Posted on 06/14/2009 12:20:08 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
"The bumper stickers on cars outside the church gave an insight into its members' beliefs: ‘No War.' ‘If you want peace, work for justice.' ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'
"Activism for peace and human rights causes has characterized the congregation of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu since it was organized 50 years ago. Members were instrumental in founding the League of Women Voters and activating a local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. It offered sanctuary to servicemen who went AWOL to avoid being sent to Vietnam. It helped launch the Save Our Constitution effort to fight the constitutional amendment on same-sex marriages. And just recently, the church sponsored a Death with Dignity poll that collected a 72 percent response in favor of end-of-life legislation....
"‘Unitarians walk their talk,' said Rosemary Mattson, 85, of Carmel, Calif., one of the charter members. She and Ruth Iams, 90, of Kaneohe, reminisced about the beginnings of the ‘Unitarian fellowship of Honolulu' at a Wednesday tea in the church, which occupies a rambling 1910 mansion built by Richard Cooke....
"‘What Unitarian Universalists have in common is an attitude toward life, an openness and interest in activities that relate to helping people. You can spot them.'
"After leaving Hawaii to work at the Unitarian seminary in Berkeley, Calif., Mattson and her husband were active in the international peace movement. She escorted more than 25 tours of Americans to the former Soviet Union for people-to-people experience. Still an activist, she took part in the Jan. 17 ‘No War on Iraq' demonstration in San Francisco.
"A memory that Jim Myers shared at the Wednesday reunion was the brush with history when the church offered ‘sanctuary' to infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her mother and son. It was 1966, and ‘she was the most hated woman in the United States,' he said. O'Hair was vilified by religious groups after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld her challenge against prayer in public schools. ‘We put her upstairs for a while,' Myers said. ‘There wasn't really an uproar in Hawaii, probably because of the tolerant situation here.'
"Later in the 1960s, ‘we gave sanctuary to Vietnam deserters...."
"I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual people and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I."
"In his only skirmish into organized religion, he would enroll the family in the local Unitarian Universalist congregation...."
"In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party."
One respite (from Americans Stanley Ann Dunham looked down on) was found in a wing of Mercer Island High called "anarchy alley." Jim Wichterman taught a wide-open philosophy course that included Karl Marx. Next door, Val Foubert taught a rigorous dose of literature, including Margaret Mead's writings on homosexuality.
Those classes prompted what Wichterman, now 80 and retired in Ellensburg, called "mothers' marches" of parents outraged at the curriculum.
Dunham thrived in the environment, Wichterman said.
"As much as a high-school student can, she'd question anything: What's so good about democracy? What's so good about capitalism? What's wrong with communism? What's good about communism?" Wichterman said. "She had what I call an inquiring mind."
She also showed her politics, wearing a campaign button for Adlai Stevenson. And despite flirting with atheism, she went to services at East Shore Unitarian church, a left-leaning congregation in Bellevue.
"Obama did not speak to reporters at the small home that had been converted into the First Unitarian Church in Nuuanu. Aides said Obama's half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and her husband, Konrad Ng, also were present...."
"I wouldn't have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books -- the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching -- and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute."
"I should have mentioned the Koran. Mom didn't really emphasize the Koran but we did read little parts of it. We did listen to morning prayers in Indonesia....I don't want to deny Islam. I think it's obviously very important that we have an understanding of Islam, a better understanding. At the same time it has been erroneously attached to my brother. The man has been a Christian for 20 years."
"I'm confident we'll be able to find a church that we're comfortable with. We probably won't make any firm decision on this until January, when we know what our lives are going to be like. My faith is not contingent on the particular church that I belong to...."
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." - Matt 7:21
Somewhere I saw this quote: “Unitarianism is a religion that believes in, at most, one god.”
...with a 501C3!
I sound pretty "intolerant" today, don't I?
I had heard “Unitarianism is a religion that believes in zero or more gods.”
So, it would appear that Obama was hiding his Unitarian beliefs by attending Rev. Wright’s church.
That is really clever.
Unitarian ice cream.
Several of the victims appeared to not want to bother to testify against the guy in any court hearing to say nothing of a trial.
Several of their members had to wrestle this guy to the ground to stop the shooting because, it seems, no one had bothered to arm himself to repel such an attacker.
Obama's Other Controversial Church
Good point/question.
We have a lot of would-be Mullahs around here.
I was quoting the article. The answer is this: a cult of Obama.
Herman Mellville began attending a unitarian church in Brooklyn after he finished Moby Dick.
In fact the Aryan heresy—to which the unitarians subscribed — was all the rage on both sides of the atlantic. It was the underlying subtext that informed much of the philosophical and theological talk of the 19th century. It made Christianity pretty much defenseless against the atheists because it substituted a mystery at the heart of the Christianity with mere human sacrifice.
I am not surprised that they were reluctant to get involved. Its membership seems self-absorbed. They prefer feel good activities as long as such activities do not interrupt their lives.
This story doesn’t mention one thing, which is that First Unitarian Church in Honolulu has gone beyond advocating the homosexual lifestyle to now also actively supporting “polyamory” (regular sex with multiple “accepting” partners—people who consider themselves “respectable” swingers).
E.g.:
http://palipaths.org/documents/E9F5AB1758BF8BA6717E7DFF4CB77691741B7829.html
http://palipaths.org/documents/EE580EFACF102BF94A14EDE5CE22F6AE888989E9.html
“Something else that seems clear is this. A sizeable number of polys also identify ourselves as Unitarian Universalists. We keep running into each other at poly conferences and in cyberspace. There’s an e-mail list for poly UUs which has over 300 subscribers. A national organization called Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness meets annually at the UUA General Assembly. There appears to be a kind of natural affinity between religious liberalism and lifestyle pioneering.
“In Honolulu, the First Unitarian Church has had a polyamory discussion group meeting weekly at the church since 1994. The group’s meetings are listed in the church calendar and the church directory of programs. A number of long-time church members have been frequent participants in the poly group, and a number of people from outside have become members and friends of the church through attending the poly discussions.”
http://www.uupa.org/Literature/AreWeReady.htm
http://www.polyamorysociety.org/spiritual.html
They have a swingers’ group, excuse me “polyamorists,” that meet there and hook-up with other attenders regularly.
http://www.erosong.net/GA_Speech_2003.htm
I’ve always thought of Unitarians as pagans who can’t kick the church-going habit. My personal observation is that 90% are non-observant Jews and lapsed Catholics. They think of themselves as “rationalists” but having been invited to speak at one Unitarian “fellowship” some years ago (on the morality of liberty) I was struck by the puerile anti-thought being expressed in the discussion session. Their only doctrinal fundamental, as near as I can tell, is “niceness.” Well, maybe the virtue of unbleached linen too. That makes them excellent neighbors and lousy decision makers.
Look at who have been Unitarian politicians.
Next you’ll be telling us he’s a Democrat. /sarc
I stopped seeing that woman very shortly after this experience.
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