Interview - Full Response

Thomas Moore   with The Rev. Wayne Walder

There is something I wanted to ask you.

We have a very prominent Unitarian church just down the street from us. And I have spoken around the country to many Unitarian churches, communities and I feel very much at home. I just get up there and I give my usual talk, and people come up to me and say, we didn’t know you were so Unitarian.

I’m just being myself, it’s not like I’m trying to adjust in any way. I realize that I fit so well into the thinking of the Unitarian community generally. I really appreciate their presence, my daughter goes to the youth group faithfully every week , it’s doing wonderful things and I go whenever she asks me to offer some support.

The side that I don’t understand, and there’s kind of a negative twist to this is, there are a lot of jokes about Unitarians. The jokes all talk about how the Ministers want to be everything to everybody and that leaves them without much definition for what they’re doing. Or people say, “I really like the ideas especially in the politics and in the cultural battles, this is where I want to be”. “But, I don’t feel solid spiritual guidance, solid ritual, I don’t find any real prayer”. These are the things that I hear.

I wonder, is this true everywhere?