Yet another interfaith experience and the inevitable post-event thought dump

[scarlettina]

wanton_heat_jet teaches church school (read "Sunday school") at a local Unitarian church of which he's a member. He's a staunch atheist, but has a deep interest in history and spiritual traditions and is very well read on the subject. He recently asked me to come to his class and speak about Passover; today was the class. The whole experience has been interesting

Comments

[willowgreen]

Last thought: as I tell M. regularly, although we are now UUs in worship and in belonging, I will always be a Jew because of my heritage. That is a bit different than most religions, isn't it?

One of the reasons I'm a UU is that it's a welcoming community for my family. My husband is Jewish, and even though I'm Not, my kids basically consider themselves Jews whose mother drags them to church every Sunday.

Whether to try to keep our kids UUs into adulthood or simply to prepare them to make their own choice is actually quite a controversial question right now. I've heard a story that a few years ago, when General Assembly was in Salt Lake City, there was a friendly get-together between the leaders of the UUA and the Latter-Day Saints, and one of the Mormons said, "If you could figure out how to hold onto your youth, you'd be the most dangerous church in America." What an incredible, if backhanded, compliment! I'm personally uncomfortable with the idea of perpetuating any organization just for its own sake. On the other hand, if we did a better job of making our churches relevant for our teens and young adults, imagine what we might be able to accomplish in the world in the next generation.