Alan & Brenda Leonard

> I am wondering... Why isn't the UU church Christian? Because they accept
> every one? Isn't that a basic tenant of Christianity?

The UU church is not considered Christian by other Christians. I don't
believe that they think they are, either. Christians believe in the Trinity
(Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and that Jesus Christ is the path to God. The
Unitarians believe in 1 God (unity, unitarian), but many routes to that God,
and each of us must find our own. By the way, the Unitarians go back to our
founding fathers (and then some), but merged with the Universalists only in
the last 50 years, I believe, if even that much.

> this, why aren't the Catholic, Mormon and other churches considered
> Christian, by other Christian denominations? They consider themselves
> Christian. I just don't get this whole *I'm a Christian, but they aren't
> because they are ____! I don't care if they call themselves Christian, their
> not!* attitude.

Catholics, back in Vatican II, made many changes to their practice of faith,
and accepting salvation outside the Catholic church is one of them.
However, getting those changes to be part of the belief system of the
members takes time. Lots of time. (Last rites is another, for example. It
went out with Vatican II, in the 1960's. You'd never know it, people still
ask for it.)

Many protestants, particularly the "mainline protestans" like Lutherans,
Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. have no problem with Catholics. Some other,
more conservative denominations do. The emphasis of the Catholic faith is
on the sacraments (baptism, communion, etc.), and less on your personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. To some people, the sacraments are the
route to a relationship with God, to others they are so much ritual hooey,
and Catholics are missing the boat by not having that relationship with
Christ. Hence, they aren't Christian enough for certain folks.

Mormons consider themselves Christian, and technically, they are, since
Christians are the followers of Christ. However, the Book of Mormon, and
the 3 other Mormon books that form the basis of their faith tell stories of
a different nature of Jesus Christ, which do not come under the commonly
accepted canon of Christian literature, the Bible. Because their belief
system is SO different than most other Christian denominations, for the most
part, they are not accepted as Christian by other Christians.

The Jews have every bit as many problems with fundamentalism and who's
Jewish and who's not as the rest of us. Those of us with Christian
backgrounds just aren't as familiar with them.

>In fact the Catholics and Episcopalians are getting really chummy!

The Episcopal church is the American branch of the Anglican church (Church
of England), which split from the Catholics after after the Reformation &
Counter-Reformation, which is where most Protestant churches began. As a
result, they have always had very close ties to the Catholics. To an
extent, the Episcopal church stands between Catholic and Protestant; a bit
of each and not totally either. In the last few years, however, the
Episcopal church signed a major agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran
Church (the largest American Lutheran denomination) which basically says
they can share everything from pastors onwards.

>So the fundamentalists are really just trying to protect people's
>souls by pointing out who is and isn't Christian. Sort of the Consumer
>Reports of the True Christian faith ;-) (I'm teasing partly but not totally.

I know you're teasing, Joyce, but it's amazing how accurate that really is.
Some Christians can be very exclusive about who is and who isn't saved,
based on whether they go to the "right" Church and whether their faith is
true enough. That frightens me some, that Christians can be so unloving,
but also that we have so much trouble respecting differences and seeing how
our beliefs are similar.

I'm married to a guy that's TOTALLY into this stuff, and I've learned it by
default. ;) I hope that if you're still reading that it was somehow
useful. If not, you should have deleted me long ago!! :)

brenda