A personal journey to loving God – God loving UUs and a need for acceptance in the UU fold

As I’m a strong Unitarian Universalist (UU) identifying person who grew up and is still active in the UU religion, it might come as quit a shock to those of you who know anything about UUism that, over the past at least seven years or so I’ve come more and more to believe in God. As you might know it’s ok for all those involved in UU community, be it official member UUs or just mere friends of UU to openly give praise and show support for the gays and lesbians within the UU fold and their right to live as who they are within UU community. But do the majority of UUs show the same courtesy for anther of the minorities within UU, the God loving UUs (of which I’m now one myself)? I would say not. To borrow a phrase often expressed by the gay and lesbians in our society at large, I would say sometimes I feel I have to hide in the closet, well my belief in God and my need to honour and praise him from my fellow UUs that is. I say this ought not to be so seeing as my fellow UUs like to loudly proclaim that they respect and even welcome those who have different beliefs from them into the UU fold (so long as they don’t impinge on their right to express what they individually believe, or intentionally heart anyone, which I think is only fair).

So how did I come to this belief in God? One only has to look at the forth
principle of the UU list of seven principles which is as fallows “a free and
responsible search for truth and meaning”. Yes it was through a search for
truth and meaning, well more accurately, a need to find truth and meaning,
that has led me to this belief. But I have always kept in mind the other parts
of this principle as well. For one my responsibility to have a responsible
search. By responsible I interpret it in great UU fashion as my responsibility
to not assume that what I find to be truths that work for me (that include
my belief in God) to be truths that will work for others or even things to
which I should impose on them. But then there’s the last part, the free part.
This part of the principle is the part that I fell some UUs don’t fully grasp.
To me it doesn’t just mean allowing someone the space to search and seek
for their truths, but also the space needed to tryout what is being
discovered or may have been discovered as a result of this search and
seeking.

So why would they have a problem with us, the God loving UUs trying out we have discovered and are discovering? Well one reason for this is likely the fact that many UUs came to UUism fleeing Christian denominations, like Roman Catholic and Anglican, and as a result have negative associations linked to the concept of God, to which many who come from a different back ground, take me for example, who was raised UU may not have. Well one of the things they may have observed is people in authority using the concept of God to justify harsh or restrictive rules or actions, those leaving their faith in God shaken. I for one never have observed this. In fact it wasn’t until I was having a sever crises of faith that I really started giving the concept of God any real consideration.

My belief in God came from a crises of faith. Well actually to be more accurate I have always been on the brink of taking the God belief plunge and it was only this crises that pushed my to certainty in Him (God). So why did it take me 20 years and a crises to start to believe in God. The reason for this I would say was the fact that as a child I had mostly secular humanist and atheist for Sunday school teachers, who in my children’s religious exploration classes told me more about human sexuality and things about science then what they believed about religion (all worthy thinks to teach to children). Sure they did encourage me to search for my religious beliefs, but it was only through brief and as I now know insufficient glimpses of what others delved in, and rarely what UUs believe and never what they believed abut religion. I guess even if the concept of God was something that I needed, it was always going to take a crises for me to believe in Him. Well ‘cause I knew no UUs that believed or at least expressed openly a belief in God as a child. But I could never fully go join them in their rejection of God. And with this crises of faith I began to come to my belief in God over the past seven years or so.

The crises of faith of mine was precipitated by the fact that I had bad thing don to me as well as hearing of bad thing having been don to others. Things like bullying and the divorce of parents. All things that I could not and still can not accept as having happened for no reason. I felt and still feel they most have happened for some divine reason, either to teach use some lesion or to move our lives in a better direction. Also the fact that I could not accept the fact that evolution to which I did and still do believe in, just some how spontaneously started to happen and evolve over time. I still believe this about evolution.

So why do I believe in God? Because I believe that creation was not something that just spontaneously started to happen one day and the fact that bad things to which we experience must be brought to be for some useful reason. And ‘cause I believe in God I fell the need to honour Him and yes even praise Him. Yes all things to which leave many of the former Christians within the UU fold uneasy.

