The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

23 November 2006

Obligatory Pilgrim story

One of the first things on the agenda after the arrival at Plymouth was the establishment of the Parish Church, and as we are reminded today, its membership was a fairly strait-laced bunch.

That church exists today: as a Unitarian Universalist congregation. No one is likely to accuse them of being strait-laced, and Alexandra suggests how things might have changed over four centuries or so:

The UU's are now the most liberal of the Judeo-Christian religions, welcoming Christians, Pagans, Buddhists, Jews and everyone in between into their congregations. And yet the church in Plymouth was founded by people we have always considered to be one of the most straight-laced, narrow-minded and rigid sects in Christianity. How did this happen?

It's actually not so far-fetched. The Separatists came over here because they wanted the freedom to worship in their own way. In that is the seed of liberal religion. Yes, they believed their way was the only way, but over the years, they grew and their ideas on religion expanded. It may have started with letting a Methodist join, and then perhaps a Baptist, then learning that the Unitarians had some good ideas, so they officially became Unitarians (believing in unity of a singular God, as opposed to Trinitarians, who believe God appears in three forms). Universalists believe that everyone will receive God's grace, that there are no "chosen ones." Unitarian Universalism in its present state was not born until 1961, when the Unitarians officially merged with the Universalists.

Were I in the mood to be snarky, I might characterize this as "evolution in action," but not today.

Posted at 6:12 PM to Immaterial Witness


The description of Puritans here is none too accurate. Being Catholic I don't have much affinity for some aspects of their theology, but they weren't "puritanical" at all. In fact the Puritans were, in their day, thought of as being rather high-livers. It's true.

Asceticism has never been a Protestant ideal-it's a Catholic one.

Posted by: John Salmon at 10:05 PM on 23 November 2006

I've never seen much to recommend asceticism; even the Buddha gave it up. (The Middle Way rejects both the severely-austere and the self-indulgent.)

And that Slate piece, for all its single-minded pursuit of a single issue, did point out that the, um, weaknesses of the flesh have pretty much always been part of the human experience.

Posted by: CGHill at 10:34 PM on 23 November 2006

I wasn't recommending asceticism, per se, though some people are called to it.

I was more interested in how the Puritans are so misunderstood. They need a champion. Maybe Andeew Sullivan would like to show us (poor choice of words, perhaps) how homosexuality was rampant among them.

On a more serious note, C.S. Lewis wrote a good bit about how history has done a poor job with this group.

Posted by: John Salmon at 3:59 PM on 24 November 2006