“Who Are We (in Unitarian Universalism) Today”
By Reverend Tom Capo
August 10, 2014
The God of Abraham said to Moses: “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
Now you might wonder why I started out with this excerpt from the Jewish Torah. Well, to explain this, let me start with a little about myself. I grew up Catholic and when I was in High School I realized that I no longer held the same beliefs as the other people in my church. I did not believe that women shouldn’t use contraception; I didn’t believe that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose whether to have a child or not; I no longer believed in the Trinity—a Father-God, Son-God, and Holy Spirit-God, all in one. I found myself unable to participate in Communion or Confession; I could no longer even say the Lord’s Prayer. I felt in exile from the faith of my childhood. And I quickly realized that I would no longer fit in any Christological faith home. I was in exile from all Christian churches, an exile that was imposed by myself, yes, but also imposed by churches that would only welcome me if I accepted and professed their dogma.
