Thursday, November 27, 2003
Dinner with Huston Smith.
Heather Janules reports on a day spent with the world religions scholar Huston Smith (whose wife is a Unitarian Universalist).
I appreciated how Huston spoke of the essence of Christianity: “We are in good hands. Out of gratitude, we are called to relieve each other’s burdens.” And the gift that Christianity offers? Forgiveness. Quoting Nelson Mandela, “there is no future without forgiveness.”
On Unitarian Universalism, "Smith celebrated our ways of building community and our social-justice work, but challenged us to abandon our resistance to 'transcendence.'" Good stuff at Chrysalis.
Copyright © 2003 by Philocrites | Posted 27 November 2003 at 10:36 PM
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Commentary by Chris Walton on Unitarian Universalism, liberal Christianity, American religion, and liberal culture. Contact me.
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1 comments:
Revsparker:
November 28, 2003 10:18 AM | Permalink for this comment
Can't comment at Chrysalis, so decided to put my comments here...
I interned at the congregation where Kendra is a member and Huston is a friend. It was delightful to get to know both of them. The only hard part was that my first sermon was on a day when Huston came to give the "forum" beforehand. That meant that the church was packed--more people were there that day than on Christmas Eve!
Not only that, Huston and Kendra came to church that day and I had to face the pulpit for the first time knowing that Dr. Smith was in the congregation. I was petrified.
Afterwards, Huston had the graciousness to stay, braving the hundreds of people that wanted to ask him questions and "rub shoulders" with his greatness, to tell me that he liked the sermon.
I cannot adequately describe how I felt in that moment. I can only say that my respect and affection for Huston and Kendra increased far more that my confidence in my preaching abilities...
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