Should my kids go to a Unitarian Universalist church?
I really wouldn’t worry about your kids at all. My parents are closet athiests/ indecisive agnostics who sent all five of their children to religious services to expose us to religion. I think they were whistful about giving up on faith, and thought we should see the other side of the coin. They found a mellow church of harmless, middle of the road liberals, and we went through the motions until we were 12 or so. It was enough that if one of us had needed religion, we would have had a place to explore it. My folks also thought that religious training would help us read literature better and improve our SAT scores. They were right. I remained remarkably detached and amused from the experience. I still suspect that most people attend church for alterior motives. We’re all adults now, and have formed our own opinions anyway, and nobody is the worse for wear. One brother is a little too much into the UU for our taste, but we all adore the wife he met at church, and like to see him happy. J
My mom felt pretty like your wife, so my parents took my brother and I to UU Sunday school until we hit our teens. I distinctly remember the only time anyone ever read from a Bible, and it was in the context of comparing the Christian origin myth to the African and Native American origin myths we’d already studied. My father (a hardcore atheist and armchair anthropologist) was the Sunday school leader at the time. I think we learned more critical thinking skills than anything else. It was a good experience for me. I developed some really close friendships with the other kids and with the ministers, and I got over my fear of old people by spending time with some of the elderly (and very cool) members of the congregation. At times I especially appreciated the role of “counselor” that ministers also hold, it gave me an adult whose opinion I valued to run things by. You may think your kids should just come to you for that, but trust me when I say that it’s good for them to have someone who
The UU church is Unitarian – and Universalist. One God, all dogs go to heaven. Unitarian churches tend to be more atheist, Universalist more spiritual. It helps to know what they were before the unification. We went there for a time – as theists. What got us going was that all of our friends – wherever they were – were UUs.We thought we should check it out. Their basic creed (although not said at every church by any means) is: Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer, To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve one another in fellowship, To the end that all souls shall grow in harmony with the divine, thus do we covenant with one another – and with God. They took that last bit out, and we left the church. The fact that a church couldn’t mention the word God was disturbing to us, even though our “religion” is liberal in the extreme. If you’re an atheist, you don’t need a church. Really. The other thing th
