Cambridge Unitarian Church Wednesday Evening Conversation: “Universalism 101”
Greetings and thank you once again to those who attended the very enjoyable and fruitful Evening Conversation on Wednesday 22nd September. The next one will take place this Wednesday, 6th October, 7.15pm for 7.30pm and, as usual, it will end at 9pm. Here’s the ZOOM link which will remain the same through this whole series :
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82316791998?pwd=OC9jM0pYQy9lczJPTXY4Rys2ZU1Bdz09
Meeting ID: 823 1679 1998
Passcode: 614892
The free-flowing conversation in the last meeting explored various aspects of the history of our unique liberal religious tradition and we ended up centring particularly on the Universalist strand of it. The Universalist movement began in the sixteenth-century Radical reformation of Europe and Britain before moving to the United States in the early eighteenth century where it eventually became a distinct denomination in 1866. The Universalist Church of America <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalist_Church_of_America> was dissolved in 1961 when it and the American Unitarian Association merged to form the present-day Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).
To help frame our conversation over the next three Wednesday Conversations I propose to use Richard Trudeau’s very short and succinct book “Universalism 101: An Introduction for Leaders of Unitarian Universalist Congregations”. As the sub-title reveals, Richard wrote it particularly for the North American situation but the general points he makes speak relevantly to us here in the UK. In the conversation itself, I will in any case be able to introduce you to the British and European elements of the story that don’t get explored by Trudeau.
This book is available for Kindle at only £2.69 <https://www.amazon.co.uk/Universalism-101-Introduction-Universalist-Congregations-ebook/dp/B01IK9DX7Y/ref=tmm_kin_title_sr?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=> and new physical copies can also be bought via the same link. Alas, second-hand copies seem only to be available from the USA. Anyway, I’d strongly encourage people to get their own copy but in the event you cannot obtain one before the 6th October conversation please be in touch with me directly so I can give you temporary access to the text.
It may (or may not . . .) be of interest to you that in 2007 I wrote a prayer book with an American colleague, John Morgan, that is firmly located within this Universalist tradition. During the pandemic, the Unitarian Christian Association here in the UK kindly made the text available for free at the following link. It won’t be congenial to everyone on this email list but it might be to a few . . .
<https://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/christian/pdfs/DaybreakandEventide.pdf>
Warmest wishes as always,
Andrew
Andrew James Brown
Minister
Cambridge Unitarian Church
Emmanuel Road
Cambridge
CB1 1JW
07305 089 951 (Church Office)
07477 462 110 (Mobile)
http://www.cambridgeunitarian.org/
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Other stuff . . .
http://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/ (Blog)
https://footprints.buzzsprout.com (Making Footprints Not Blueprints Podcast)
https://twitter.com/caute (Twitter)