I am going to read the Bible in 90 days…

I have discovered this Bible reading program called The Bible in 90 Days. It divides the Bible into 88 day chunks, with two lag days, thus it enables you to read the Bible in 90 days like its name applies. And yes I am going to attempt to do this program starting on Monday, meaning I should be finishing reading the bible by the end of August. As one who was raised in a Unitarian Universalist community, I did not get much bible education back in my childhood Sunday school’s religious exploration classes. Well except a bit about Moses, the Passover story and yes the Christmas story. So this is going to be quit a learning experience for me. So why am I embarking on this summer reading challenge? Well the more I hear about liberal Christian beliefs, especially Trinitarian ones, the more I find myself feeling yes these things seem right for me. So I am going to read the bible to find out more about them. Yes there is nothing better then an exploration of the sources of something to understand it better. And the bible translation I have chosen to use is the New Living Translation. So at least ons or twice over this summer I will post about this. And I will do a overall review of this and post it in early September. So if you won’t to take this challenge up too, just head over to BibleGateway.com and search for 90 Days under the Reading Plans section. And yes you don’t even need to own your own copy of the bible because over on BibleGateway.com you can choose from many of the most popular translations and read it right there in its entirety.

Well how do I know this to be true? – Devin Murphy’s credo statement

Believing there is a purpose to this life is one of the things that keeps me going on. Well wen I say I believe that there is a purpose to this life I am in no way saying that I believe that all the things to which we experience or will eventually experience are predestined. But rather that the mere fact that us human beings are living this collective thing we call life must be in someway not an accident. And to me it’s only logical that if it’s not an accident that we humans are living this life then a force or creature that’s greater then us must have had a hand in this. I say force and creature not forces and creatures because I can’t imagine a set of somethings greater then us agreeing on the creation of such a being as us or even just a process which ultimately led to us. Yes it must have been a process not an end result that led to us. And the evidence which we have had to date has led must of us to believe in this thing to which we have dubbed evolution. And yes evolution is just the work of this creature or force unfolding. And this force or creature I choose to call it God because that is what we humans have daubed it for millions of millennia. And yes I would say that God has three parts. The first being God the crater, i.e. that part of god which put evolution into motion. The second being God the corrector or redeemer, i.e. that part of God, which tries to bring its creatures, back from destructive ways as well attempting to assist them to never be destructive again. So the third and final part of God I believe it to be the spirit of God, i.e. that part of good that is within all of us. And I believe that God the spirit gets put in us by us coming into contact with the results of either God the creator or God the corrector. But I also believe that there is another force, one working against the forces of God as well as those who have been touched be it’s spirit. And this force is one, which feeds us lies and deceit in order for us to help it destroy us and this beautiful creation to which we find ourselves living in. And those who give into this force become its agents or henchpeople going around putting dawn others, the other animals and even this world to which we inhabit. And I call this evil force the Devil seeing that’s what we humans have daubed it for many billions of generations. So what happens wen we cease to live this life thing? Well, our bodies they decompose becoming fertiliser for this planet of ours. And then out of us comes our souls. Yes I believe we all have a soul of our own. And I believe they are something which gives us our easiness and wen we die I believe they get judged. And if we tried to be good in our life it goes to live for eternity in God’s home, the place we humans have daubed Heaven. And if we were not good then it goes and toils forever in the Devils realm, yes the place we humans have dubbed Hell. Well who do I know this to be true? Well I don’t know if it’s really true. So then why do I believe this? Well because I just have a feeling I must.

“Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth Summary Report”, my thoughts…

What follows I also originally posted to one of the threads in the same Faceboox group as, not my last post but the two before it.

This is what I concluded from reading the “Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth Summary Report”, the UUA is trying to move the focus of youth programming from an “adult facilitated but youth led and organized program” to an “adult administrated ministry for youth”. It should be noted that I am getting the impression that the UUA’s goal is to do more things for youth. Instead of what has been the practise amongst Canadian and US UU communities for years, which was manly to help youth billed and maintain healthy communities of their own which would serve their needs. I don’t like this change but maybe it is just because the old way of doing things really served my needs rather vary well for the most part.

Also I fund these passages from the report rather interesting.

