There is a quickening at the Church. Plans are being made to reopen as soon as it’s safe. (All of us have our own idea about what the requirements for safety are, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reopen when there’s a well-informed consensus.)
Plans are being made. The hiring of a Religious Education Coordinator is proceeding apace. There is money in the budget for the position.
I intend to offer two, possibly three Adult Education classes. To enable me to lead them, they will not be on Sunday mornings, but weekday evenings, or Sunday afternoons. The first one will be offered between late September and mid-November, and the second and possibly third in January-February and April-May.
I know what I want to offer first: Building Your Own Theology, Volume III, “Ethics.” My variation on the standard course will be that we take up not the ethics issues offered by the BYOT book but chosen from the problems of our current times. What is the ethical response to the question of (fill in the blank)? Most of the knotty questions have arguments for and arguments against. For example, what do we do about nuclear power? Nuclear power has great promise, but it has the great drawbacks of nuclear waste disposal, and the risk of Chernobyl-type accidents.
Such topics always result in lively discussions, and everyone learns from them.
I don’t have as clear an idea about what to explore in the series that will take place in 2022. If you have an idea about something you want hashed out, please let me know.
Rev. Leland Bond-Upson
One Comment
Sue Manago
I took one of the Building Your Own Theology Classes at the Elgin Unitarian Church, and was able to develop some spiritual tems and language practices that helped me to affirm my spiritual beliefs. I highly recommend taking this series of classes.