Lemme tell ya all about church today.

The service started with the pianist playing and singing John Lennon's Imagine. You know the lyrics, I'm sure--"Imagine there's no heaven…" etc. The minister's message was about John Lennon too, and about where she thought John would stand on issues today. Prominent among those stands, she thought, would be a stance with the 99% and against police violence.

And among the announcements was one that said that there would be petitions available in the basement for recalling--well, she didn't identify him by name or party or government title, but the the initials of guy she was talking about are "Scott Walker."

That's my kind of church. No required beliefs except one in the essential value and dignity of each human being.

That doesn't sound like a christian church from this decade.

:hi:

Unitarians: (some more closely than others...)

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
James Luther Adams (1901-1994)
John Adams (1735-1826)
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)
Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832-1899)
Arthur J. Altmeyer (1891-1972)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) (also a Quaker)
Arius (256-336) (the original 'small-u' unitarian)
E. Burdette Backus (1888-1955) (originally a Universalist)
Roger Nash Baldwin (1884-1981), founder of ACLU
Adin Ballou (1803-1890) (Universalist)
Hosea Ballou (1771-1852) (Universalist and unitarian)
P. T. Barnum (1810-1891) (Universalist)
Clara Barton (1821-1912) (Universalist)
Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
Henry Bergh (1811-1888), founder of the ASPCA
Tim Berners-Lee (b. 1955)
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913 or 1914) (unconfirmed)
James Blanchard (b. 1942)
John Bowring (1792-1872)
Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
Andre Braugher (b. 1962)
Antoinette Brown (1825-1921)
Olympia Brown (1835-1926) (Universalist)
Orestes Brownson (1803-1876) (Universalist)
Percival Brundage (1892-1979)
Luther Burbank (1849-1926)
Celia Burr Burleigh (1826-1875)
Robert Burns (1759-1796) (unitarian)
John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)
Alice Cary (1820-1871) (Universalist)
Phoebe Cary (1824-1871) (Universalist)
Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914)
William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)
Lydia Child (1802-1880)
Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904)
William Cohen (b.1940)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907)
e e cummings (1894-1962)
Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
George de Benneville (1703-1793) (Universalist)
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Robert Dillman (b. 1967)
Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)
Paul Douglas (1892-1976) (also a Quaker)
Charles William Eliot (1834-1926)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) (Transcendentalist)
Sophia Fahs (1876-1978)
Fannie Farmer (1857-1915)
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)
Eliza Follen
John Murray Forbes (1813-1898)
Robert Fulghum (b. 1937)
Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) (Transcendentalist and Unitarian)
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)
William Godwin (1756-1836) (Sandemanian)
Horace Greeley (1811-1872) (Universalist)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Nina Grieg (1845-1935)
Frances Harper (1825-1911)
Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) (Universalist)
Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) (Transcendentalist)
Samuel Hoar (1778-1856)
Edith Holden (1871-1920)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894)
Mark Hopkins (1813-1878)
Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (unitarian, once wrote that if there were a Unitarian church near him, he would become a member, but attended an Episcopalian church.)
Julian of Norwich (c.1342-c.1413) (proto-universalist)
Thomas Starr King (1824-1864)
Chuck Knipp (also a Quaker)
Ray Kurzweil (b. 1948)
Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928)
Margaret Laurence (1926-1987)
Viola Liuzzo (1925-1965)
Mary Livermore (1820-1905) (Universalist)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)
Horace Mann (1796-1859)
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
James Martineau (1805-1900)
Herman Melville (1819-1891) (Transcendentalist)
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)
Angela Moffett (b. 1968)
Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872)
John Murray (1741-1815) (Universalist)
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) (unitarian)
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Keith Olbermann (b. 1959)
Mary White Ovington (1865-1951)
Theodore Parker (1810-1860)
Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)
Olive Higgins Prouty (1882-1974)
George Pullman (1831-1897) (Universalist)
Josiah Quincy (1744-1777) (Universalist)
Christopher Reeve (1952-2004)
James Relly (c.1722-1778)
Paul Revere (1735-1818)
Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978)
George Ripley (1802-1880)
Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) (also a Hindu)
Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) (universalist)
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) (he was a honorary member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, though)
Charles E. Scripps (b. 1920)
Pete Seeger (b. 1919)
Rod Serling (1924-1975)
Michael Servetus (1511-1553)
Adlai Stevenson (1835-1914)
Lucy Stone (1818-1893)
Robert Stout (1844-1930)
Emily Stowe (1813-1903)
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)
William Howard Taft (1857-1930)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) (Transcendentalist)
Amos G. Throop (1811-1894) (Universalist)
Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997)
Mary Augusta Ward (1851-1920)
Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1759)
Paul Dudley White (1886-1973)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (Transcendentalist)
Earl Morse Wilbur (1886-1956)
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)
N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945)
Owen D. Young (1874-1962) (Universalist)
Whitney Young (1921-1971)

sounds like a typical Sunday for me! We are a small congregation but we are some of the most active and committed members of the community. We're starting to see lots of new faces in our midst as people are waking up!

i guess you could say i`m a shout`n methodist universalist unitarian

status?

I believe a recall campaign would be considered an issue.

Shouldn't they lose their tax exempt status?

lose their tax-exempt status following Prop 8.

   ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and
sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Our minister mentioned leaders who had no clue. Some of the way she worded
things led me to think she's at least familiar with the Christian left posts.
She also drove home the point that even if we only help one person,
then we made a difference.

was quite veiled, obeying the letter of the law. Those collecting the signatures were acting on their own without any explicit church involvement beyond letting a member use a table in the basement for her private purpose of collecting signatures.

In other words, they were certainly aware of Church/State separation issues, so I assume that they knew how to conform their actions to the law.

Revised Common Lectionary, including the Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans.

I do know that many ministers (the kind who get Masters degrees and doctorates in theological seminaries, not the graduates of Billy-Bob's Bible College) are far more liberal, both scripturally and politically, than would be safe for them to admit to their own congregations.

Every Sunday Morning, whenever possible.

I'd become a churchgoer if they ever came up with a church that didn't meet on Sunday morning. And the next thing I knew I was talking to a nice Quaker whose church met on Sunday afternoon!!!! They got me.

But I declined anyway, tho I think I could do Quaker -- Friends, more accurately.

you enjoy it, fine, but I'm completely not interested.

and change to duvet cover and that is my house too!

in the first place.

No offense, Jackpine. It IS always good to hear that the message is being carried to approving groups.

My comment was meant as sarcasm. A church giving political advice to it's members? Sounds like it is time to revoke its tax exempt status.

the Constitution isn't arbitrary.



DU was IRATE at all the right wing politicking from the pulpit in the last election......

The petition was on a table in the basement; there was no "official sponsorship" of its circulation. There were no political endorsements or suggestions that anyone "should" sign the petition.. It was merely made available as a convenience, with no exhortations from anyone about signing it.

How slippery it is depends on who's greasing it.

If it's good for the goose.......

You do understand my comment was meant to be sarcastic. A church giving political advice to its members???? DU would castigate the church if it was the other way around.

I believe in the separation of church and state.

Principles were discussed, not individual politicians or parties.

The signature collection was not sponsored by the church.

If you don't have one in your home town, there is surely one in Duluth.

at first, when you said "church", I shuddered--yeah, the idea of church has really been tainted for me these days, I admit it.

I'm glad to hear about this one. :)

:hi:

I mean it. If they're going to be used for politics, let them pay taxes like other political groups.

Don't get me wrong: I love it, and that's my kind of church , too.

Even if you technically cannot endorse candidates, you can usually get your message across anyway. As the OP stated, even if the pastor did not use Scott Walker's name, it was pretty clear what they were talking about.

I remember an NRA radio ad during the 2004 campaign, where Wayne LaPierre talked about how much he loved an early American patriot named 'George.' He openly stated in the ad that the rules prevented an outright endorsement, but people should know that 'George' was where it's at.

LOL, reminds of that scene in 'The Town,' where the portly bank robber decides to run the gauntlet of cops and assures his friends that 'I'll only give them your first names.'

Something along the lines of "be Thankful these holidays, if your children are not homos". I know, its a little weird for an atheist to go to church in the first place, but I find it entertaining in a train wreck sort of way.

I was voted on the board and as an accountant, I was put on the finance committee...

I helped get the budget in line and did some work with the projections. But when it came time to look at the Investment portfolio...

Well, that was a different story.

They were heavily invested in GE, General Dynamics and a few other companies with large ties to the defense industry.

I pointed out that perhaps we should take a look at our investments and start moving some of the assets into more socially conscious companies.

OMG, the shit hit the fan. It seems the people on the board wanted no part what so ever in actually doing something productive with the money. I wasn't suggesting to sell everything ad buy hair-shirts for Christ Sake. I just mentioned that we should take a look at where we have our money invested.

Same thing happened when I brought it up at the workshop of he UU conference in Nashville...

I had my issues with the church authorities as well. I was a member of LRY (UU's Liberal Religious Youth) back in the early 70s and when they reigned in their overt Liberal politics they dumped our large national program.

Many Liberal activists learned their trade at LRY. It really was like Prep school for the far left. It hasn't existed for 35 years because the business heads of the church wanted more middle class revenue. The Ministers were behind us.

:thumbsup:

what I was going to write also.

I don't care what side the politics embrace...and, let's face it, we all believe our OWN politics are the "right" ones...they do not belong in church.

Period.

Some are overt - most are covert. No politics per se from the alter - instead it is (announced) that it will be done through the fellowship after church. My mother is one of them. I was until the 80's.

It is still wrong.

Sorry.

but I have to agree with you that I'm glad the Methodist church in NY is housing the protesters (my denomination), and that many Methodist Women are protesting. You don't have to be right-wing to be religious/spiritual. In fact, that is one of the marketing geniuses of the repub party - and we should be figuring out how to get those folks back.

with lots of specific suggestions for assisting the former. It is a common theme in churches around this time of year, especially ones with soup kitchens and related outreach.

if the minister down the street say, handed out leaflets calling for a ban on gay marriage along with form letters to lawmakers.

I think Christians churches inevitably end up saying something about public morality, but the line between proper commentary and active politicking while retaining non-profit tax status can get pretty blurry.

Particularly with respect to the pulpit. Religious organizations have every right to make a stand on political issues. Now, there are certain restrictions in order to maintain tax-exempt status, but I won't even go there because I don't think religious organizations should be tax exempt. And that coming from a member of the clergy.

It's our government that cannot promote a religious viewpoint above any other.

I just don't see how I could preach effectively about the things most relevant in our daily lives if I were forbidden from mentioning political issues at all. Social and economic justice are intimately entwined here.