Tag Archives: church

02/25/10

Pietist or Liturgical?

One of the primary divisions in the Christian religion is the chasm separating the pietist approach, emphasizing a rigorous Christian lifestyle, from the liturgical approach, emphasizing ritualized public worship.

It may be most appropriate to address this issue a week after celebrating Ash Wednesday with liturgical churches, as American Unitarianism arose from the pietist tradition of Protestant Christianity, which has been very critical and even suspicious of ritual and ceremony.

However, the tide has been turning in favor of liturgical forms recently, and we have learned much in the centuries since the beginnings of American Unitarianism about the important role that social ceremony plays in reinforcing personal lifestyle.

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02/5/10

Notional American Unitarian Reform Church No. 9

This is the ninth in a series of light-hearted signs for hypothetical American Unitarian Reform churches, created using an online image generator. We hope to show a range of attitudes and ideas all possible within the scope of AUR.

Today’s notional church is the Reformed Unitarian Church of the Apocalyptic Saints, appropriately promising a homily on the spiritual perils of partisanship.

02/1/10

Notional American Unitarian Reform Church No. 8

This is the eighth in a series of light-hearted signs for hypothetical American Unitarian Reform churches, created using an online image generator. We hope to show a range of attitudes and ideas all possible within the scope of AUR.

The sign for today’s notional church, St. Arius of Africa, presents an interesting take on the martyr Arius, likely a Berber, and thus of North African descent.  The hypothetical sermon refers to Isaac Newton, who wrote a treatise in defense of Arius and indicting his persecutors.  Unfortunately, Newton had some very harsh things to say about Catholics, and honoring him is therefore a tricky matter for Reform Unitarians.