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...
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Do you know these people Stephen? How did they get people through the door at Sanctus in the first place?
When you interrogate them, a lot of these alternative churches actually have a congregation made up of people who travel in or attend elsewhere in a traditional setting. Do you get the feeling that's not the case here?
Mel
'these alternative churches'
Telling...
and funny - some Unitarians REALLY don't like churches doing the whole alternative thing better than themselves!
I suppose my reservation comes from a commitment to congregational polity. In other words if the church depends on someone who is paid by the Diocese, will it ever become financially self-supporting, and if not then how much of a success could it be? Is it a real community or a project? Sure it requires investment to start with, but if the emerging church is to become the way of the future, as some predict, then surely it cannot be dependent on the 'real' church for staffing/fiance.