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Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County |
| We need not think alike to love alike. | Francis David |
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Home About Us Minister, Grace Simons Sunday Services Map Calendar and News Children Contacts Do You Want? FAQ for Visitors History of UUFSC Learn More Links Members News and Calendar Religious Ed (Adult) Sermons (Minister) Sermons (Guests) Site Map Social Action Tour (Building) Tour (People) Good Search Font or text size problems Feedback E-mail: Wizard@StanUU.org A liberal religious voice in the Central Valley since 1953. |
Our detractors call us "The church that doesn't believe in anything." That is not true. We believe in many things. Our first belief is in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. It gets a little complicated after that, because some of us believe in God and some of us don't. Here is a whole page, with six links for further reading, devoted to our beliefs. You can scroll down, or click to:
Principles and PurposesThe Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian-Universalist Association (Our national organization) were adopted as bylaws by the 1984, 1985 and 1995 General assemblies. We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
SourcesThe living tradition which we share draws from many sources:
Alternate view of the Principles and Purposes(Ted Pack wrote this. He is a lay webmaster, not a minister. It is not a statement of belief by the UUF of SC.) The Unitarians formally organized in the United States in 1825. As the name implies, they didn't believe in the Holy Trinity. The Universalists formally organized in 1793. As the name implies, they didn't believe in salvation by grace for just a few people; they believed in Universal salvation. Time passed. About 1841 Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister, gave a famous sermon. He said that the things Jesus of Nazareth taught (Love one another, don't cast the first stone, words of hatred than come out of your mouth defile you more than any forbidden food you put into it . . .) made sense, even if Jesus wasn't the only begotten Son of God. This caused a stir in theological circles. There are not many non-prophet churches. More time passed. We got more liberal. In 1961 the Unitarians merged with the Universalists to form the Unitarian-Universalist Association. The Unitarians got first billing because there were more of them, even though the Universalists were older. At one point after the merge, the membership application for the UUA read "No statement of creed or belief, including this one, shall be a condition for membership." As a result, we got the reputation of being "The church that doesn't believe in anything." We believe in a lot of things, but we are not unanimous about them, the way the Catholics are about the Apostolic Creed. On any given issue we may be split 50-50, 90-10, or 35-35-25-05. In the early 1980's, tired of being known as the church that didn't believe in anything, the UUA appointed a committee to come up with a statement of beliefs. They created the list of Principles and Purposes (above), plus the list of sources. If you read carefully, you can tell it was written in the early 1980's, by a committee. Some of our specific beliefs and practices, in no particular order:
What I believe, in 30 words or less.We asked our members to answer either "What do you believe?" or "What drew you to our fellowship?" in 30 words or less. We used the 30-word limit to make it a challenge, and because we knew most web visitors would not wade through long paragraphs. Here is what they wrote:
For more along these lines, we had a service which asked everyone to answer the question What Does Being a Unitarian Universalist mean to You? It is in our Guest Sermon section. Additional ReadingWe have three eloquent statements of belief for you, by One of the best ways to see what we believe is to see what we do. Here in Stanislaus County, our members helped start the local chapters of NOW, Friends Outside, and the Sierra Club, for instance. Out of 165 total members, we have eight returned Peace Corps Volunteers. We have veterans of the Marine Corps, too. We asked all of our members to list a few things they did that reflect the teachings of our church. Only a few did. Their responses are on the Members Page. If you'd like to see what UU's have done over the years and across
the country, If you have more questions after you read this, you can go to 100 Questions. This is a web site the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, New Hampshire has made from the booklet, "100 Questions that Non-members ask about Unitarian-Universalism" by John Sias. It concentrates on the Theist and Humanist sides of UUism. Some people find it conservative. UU's come in many flavors. We have Buddhists and Wiccans as well as Christians and Jews. If you'd like an outside opinion, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance has simple, non-judgmental descriptions of 63 different religious faiths. In their words, "We describe dozens of faith groups as accurately as we can, from Asatru to Christianity to Zoroastrianism." Click on "About Other Religions", then scroll past "Introductory thoughts", some ads, "World Religions" and "Neopagan Religious Faiths" until you get to "Other Non-Christian Religions". (OCoRT is a big site.) We UU's are towards the bottom of that list, by virtue of the alphabet. |
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Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County 2172 Kiernan Avenue Modesto, California (209) 545-1837 Mailing Address: PO Box 1000, Salida, CA 95368 (We have no mail service on Kiernan; please use the PO Box.) |
Visits since 17 Apr 1999. Page updated 21 Apr 2008 |
We are the only UU congregation in Stanislaus county. We serve Ceres, Denair, Escalon, Hickman, Hughson, Keyes, Modesto, Oakdale, Patterson, Ripon, Riverbank, Salida, Turlock and Waterford.