Skip to main content

Announcing.... The Unitarian Life

Well, it's been a long time coming, but my book, the Unitarian Life, has finally been published. The first 50 copies made it to the Annual Meetings and sold out, which I'm really happy about.

What is it? Well, it's an anthology of short texts 99% of which were written by Unitarians, Universalists or Unitarian Universalists. It's not a historical book, although it does contain writing going back five centuries. It's a book that helps people to answer the question - what is Unitarianism? - not by giving one answer, but by giving 300 answers! And it answers the question not only by trying to define Unitarianism but also by talking about Unitarian attitudes to sex, death, God, friendship, justice, love, spirituality, peace - in other words, life.

It comes out of a conviction that Unitarianism is not just a blank slate onto which we can paint anything, but a living, breathing spiritual tradition that it worth celebrating.

You can get copies from Essex Hall, Amazon UK and possibly Amazon USA. I would hope we'll be able to get some over to the UUA Bookstore as well, but I'll have to chase that one up.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Stephen, congratulations on getting your book published!
Just ordered my copy ^_^
All the best from Japan!
12:20 pm
Andrew Bethune said…
Will buy a copy as soon as I can organise myself.
9:47 pm
Jaume de Marcos Andreu said…
Congratulations! I particularly like your affirmation that "Unitarianism is not a blank slate... but a living spiritual tradition". I wholeheartedly agree, although I am not convinced that everybody does (including many among ourselves).
4:24 pm
Yewtree said…
I've been reading it, and I think it's marvellous. I agreed with about 99% of it, and found it very inspiring. A wonderful idea.
12:56 pm
Stephen Lingwood said…
Thanks Yewtree, you couldn't put that comment on the Amazon page could you? I'm told it helps a lot with sales. (By the way I'm getting no money from the sales, so I'm promoting it purely for it's own sake, not for financial gains!).
1:43 pm
Yewtree said…
Oh alright then :)
10:55 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th...
3 comments
Read more

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 ...
3 comments
Read more

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...
14 comments
Read more