Thursday 17 January 2008

War of words over Women's World Day of Prayer snub to Unitarians

Ed: The public comments are interesting - how would you handle them?

A WAR of words has broken out after three leading Christian churches snubbed an event to bring women together in prayer.

The Church of England, Baptist and Methodist churches in Padiham rejected the invitation of the town's Unitarians for the Women's World Day of Prayer service.

Clergy said they had taken the decision because Unitarians did not believe in the Holy Trinity, that is the father, the son and the holy spirit.

But the Unitarian Church said that the decision was "pathetic" and an "insult". Read more
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1 comment:

Robin Edgar said...

My name is Robin Edgar and I am an "excommunicated" Unitarian from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Is it really "pathetic" and an "insult" for Trinitarian Christians to politely decline an invitation to participate in Women's World Day of Prayer from definitely non-Trinitarian, and possibly even outright non-theist, Unitarians? It is my understanding that Women's World Day of Prayer is a specifically Trinitarian Christian ecumenical movement that began over a century ago. Have Unitarians ever at any time participated in Women's World Day of Prayer in the past? I do not quite understand how or why non-Trinitarian Christians took it upon themselves to invite Trinitarian Christians to a religious observance that has traditionally been a Trinitarian Christian event.

I can't help but wonder if this was not a knowing and willful attempt by misguided Unitarians to create some controversy and thus reap some sympathy and free publicity for their movement. It seems to me that, if they really wanted to participate in Women's World Day of Prayer, it would have been more appropriate for these Unitarians to request the possibility of doing so from Women's World Day of Prayer organizers rather than unilaterally deciding that they would hold a WWDP observance themselves and invite Christians to participate.

It looks like this controversy is part of an ongoing feud. "Life President" of the Unitarian church Joyce Thompson said: "We have had problems with Pendle Street Baptist Church and St. Leonard's for about six years now. They do not invite us to their services. And they won't accept that we should have anything to do with it just because we are Unitarian. We invited them and they have just snubbed us."

No kidding "Life President" Thompson. Did you really expect these two Trinitarian Christian churches to accept your invitation to a Unitarian appropriation and usurption of a traditionally Trinitarian Christian religious observance? What truly is "pathetic" is this misguided Unitarian attempt to create and benefit from some manufactured religious controversy. People might want to give some thought as to what is really going through Unitarian minds in this conflict. . .

And just what is with this "Life President" title for Joyce Thompson? Unitarians pretend to be a democratic "church" but with titles like "Life President" they look about as "democratic" as Fidel Castro's Cuba or Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. . . God knows that I have had my own difficulties with "Stalinistic" Unitarians who have been described as "the Church of the Far-Left" in US newspapers.