to police and innocent bystanders; I saw a horrible picture of a young woman who was hit in the head by a brick thrown by a peacenik in DC last year.
And many more.
The first thing that any corrupt fascist regime does is it turns the population against the intelligensia and the 'liberals', teachers, artists and writers (all of them people who are smart enough to see through the lies and sound the alarm). The regime sets them up to be figures of national hatred, and through vile propaganda and smears makes the population believe that these intellectuals are actually responsible for all the discord and suffering and corruption in their society and encourages the proles to think "If we could only get rid of these people, everything will be better. They don't behave like us. They're not toeing the line. They're causing trouble. They're different. Let's attack them".
All this is vital to stop the public understanding that it's their government that is their enemy and all this targetted hatred is a vast smoke-screen behind which the Regime plunders the wealth of the country, quietly destroys its enemies who might put them all in prison, and quietly brings down the iron fist of the police state to crush the growing chorus of complaint.
The Nazis understood this very, very well. I think they'd appreciate George Bush's Bully Nation.
What makes me really sad is the people being manipulated. There is of course no excuse for what the guy did, he's obviously disturbed. But the fact that his feelings were exacerbated by the far-right attack machine is the sickening part. I had a couple of high-school friends who took Rush's word as scripture. Why can't they use the brain in their head? It's broken? It's easier to let Rush think for you? These were supposedly intelligent people from cozy schools on the North Shore of Chicago. My god.
Sadness turns to sickness when thinking about the people driving this from the top: they are morally bankrupt and have made their choice to manipulate people. It's sickening that more moderate Republicans don't call out this horror for what it is. The fact that democrats are mostly quiet about the attack machine makes me bitter.
Rovian politics must end.
I listen to both conservative talk radio as well as liberal talk radio. Someone who is truly educated will listen to both sides of the issue and make an intelligent decision based off of his or her own compass. Never once have I heard the conservative media call for any type of violence against the liberals. While some remarks made by conservatives are in poor taste, you get the same rhetoric from liberals which is no better.
You also stated that you believe its the government that is the enemy. Why is that, simply because Bush is in the White house? The real question is how would you feel if a Democrat was in the White house with a filibuster proof majority in both the House and Senate? What makes it even scarier is the fact that the Liberals who shouted so vehemently against it now willingly embrace it simply because it matches their political ideology. The current House and Senate is an embarrassment. Legislation and bills being passed based on whether or not pet projects are included in them. This is not the government our fore-fathers envisioned.
Will those who are always talking about people needing to take responsibility for the consequencies of their actions, those who gin up the animosities that give license to this kind of attack take responsibility for any of this. Of course not! They may pause for one week, two weeks tops, and then go back to spreading their venom. With luck, we will see a public less willing to accept their hatred just as we saw a swing away from the Right after the Oklahoma City bombing.
We can only hope so. In the meantime, don't mourn ... ORGANIZE!
I am a Catholic now but I was married in a UU church many years ago. My children were in UU performances too. I found that those in the UU church are thoughtful, caring, and progressive souls. The whole article made me cry and smile too.