Over at First Things, David Mills has a good column today on “The Advent Search”. A sampling:

“Derek? Who’s Derek?” begins a flyer I have in my files. “He isn’t a prophet or a god, just a member of the Unitarian-Universalist Community at Pitt. You see, we draw upon many sources in our search for truth. Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism. And most importantly You [sic]. After all, you determine your own faith.”

The flyer then explains that you don’t have to believe anything to be a member of this community, and concludes: “It’s a religious community for people who question. People who look for life’s meaning. People who think. People just like you and Derek.”

But maybe not a good community for people like you and Derek. The trouble with this kind of religion is that no one in the Unitarian-Universalist community expects you to join in order to move on to a committed Christianity or Judaism or Islam. The community isn’t really about searching at all, because real searching leads to finding. I don’t think I’m being unfair to the Unitarian-Universalists by saying that they are not really big on finding.

Read the rest, which includes a quote from Chesterton’s Heretics that I read myself within the past week or two.  I’d say that a great deal of what Mr. Mills says also applies to the liberal wings of the mainline Christian denominations.  (Regular port-swillers are perfectly well familiar with my belief that the Episcopal Church, at least, has slid into Uni-land.)

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