To some people of faith in the Roanoke Valley the word “ecumenism” is enough to turn them off, for it suggests an openness to people who do not think about God as they do.
To these folk, it seems to dilute the message that the only true faith resides in certain beliefs about Jesus, the Christ, his death on a cross “for our salvation” and a profession of loyalty to Him.
Granted that’s a narrow but highly effective way to grow big churches. It’s not the way of all.
Visiting on a recent Sunday afternoon the Roanoke Unitarian Universalist Church on Brandon Avenue at Grandin Road in Southwest Roanoke, I heard its minister, the Rev. Alex Richardson, define the group in which he is ordained as “radical ecumenism.” As he explained some of the principles to which his congregation adheres – more or less – I could see what he meant.
A lifelong Unitarian who has become my neighbor and friend sums it up on her license plate:OK2DV8.
I was at the UU gathering place with about 15 others for one of the Voices of Faith group’s visit to a nearby house of worship. Coordinated by Katie Zawacky, active in Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church, the “voices” has over the past eight years grown from a few women who met for prayer and study and representing several religious groups. It now meets at intervals during the year, has an opening prayer in which several faith representatives contribute and plans occasional meals together and educational programs of human concern.
At previous Voices of Faith gatherings, I’ve visited Divine Science and Church of the Brethren houses of worship and enlarged my knowledge of and respect for these highly different religious groups.
As Unitarian pastor Richardson pointed out in a half-hour informal talk, those who come to the building in Raleigh Court are distinctly different from many churchgoers. They have no equivalent of Baptism nor do they recite anything resembling the centuries-old Apostles or Nicene Creeds. If a visitor finds their principles match her own, a book of membership is signed, and jobs needed by the community are assumed.
Richardson, now in his early 60s, grew up in Old Southwest Roanoke. When I interviewed him as a new pastor two years ago, he told me of his spiritual journey that took him from a conservative Presbyterian manse through unbelief to his acceptance of his homosexuality and discovery in a Pennsylvania town that the humanism of a Unitarian congregation fit him well. One of two openly gay clergy nearby, he is married to a male professor at Radford University.
He traced the history of the Roanoke group, which now has about 100 attending worship, in a brick building across from Patrick Henry High School. It bears no cross on its steeple. This is not only because Unitarians give no special attention to the cross but also because the house of worship was built in 1948 by a Latter-day Saints (Mormon) congregation who use other symbols of distinction.
A local Mormon leader, Dr. Dane McBride, was at the Voices of Faith event. Because Richardson said he usually welcomes questions and comments from worshipers, he got many. Also present was Dr. Saleem Ahmed from the local Muslin community.
Because Unitarians and their close cousin the Universalists – now joined administratively on the national level – embrace so many folk who care for other people but do not follow a familiar belief about God, the denomination, as the minister put it ,”is a tiny speck “ in an ocean of people of faith.
From its emergence in Boston in 1817 when the pastor of a Congregationalist church openly rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, those who follow the people-centered principles have lived with divisions over their liberal views. Each time members stood for the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote and hold office, opposition to popular wars and most recently full acceptance of gay and transgendered persons, some members left, the minister pointed out.
In the 1950s, when the entertainment world was shaken by a charge of being supportive of Communism, the UU nationally came out in favor of it. In later years people who identified themselves as pagans came into the fold in some places including the Charlottesville church, Richardson revealed. Some in the local congregation identify themselves as “Non-theists.”
Standing by such countercultural views has guaranteed that the church tends to appeal to the well educated, the creative and the rebellious against what is seen as oppression. The minister noted that it’s centered in New England where it grew strongly in the pre-Civil War years, but was largely rejected in the Southeast because leaders condemned slavery.
In Roanoke, the pastor said, a tiny group of believers worshiped 125 years ago, but died away during the Great Depression only to be revived in the 1950s when the coming of General Electric brought many of the faith to the valley.
Today the house of worship is beautified by locally crafted stained glass windows symbolizing seven principles of the faith, which always celebrates the diversity of people under God and the inherent worth of humanity.
