Origin story of the NAUA – According to Chat GPT

The Origin of the North American Unitarian Association (NAUA)
 
The North American Unitarian Association (NAUA) was founded in 2022 as a response to concerns that the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) had shifted away from its core values of religious freedom, intellectual inquiry, and diversity of thought.
 
 
A group of Unitarian Universalists, including congregational leaders and laypeople, felt that the UUA had become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian, prioritizing ideological conformity over open dialogue and free conscience.
 
 
These individuals sought to revive Unitarianism and Universalism as traditions centered on freedom of belief, rational thought, and respect for diverse perspectives. The NAUA was created as an alternative association that would promote liberal religious pluralism and uphold the values of individual autonomy and open inquiry, resisting the growing influence of political orthodoxy within the UUA.
 
 
The NAUA serves as a platform for those who feel alienated by the UUA’s increasingly doctrinaire approach, providing a space for those who believe in freedom to think for oneself and the dignity of diverse beliefs.
 
By Chat GPT Courtesy Jan Anderson, March  2025.
 
 

Feb. 2025 Saturday Worship with JD Stillwater

NAUA 3rd Saturday Worship Service – Nature’s Scripture: the Interfaith Promise of Science.

Underlying the human world of strife and separation is an oft-neglected landscape of commonality between faiths: the natural world. At precisely the time when our religious and political divisions threaten the existence of life on Earth, science offers a sweeping interfaith vista filled with revelations and insights as spiritually meaningful as ancient scriptures. Read as “scripture,” science offers a common text for all the world’s faiths.

January 2025 Service – Enlightment Values

Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance. January’s monthly worship service focused on the Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance, the very same values that were adopted by the NAUA and that stand at the core of Western liberal tradition. The full service title is: “The Enlightenment Values of Freedom, Reason, Tolerance; Advancing the Human Condition Materially and Spiritually; Our Core Strengths.” The worship team will make this a group effort. Join in exploring and honoring the primary core values and Principles of our liberal faith.

Jan. 14, 2025 – When we Almost Got it Right – Societies that Worked

As we hear distressing stories of violence and oppression from around the world, we may benefit from reminding ourselves of times and places when human beings did organize themselves into durable just societies.

In this talk Dr. Reimers discusses some of these times and places: from the world’s first cities in 4000 BCE, to  the Indus Valley civilization, widely revered as the most advanced society of 2000 BCE, to the small democratic city states in Central America, which held off the encroachments of the Aztec empire for centuries, to the peaceful coexistence among Christians, Jews and Muslims in 12th-century Andalusia  which lit the spark for the European Renaissance a century later.

Dr. Reimers further discusses what principles and strategies they used to organize their societies, how they ended, and how their experience may inform our ideas of justice today.

Dr. Mark Reimers is a quantitative neuroscientist who has worked at the National Institutes of Health, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and Michigan State University. He was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia and UU forum in Lansing Michigan. He has lectured on a wide variety of scientific, humanist, religious, and behavioral subjects.

Solstice Service, 2024

I’ve been attending Unitarian Solstice services for as long as I can remember, but I have never enjoyed one as much as this Solstice. Maybe it was the music, the poems, Rev Manning’s talk or just being (virtually) with 50 old and new friends.

From all of us at NAUA, warmest wishes for a thoughtful, rejuvenating and joyful holiday season!