Sunday, January 22, 2006

Fixing UUism:UUs need to minister to new immigrant groups

I'll add another idea to this discussion. UUs need to minister to new immigrant groups. For example, many Haitian immigrants are middle class. That makes one less boundary for the typical UU to cross. Again, I don't expect the UUA to act on this without a lot of pressure. But what if some committed people in a metro area identified a growing immigrant/cultural group, made personal contacts, raised funds for translation services, and just did it in a UU church in a community where Haitians live? I predict that in two generations there will be Haitian liberal Christian churches, some of whose members will be people who would have been happy to be UUs -- had they or their parents been evangelized. BTW, I know of one Ethical Culture Society has brought Haitian immigrants into membership. Haitians are just one example, of course. Two California UU churches have Spanish services and Laino/a members.

2 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

The Unitarian Church of Montreal is surrounded by all kinds of diverse cultural communities to say nothing of what we WASU*Us call the "French Fact". Guess how many "people of color" and French Canadians aka Quebecois have chosen the Unitarian Church of Montreal, aka the Mouvement Unitarien Universaliste du Quebec, as their faith community? An inignificant handful. . .

I can't help but wonder just how many people from diverse cultural backgrounds might have joined the Unitarian Church of Montreal, or at the very least considered it as a viable religious alternative, if Montreal Unitarians had not banned Creation Day from being celebrated in their alleged "Church" because Rev. Ray Drennan and the other "fundie" atheist "Humanists" who ran the show had remarkably devout blind faith that Creation Day was a "manipulative and secretive" "cult" and that I was too "deranged" (to say nothing of "psychotic") for their suspicious little minds. . .

As it is I suspect that most Montrealers would now agree that the Unitarian Church of Montreal is UNE EGLISE QUI N'EST PAS TRES CATHOLIQUE in more ways than one.

Anonymous said...

Robin -- why do you continually make the assumption that we all speak French? Most of us are neither French nor Canadian.