Some groups, such as the UUA Board, asserted that lack of ministerial involvement with youth in their congregation, which is sometimes explained by the philosophy of youth empowerment, is actually abandonment. The Board was also concerned that many adults and congregations lack a deep understanding of how to nurture, protect, and empower youth in healthy ways. Ministry & Professional Leadership staff at the UUA noted a lack of pastoral care and attention to youth’s pain. Similarly, others mentioned the need for UUs to be more sensitive and to listen to the lived experiences and emotional and spiritual suffering of marginalized people, including youth.

Some youth seek pastoral care in community with one another; for example, 72 percent of survey respondents of high school age indicated that their youth group helps them explore options and offers suggestions on how to deal with life situations. Congregations discussed the strong bonds formed among youth and the way they form a peer ministry.

And…

Unitarian Universalist youth are like all Unitarian Universalists – they embrace a wide variety of spiritualities and worship styles. Participants at the Central Midwest District gathering reminded us that “youth are members of a community and communities work with the different needs of its members.” Other groups pointed out to us that UU youth communities do not always welcome this diversity; for example, youth at the Metro New York District and Joseph Priestley District gatherings talked about the strong reactions they receive when they talk about God or Christian beliefs. YRUU leaders envisioned a community where youth feel comfortable naming their higher power. Many groups (youth and adults) identified a gap between lifelong, raised-Unitarian Universalists and those who have found Unitarian Universalism. These groups also discussed the perception in congregations that becoming UU is an adult process, rather than something we should raise our children to be.

Then this…

Some youth communities (particularly at the district and continental level) experience tension with the Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network (C*UUYAN) or young adult community. According to C*UUYAN leaders, this is due in part to inappropriate boundaries of some young adults, generalizations based on age, and no intentional welcoming relationship between the two. The UUA Board called youths’ departure from youth programs a “bridge to nowhere” and called for more welcoming of youth into young adult and camps ministry.

P.S.
So if you are a Unitarian Universalist (UU) and care about UU youth and or the future of UUism in North America I do urge you to go and read the “Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth Summary Report”. And then do give me your thoughts on what you think of it as well as your thoughts on my impressions of it.

My religion quizzes results

These are my results from two tests, which claim to tell which religion my beliefs are most in line with. The first is my results from the famous Belief-O-Matic quiz from the good people over at Beliefnet. And if you feel so inclined to take this quiz yourself you can by going to http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html. And the second one is the lesser-known BELIEF SYSTEM SELECTOR test curtsy of the staff at SelectSmart.com and it can be found at http://www.selectsmart.com/religion/. And so do have a try at them both. And what do my results say about me well, I find it really interesting having grown up in a humanist/personal spiritualist dominant Unitarian Universalist church to have Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants to be at the top of both of the quiz results.

My Belief-O-Match quiz results:

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (86%)
4. Eastern Orthodox (82%)
5. Roman Catholic (82%)
6. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (80%)
7. Seventh Day Adventist (79%)
8. Unitarian Universalism (78%)
9. Neo-Pagan (69%)
10. Reform Judaism (68%)
11. New Age (64%)
12. Bahá’í Faith (64%)
13. Orthodox Judaism (63%)
14. Islam (61%)
15. Sikhism (56%)
16. Hinduism (52%)
17. Mahayana Buddhism (52%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (50%)
19. Jainism (46%)
20. Secular Humanism (43%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (39%)
22. Scientology (38%)
23. Taoism (35%)
24. Jehovah’s Witness (35%)
25. New Thought (34%)
26. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (27%)
27. Nontheist (24%)

My results from the BELIEF SYSTEM SELECTOR test:

1. Mainline – Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (98%)
3. Mainline – Conservative Christian Protestant (83%)
4. Eastern Orthodox (80%)
5. Roman Catholic (80%)
6. Seventh Day Adventist (80%)
7. Liberal Quakers (78%)
8. Unitarian Universalism (71%)
9. Orthodox Judaism (62%)
10. Reform Judaism (61%)
11. Islam (60%)
12. Neo-Pagan (55%)
13. New Age (54%)
14. Bahai (53%)
15. Hinduism (48%)
16. Sikhism (48%)
17. Mahayana Buddhism (46%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (45%)
19. Secular Humanism (41%)
20. Jainism (40%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (38%)
22. Jehovah’s Witness (36%)
23. Taoism (35%)
24. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (35%)
25. New Thought (30%)
26. Non-theist (28%)
27. Scientology (25%