What are some UU thoughts about American Sniper, the film?

Dylan O'Connor's review and essay on the film American Sniper on The Brockporter is well worth the read. You can access it by clicking here.

American Sniper clashes with most of UUs principles. It certainly does not affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, etc.

Does this film inject a poisonous meme into our American society? Will it lead to our children and young adults wanting to emulate this way of being in the world? How can Unitarian Universalists reach out to a frightened and sadistic population in America and help them find better ways of dealing with the temptations of American exceptionalism?

Rev. Greg Ward preaches at UU church of Berkeley on 01/25/15 on "How To Explain Unitarian Universalism Without A Pamphlet"

Editor's note:

I search out and review good sermons from a Unitarian Universalist perspective. I am looking especially for sermons that articulate the Unitarian Universalist faith and deepen our sense of spirituality.

In this sermon, Rev. Ward is basically making a sales pitch and training sales people, outreach workers, missionaries. Unfortunately he doesn't call his sermon a sales training speech for missionaries, but this seems to be essentially what he is doing. His sentences are inspiring and uplifting but not terribly memorable. If you are going to equip missionaries with tools to spread the faith you need some snappy slogans. Here are a few which I recommend:

1. "Our God is too big for anyone religion."
2. "We always stand on the side of love."
3. "We are all in this thing called Life together and we believe that we will enjoy it more working together for the benefit of all."
4. "Unitarian Universalism is a big tent which covers not just earth, the solar system, the milky way galaxy, but the whole universe."
5. "We believe in deeds not creeds and we have seven principles to guide our actions."
6. "We all are children of the Universe and as such we are here to love one another."

Do you have some sales tools which you use and recommend? First of all, what do you tell yourself are the key and fundamental aspects of your faith? How would you share these aspects with others?

Tuesday night class #7

Pleasure, Happiness, Joy, Bliss

Tuesday night class #6 - The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.

Tuesday night class #5 - Who is the you who gets lonely?

Akilter - Pope Francis may be a universalist

Vatican - Cardinal Scariemando told Akilter, off the record on Friday, that Pope Francis has confided in him that he really is a universalist. Cardinal Scariemando said that the Pope wishes he could come out of the closet on his true beliefs but he fears that this would be pushing the church too far given all the other changes which he is also making.

Scariemanda said that Francis told him that he believes in a God that is all loving and would not consign any of God's creatures to hell eternally. Scariemando said that the Pope told him, "We make our own hell. God has nothing to do with it."

Scariemando said that the Pope is very aware that the church could not have become what it is today had it not put the fear of God into people and convinced them that only the church and its priests could save them from eternal perdition. "This belief starts right at birth with original sin," said Scariemando. "So we've got them in our control right from birth on. Even at conception we have people shamed by sexual sin. You have to admit that the Catholic church is a marketing genius."

However, as humanity has matured and more and more people are becoming "nones" that is, they don't believe in any religious myths, we have lost our credibility with these toxic stories of original sin. "It was good in Augustine's day, I guess," said Scariemando, "but it has outlived its usefulness and Francis knows this."

"Once you float the idea of universality," said Scariemando, "people can do whatever they wish with impunity. They no longer need the church. The jig is up. Game over. So Francis keeps his personal beliefs under his Papal Mitre."

One of the board members of the UUA said, "I like Pope Francis, I really do, but he is about 500 years behind us. The UUs are way ahead of him and we welcome him. Better late than never. We will help him in any way we can to get the church to catch up to postmodern awareness. Humanity is not free until all of humanity reaches the cosmic consciousness that we all are one with Life. Really, how it could be any other way?"