Do Christians need to shop around some more?

Question

By all means, if you're going to hang out with a church, at least find one that is based on decent, humane ideas and doesn't promote bigotry. Unitarians, Quakers, Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ are a good place to start.

Answer 1

Actually people should seek the truth.

Truth, by nature, is discrimination.

-Aztec276

Answer 2

I search YA for "Unitarian" every once in a while. I saw your question. While I agree those are wonderful, caring churches, the Unitarians aren't Christian. We don't believe in the Trinity or salvation by grace. Most of us don't believe Jesus was divine, and only 2/3rds of us believe in God.

Our formal name in the USA is "Unitarian Universalist". We merged in 1961.

While I am at it, something I paste into a lot of answers:

If you leave this Q up long enough, someone will say we are a cult, and someone else will say we are "The church that doesn’t believe in anything."

Cults have three hallmarks. 1) They are relatively new, 2) they have a single, charismatic leader, and 3) they share a single mindset.

By the numbers:

1) We have been around for 200 years. President John Adams and his son, President John Quincy Adams, were Unitarians.

2) Our leader, the president of the UUA, changes every ten years. Sometimes we elect a person with charisma, sometimes we don't.

3) Some of us believe in God, some don't. That is the widest variety of "mindset" you'll find in any religion today.

We are not a normal denomination, but we are far from being a cult.

On to beliefs: There are Presbyterians who vote Democratic and Presbyterians who vote Republican. No one calls them "The church that doesn't vote for anything". There are Lutherans who love lima beans and Lutherans who hate them. No one calls them "The church that doesn't eat anything". We UU's have no formal creed, beyond our seven principles. Some of us believe in God, some don't. This confuses people.

If you join a Christian church, you have to say that you believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that Jesus was born of a virgin, that Mary was born without Sin, that everyone else was born covered with Original Sin the way seagulls get covered with goo when an oil tanker springs a leak, and so on. We don't make you say any of that to join us. We assume you will make up your own mind about the nature of God, and we’ll provide interesting questions to help you.

We UU’s believe in a lot of things, but we don’t think in lockstep.

Answer 3

What do you consider to be bigotry? Is a church being bigoted if they call certain behavior a sin? A church has to take a moral stand on something, or else it has no reason to exist. It is not just a country club for people to swap casserole recipes.

Answer 4

Does where she/he believes really matter? One is just supposed to believe, right?
2 Chronicles 15:13 Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Answer 5

By all means!

A closed mind means a stagnant faith!

Fear of asking, exploring and answering hard questions is what differentiates dogma from a living, growing faith.
.

Answer 6

Sounds like a good Idea. While they are at it, they may want to take an HONEST look at Jehovah's Witnesses!

Answer 7

God's word is based on his rights and wrongs, period! Tolerance is not mentioned once.

Answer 8

You must be quite the cat if you know ALL Christians.

Answer 9

Thanks its all about truth follow a church that follows the word