Monday, October 27, 2008

Reverend Church

Reverend Forrest Church was interviewed on "Fresh Air" and I just had to post the link to the interview. Brilliant stuff.

You don't often get to hear religious leaders say things like "if God caused the tsunami...he is a bastard" :) (The context of that quote is around the 4'40" mark in the clip, when Rev. Church talks about how he does not believe in an interventionist God.)

If you are interested, you can also read this essay by Reverend Church titled "There is no hell" (link to Beliefnet) and a recent article on him in the NYT.

3 comments:

wildflower seed said...

It is gratifying to see something like the First Unitarian Church. Earlier this year, I became curious about Quakerism, and even though I found myself instantly smitten with George Fox's radicalism, yet I found that today's practising Quakers are for the most part, far from radicals in any sense of the word. There is a fake attachment to principles of "consensus" and "brotherhood" etc. etc. The FUC is, I think, a closer lived example of Fox's original word. I first encountered the FUC in a book called Psychoactive Sacramentals, which collects essays on entheogens and religion. The first chapter in the book is a sermon delivered by Reverend Mike Young at a FUC in Honolulul. Young had been one of the participants of the Good Friday Psilocybin experiment in the '60s. His sermon is illuminating. Its nice to see such a variety of sacramental approaches to divinity within the same church.

km said...

WFS: Thanks for that great comment. So much to learn here.

I did not know that Church was a part of that experiment. (OK, I did not even know about the existence of such an experiment and now I'm curious)

I must say I have next to no understanding of First Unitarian's principles, so I really enjoyed reading about it and listening to Reverend Church's views on death and God and life.

km said...

WFS: just saw your email. (It's the Unitarian Church, not the FIRST Unitarian Church..)