A Church That Embraces All Religions and Rejects ”˜Us’ vs. ”˜Them’

Some of the congregants began arriving to help. There was Steve Crawford, who had spent his youth in Campus Crusade for Christ, and Gloria Parker, raised Lutheran and married to a Catholic, and Patrick McKenna, who had been brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness and now called himself a pagan.

They had come together with about 20 other members to celebrate the end of their third year as the congregation of the Living Interfaith Church, the holy mash-up that Mr. Greenebaum had created. Yearning for decades to find a religion that embraced all religions, and secular ethical teachings as well, he had finally followed the mantra of Seattle’s indie music scene: “D.I.Y.,” meaning “do it yourself.”

So as the service progressed, the liturgy moved from a poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi to the “passing of the peace” greeting that traced back to early Christianity to a Buddhist responsive reading to an African-American spiritual to a rabbinical song.

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Posted in * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, * International News & Commentary, * Religion News & Commentary, America/U.S.A., Multiculturalism, pluralism, Other Faiths, Parish Ministry, Religion & Culture

5 comments on “A Church That Embraces All Religions and Rejects ”˜Us’ vs. ”˜Them’

  1. Archer_of_the_Forest says:

    I guess it is true if everything is true, then nothing is true.

  2. nwlayman says:

    That middleschool is about 2 miles from where I live. It’s kind of hard
    to decide whether it means anything to go there or not.

  3. Undergroundpewster says:

    30 congregants pretty much defines the typical temporary adherents to this idea. I pray that they will take the time to study the Gospel of Jesus Christ and accept Him as the Way.

  4. Emerson Champion says:

    This is the epitome of “spiritual, but not religious” as well as syncretism.

  5. Cennydd13 says:

    I’m reminded of +Swing’s ‘United Religions Initiative,’ in which pagans, Unitarians, many others are brought together. It doesn’t show any signs of growing.