Unitarian Universalist churches are NOT required to be led by approved clergy trained in Bible-based seminaries. Most UU churches have ministers who are trained in a UU seminary, which provides an interfaith religious education. In fact, there is not even any requirement that a UU church’s leader must have a seminary degree at all, though in practice most do.

Hymn-singing is common in UU churches, but is not a requirement.

The culture of the UU churches has been influenced a lot by Christianity, since both the Unitarian and the Universalist churches (which in 1961 merged to form the Unitarian Universalist Association) were originally Christian denominations. But in recent decades, there has been a strong move in an interfaith direction in most UU churches. Some remnants of Christian religious culture remain, however, especially in UU Sunday worship services.

Many UU churches have small groups that hold meetings for specific religious interests, such as UU Buddhists, UU Pagans, UU Christians, UU Humanists, or whatever else. Such groups can do whatever they want in their meetings. It’s a very eclectic religious organization.

By the way, I live far away from North America, in a country with no apparent UU presence. Since the UU’s approve of other religions, I suppose they should simply recognize the religions which are already here, if sufficiently liberal versions can be found. But surely that’s not how it works…?

You wrote:
“You say that the Baha’i Faith is unitarian in the theological sense of the word. I suppose what you mean by that is that Baha’is believe in one God, as opposed to three.”

Well, that’s only one aspect of it. Another aspect is that Bahaism teaches that all religions come from the One God or Source, like different manifestations or apprehensions of a single underlying Truth. Bahaism sees all the great prophets and holy teachers as one in spirit, despite the differences in their messages based on the context of different times and cultures.

You wrote:
“What do you propose to say to UUs when they discover that Baha’u’llah claimed to override the religions of the past, and that his teachings are the standard by which others must be weighed?”

Many prophets and religious founders other than Bahaullah said the same basic thing. Certainly Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad all did, in one way or another. Buddha also did, in the sense that he claimed to bring a superior understanding of reality and path to enlightenment than Hinduism before him. The great thing about being a UU is that one can choose to believe that all of these spiritual teachers were somewhat bombastic and exaggerated in their claims and rhetoric, rather than having to take it all literally and agree with everything they said.

You wrote:
“What will they think of his grandiose claims and angry denunciations of his enemies?”

What do they think of all the horrible stuff in the Bible about how God supposedly ordered the Jews to commit genocide against the Canaanites? Or the laws of the Torah that were presumably taught by Moses, which include prescriptions for stonings and other extreme brutality? Or the similar harsh legal penalties and jihad against the polytheists described in the Quran? Or the fact that Jesus saw himself playing a Messianic role for the Jewish people and perhaps even for the whole world (pretty grandiose, no?). Or Jesus’ angry denunciations of his religious opponents, the Pharisees, who were nothing more than a competing sect of Judaism at the time?

The more I study religions, the more I realize that by definition, religious founders and reformers who actually succeed and make the history books are almost universally men of large egos and bold rhetoric and actions. And I have come to realize that this is just the way it works in this world, for better or for worse. It’s part of the natural process of spiritual and civilizational progress. We must be able to accept that historical reality rather than trying to explain it away or pretending that it only exists in one religion but not another. UUs, I think, are more willing and able to do that than people who belong to more conservative churches.

You wrote:
“It seems to me that his message, taken in full, is sure to contradict the inclusive openness of UUism.”

It entirely depends on which aspects of Bahaullah’s message one chooses to regard as either essential or incidental. In general, I regard much of what the Haifan tradition regards as essential to be incidental, and much of what they regard as incidental to be essential. Basically, the Haifans take all the conservative and authoritarian aspects of the religion and emphasize those things, whereas I prefer to let those things fade into the mists of history as artifacts of the cultural context in which Bahaullah and the early Bahais lived, and instead emphasize the aspects of his/their message that are of enduring relevance to modern society.

You wrote:
“What is it about the Baha’i Faith that you think will fill any need they may be feeling”

They need (whether or not they yet recognize it) to have a message to passionately proclaim to the world based on a stated belief that their progressive spiritual and social principles are in some sense the Will of Heaven rather than just nice ideas that one may safely ignore without much consequence for one’s soul or for the spiritual and material wellbeing of human civilization collectively.

The UU church will not grow much and will not exert much influence in society unless it comes to be perceived as something more than a social club for intellectuals to get together and talk about how they don’t believe in anything. What it needs to become, for the health of its own future, is the church perceived by the public as being at the forefront of proclaiming with vigor that the Almighty is on the side of progressive religious and social change.

A dose of liberal Bahaism could do the trick. The early Bahais were cutting edge reformers for their time and culture, and they had the zeal and the courage to make great sacrifices, suffer and even die for their faith. Sure, the Bahai religion has lost its edge because time marches on and progress occurs at an ever faster rate nowadays, and that has meant that some of the Bahai teachings already seem outdated. The answer to this is for Bahais to put the outdated stuff aside and focus on the aspects of their tradition that are still progressive and have not yet been fully achieved in the world. There’s a lot there to work with.

Eric

You say that the Baha’i Faith is unitarian in the theological sense of the word. I suppose what you mean by that is that Baha’is believe in one God, as opposed to three. But of course you understand that unitarians mean much more than that when they say “Unitarian”. What do you propose to say to UUs when they discover that Baha’u'llah claimed to override the religions of the past, and that his teachings are the standard by which others must be weighed? What will they think of his grandiose claims and angry denunciations of his enemies? It seems to me that his message, taken in full, is sure to contradict the inclusive openness of UUism. It seems to me that you’re going to have a tough time getting UUs to buy into it. The UUA is an association of creedless, inclusive churches which do not discriminate according to sex or sexual orientation, and a proud heritage of tolerance, reason, and social action. Some of the least theistic among them are the most joyous. What is it about the Baha’i Faith that you think will fill any need they may be feeling, and where do you find this quality exhibited by Bahá’ís?