Mark's Web Site: A quiet place with just a bit of pretension.

"Any one, who traces the history of what is called Christianity, will see that nothing changes more from age to age than the doctrines taught as Christian, and insisted on as essential to Christianity and personal salvation. " - Theodore Parker

These words are as relevant today as they were when Theodore Parker wrote them in 1841. (see http://www.prism.net/user/fcarpenter/parker.html) There are any number of theologians professing on television and radio, in print and blog, that Christian salvation is today what is was in the days of Jesus. I wonder if Jesus would know his religion today. Parker goes on in his sermon to declare that Christianity would have the same essential truth even if Jesus had not lived! Islamic truth comes directly from God, so Muhammad's role was as the conduit. And would Buddhism not have the same essential truth if the Buddha had not lived? My point is that religions gain their power from revealing the essential truths of living, and the people who bring these truths are less important than the truths themselves.

Unitarian Universalism, I believe, has tried to access the kernel of religious truth without the accoutrements of religion. Both originating religions came up from the Christianity that Parker preached about, yet the current melding has few resemblances. Have we truly cut to the chase and, in our seven principles (http://www.uua.org/aboutuua/principles.html), mined the essence of what all religions seek? Or have we distilled religions to the least common denominator? It is to explore.