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Reflections
4
A Thought
In the formative
period during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries Unitarians were anxious to
recover New Testament insights about God and the human person, which they
thought were being ignored.
* Jesus, quoting Jewish scripture, said ‘The first [commandment] is . .
.The Lord our God, the Lord is one’. (Mark 12:29)
* The writer of the first letter of John wrote ‘God is love’. (1 John
4:8 and 16). Why all this talk, then, about God condemning many people to
hell?
* Paul told the church at Corinth ‘You are God’s temple and . .
.God’s Spirit dwells in you’. (1 Corinthians 3:16) Why all this talk
about the human person being depraved and corrupt?
Thus upon the two most significant points of reference for any religious
faith, God and the human person, the early Unitarians took alternative
points of view to that of the prevailing Christian orthodoxy. Indeed it
was Christian orthodoxy in south-eastern Europe which, responding to the
protest that God is one not three, first dubbed these religious rebels
with the name ‘Unitarian’.
Andrew Hill – The Unitarian Path
A
Hymn
Now praise we great and famous men
And women named in story;
And praise our God who now as then
Reveals, in all, true glory.
Praise we the wise and brave and strong,
Who graced their generation:
Who helped the right and fought the wrong,
And made our folk a nation.
Praise we the great of heart and mind,
The singers sweetly gifted,
Whose music, like a mighty wind,
The souls of all uplifted.
Praise we the peaceful hand of skill
Which builded homes of beauty,
And, rich in art, made richer still
The fellowship of duty.
Praise we the glorious names we know;
And they whose names are perished,
Lost in the haze of long ago,
In silent love be cherished.
In peace their sacred ashes rest;
Fulfilled their day's endeavour;
They blessed the earth, and they are blessed
Of God and us for ever.
From William George
Tarrant, 1853-1928 |
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A Prayer
O God, may we love all your creation, all the Earth and every grain of sand in it. May we love every leaf, every ray of your light. For we acknowledge to you that all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending, and that to withhold any measure of love from anything in your universe is to withhold that same measure from you.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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