Skip to main content

Authenticity

Ron Robinson has got a couple of interesting posts here and here. As someone who wants to marry the emergent church and Unitarianism, I find what Ron is doing very inspirational.

The one thing that struck me from his notes was this trend: 'boomers [i.e. people older than 40-ish] focused on excellence, busters and mosaics [younger] on relevance and authenticity.'

This made me think about something I read in the GA Annual Report. The Worship Panel states that its Aims are this: 'We are committed to fostering worship of the highest quality wherever Unitarians gather.'

Something about the phrase 'highest quality' made me really uncomfortable. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but Ron's post made me see it. I want authenticity not quality, not excellence.

I have seen an amateur pianist and an amateur singer creating music in a church basement because they are members of a church plant and that is the ministry they offer. And I have seen a professional organist and professional choir in a large sanctuary who are there because they are being paid. I prefer the first. The second is better, the second is a higher quality, but the first is more authentic.

This is the simple reason that the Taize community appeals to thousands of secular European young adults: authenticity. Taize is authentic. Authentic silence, authentic singing Latin, is much preferable than guitars, power point presentations and sound systems if they are inauthentic.

What we need to offer is something authentic, something real.

Comments

Ron said…
All I can say is Amen. And thanks for your blog. I look forward to more reading...

Popular posts from this blog

The dumbest thing about American Unitarian Univeralism

I'm glad Peacebang started blogging about this cos I was about to, and now it's like I'm joining in with a conversation rather than doing a big rant and having a go at Americans (though that is always fun ;-)). Why the hell do American (or is it just in New England??) UU churches take, like a quarter of the year off? In the summer they close. They CLOSE!! A church, closing. It's so bloody weird and wrong. Where does it come from? Why? Why? Why? Why do people need church less in the summer? Where are people supposed to go? Where is the Divine supposed to go? My church in Boston didn't close exactly, but moved to the smaller upstairs chapel, but the minister still had all that time off. Now I've spent most of my life around teachers and priests, both jobs where people think people don't put many hours in, when in fact they put in loads ('you only work Sunday mornings/9 to 3.25'). Teachers work hard and need their long holidays. Ministers work hard, a...

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it. Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state. No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this , discussed at Peacebang here , which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many. The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition , is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition , is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism. So to say that humanism and theism can bot...

LOST and theology: who are the good guys?

***Spoiler alert*** I'm continuing some theological/philosophical reflections while re-watching the series LOST. One of the recurring themes in LOST is the idea of the "good guys" and the "bad guys." We start the series assuming the survivors (who are the main characters) are the "good guys" and the mysterious "Others" are definitely bad guys. But at the end of series 2 one of the main characters asks the Others, "Who are  you people?" and they answer, in an extremely disturbing way, "We're the good guys." The series develops with a number of different factions appearing, "the people from the freighter" "the DHARMA initiative" as well as divisions among the original survivors. The question remains among all these complicated happenings "who really are the good guys?" I think one of the most significant lines in the series is an episode when Hurley is having a conversation with ...