[Uucf-bible] UUs and the Pilgrims

[DonMusic]

Shawn,

You might find the info at the following link useful for further
understanding the impact God and Christianity had (and didn't have) on the
evolution of the US.

http://earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html


Peace,

Don

Don "Orfeo" Rechtman
3864 Woodridge Way
Tucker, GA  30084
770-934-2380
OrfeoMusic at bigfoot.com





-----Original Message-----
From: uucf-bible-bounces at lists.uua.org
[mailto:uucf-bible-bounces at lists.uua.org]On Behalf Of Shawn Strout
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 5:22 PM
To: UUCF-Bible
Subject: [Uucf-bible] UUs and the Pilgrims


Hi Martha,

That's an interesting article that you posted.  Obviously it is extremely
biased.  I don't think anyone with the slightest journalistic sense would
think of calling it "news".  Nonetheless, it is entertaining.

As is usual, the religious right fails to mention the historical fact that
many of our founding fathers were Unitairans, Deists and other religious
liberals.  I am no historian, but I would ask the author of this article for
some more documentation on how the Great Awakening led directly to the
American Revolution.  Furthermore, I found this quote interesting, "putting
into practice the Biblical principles of self-government".  I would have to
ask the person who said it to reference where in the Bible it speaks of
self-government.  I don't recall reading about it.  Perhaps there is an
obscure verse that one could take out of context, but that hardly
constitutes a Biblical principle, at least to most folk.  Religious
conservatives do love to quote the Bible out of context to support their
arguments.

Addressing your original question, though, I rather doubt you will ever find
a direct theological chain from the theistic Christianity of early
Unitarianism and Universalism to today's religious humanism.  From my brief
study of UU history, it seems that it is more a matter of numbers.  Those
with the most numbers dominated the theological spectrum.  In the 1800s,
that was theistic Christians.  In the 1900s, it was religious humanists.  In
this century, we seem to be shifting to a devotional pluralism but that is
still left to be seen.  Yet, many members of this list most identify with
the early UU Christians.  So that theological chain has continued.  It just
does not have the same numbers and therefore the same presence in the
association as it did in the 1800s.

Interesting article!

Peace,
Shawn
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