I got this in an email from my minister. He’s a blogger too, his site is Monkey Mind Online. I’m posting this in the best tradition of putting it out there.

Some might be surprised I go to church. Yeah, I know that Ann Coulter wrote a book called, ‘Faithless’. She wrote it about people like us. We don’t rate, on the spiritual rankings.

A few years ago, a clerk in Texas decided to rush in where philosophers, theologians and constitutional scholars fear to tread and decided that Unitarianism isn’t a religion–therefore not tax exempt.

Well, as a fundamentalist Unitarian, I declare that it has been revealed to me that the Texas clerk is going to Heck. Heck is a place where you listen to an interminable lecture about Ralph Waldo Emerson that rambles endlessly and never gets to the point, and then you have to drink coffee that is watery, with non-dairy creamer, and no one talks to you. And there are folding chairs that are even less comfortable than the pews. And you’ll spend eternity there, bwa ha ha, while those you persecuted eat bagels and read the New York Times. And they might drop a section on you, but it’s last week’s.

Texas clerk, don’t go to Heck. Repent today.

After all, who is a mere clerk to say whom God has welcomed or cast out? That’s for more important people, like Bishops. Bishops don’t get put on hold when they call God. They don’t get put on hold when they call the Governor, either. I don’t know what happens when they arrive at the velvet rope in front of the Gates of Heaven, and meet a rowdy group of Evangelicals who think Catholics aren’t real Christians. I won’t be anywhere near that brawl anyway.

Anyway, I do belong to a church, and I have a minister. This is what my minister wrote about Patrick Kennedy…

Dear Representative Kennedy,

I am under the impression you may be church shopping.

On behalf of the First Unitarian Church of Providence, I would like to invite you to consider visiting with us to see if this might not be your spiritual home.

I am a longtime admirer of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly its traditions of a profound spirituality and, by its best lights, a commitment to human dignity and justice.

Our liberal religious spirituality is based upon a profound respect for the individual while also knowing we are all woven out of each other and the world in a wondrous web of interdependence.

Based upon this insight we are also committed to human dignity and justice.

We share with the Catholic Church a commitment to racial justice and to the defense of immigrants, the homeless, the poor and others who suffer at the hands of the powerful and indifferent.

However, by our best lights, we have engaged some the great questions in somewhat different ways. We fiercely uphold the rights of women; in fact we have ordained women to our ministry since the middle of the nineteenth century. And even knowing there is a tragic element involved, as an Association we defend a woman’s right to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term. Similarly, as an Association, we uphold the worth and dignity of bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgendered people, seeking full civil rights for BGLT people, including marriage equality.

The First Unitarian Church in Providence is the third oldest congregation in the city. It has a long history of seeking a spirituality grounded within our lived lives, and manifested through acts of mercy and justice.

We are located at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets. I’ve loved that since I came to serve among these good people and saw the signs. ‘Benefit’ and ‘Benevolent’ speaks of what our hope to be is, and often of who we are.

We welcome you and your family to visit us at any time, and to see if we might not be your spiritual home.

Yours, standing on the side of Love,

James

The Reverend James Ishmael Ford