20 January, Rev Geoff Usher: “Put Your Mind to a Kinder You.”
Do you make New Year Resolutions? Do you manage to keep them or do they weaken and give way? The quest for the best can be a movement away from affection. It can become a willingness to love only the best we think we can create, rather than the Good that Life has given us.
Quirky Transcendentalist? Writer, activist, perhaps particularly influenced by the teachings and philosophy of progressive Unitarian scholars of her time.
10th February, No meeting
17th February, Martin Horlacher: “Gaslighting, God and Ancient Greece”
“Gaslighting”, as a psychological term, refers to a manipulative technique often used to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of targeted individuals or groups, in order to deliberately make them question their own memories, perception and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction and outright deception, it attempts to destabilise the victim and to delegitimise the victim’s belief in themselves. Although an exceedingly common form of abuse employed in everyday interpersonal relationships, the truth is that it has for so long been the actual basis for the nature of religious belief, particularly in the Abrahamic tradition, with its persistent demands of unquestioning obedience and threats of exclusion and eternal damnation. No doubt, it has existed and done terrible damage in every human society and civilisation that there has ever been – and yet, how does the destructive and undermining influence of Abrahamic religious hypocrisy and duplicity compare to the best and brightest elements of Ancient Greek introspection and intellectualism, particularly on this crucial topic?
7 April, Rev. Rex Hunt. “It’s Earth Day. Pay Attention”
Actually Earth Day will be 21 April but it is also Easter Day and we will not be meeting. What the kangaroo and the koala are to Earth, we are to the universe. The secrets of the universe are not different from us.
14th April No Meeting
21st April, No Meeting
28th April, Rev. Geoff Usher, “Some Truths We Hold.”
It is a misconception that the religion of Unitarians can be defined only by what we do not believe. People from dogmatic religous backgrounds find it incomrehensible that there can be such a thing as an undogmatic faith. They mistake a lack of dogmatism for a lack of positive faith. In the free, liberal rational formulation of faith, we Unitarians hold truths which give us a solid foundation in the present, and a constructive direction toward the future.
5th May, Morandir Armson, “Paganism and Unitarianism: Where Do We Go From Here?”
Neo-Paganism is a world faith which has little in the way of organisation. This has led to a situation in which Pagan clergy have been unable to take part in the social structures which other world faiths are able to participate in. This talk will examine the role which Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism could possibly take in the Pagan movement.”
12th May, No Meeting
19th May, Ginna Hastings, “The Inspiration of Wordsworth”
Ginna will present the talk on which Max was working before his death. It will include some recordings of Wordsword’s work.
26th May, Martin Horlacher: “False Dawns, Straw Dogs and Agonistic Liberalism: An Analysis of the Political and Philosophical Arguments of John Gray”
British philosopher John Gray is a controversial figure. In several influential books and notable lectures and interviews, he argues that free market globalisation is an unstable Enlightenment project currently in the process of disintegration, and also attacks philosophical humanism, a worldview he sees as originating in religions. Most contentious, however, is his theory of “agonistic liberalism” – the idea that conflict, rather than discussion, is the basis of social change.
2nd June, Martin Horlacher: “The Banality of Evil”
Hannah Arendt was on to something – let’s just hope she didn’t get it wrong.
9th June, No meeting
16th June, Rev. Rex Hunt,: “Heretics, The Trinity, and Ecclesiastical Politics…”
“Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin” (Robert G. Ingersoll).
We need to reclaim the many condemned as heretics in the past (and present),
and to acknowledge them for what they really are: heroes of reason and faith.
23rd June, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Sikhism Part 1: The Ten Gurus, the Khalsa and the Five Ks”
30 June, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Sikhism Part 2: The Religion and the Practice.”
7 July, Martin Horlacher: ” Stoicism: Life in the Moment.”
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world. For the Stoics, happiness is to be found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, and by working together and treating each other fairly and justly. One of the major founding approaches to Western virtue ethics, and with an emphasis on the importance of behaviour over simple words, the Stoic tradition still has much to offer us today.
14 July, No Meeting
21 July, Carolyn Donnelly: “The Life and works of Unitarian Norwegian Musician and Composer Edward Greig.”
28 July, Morandir Armson: “How do we understand Satanism? Is it just a prank designed to highlight religious hypocrisy?”
Morandir will examine: left-wing revolutionary Satanism, Satanic feminism, the Church of the Process and the rise of the Satanic Temple.
4 August, Martin Horlacher: “Hippies for Yahweh, Apostles for Aquarius”
The hippie movement of the countercultural Summer of Love in the late 1960s, misguided as it may well have been, was at least an honest attempt at challenging the conventions and corrupt institutions of its day, and of finding a better way to live. As such, it is actually very similar to another movement from two millennia ago – a certain Jewish cult from ancient Palestine…
11 August, No service
18 August, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Theophilus Lindsey: A Father of Modern Unitarianism”
Theophilus Lindsey resigned as Vicar of Catterick, Yorkshire, in 1773, and the following year established the first openly Unitarian chapel in England, in Essex Street, London. Joseph Priestly, Thomas Belsham, and Lindsey have been called “the three fathers of modern Unitarianism”. This year marks the 250th anniversary of Lindsey’s first meeting with Priestley, and the 245th anniversary of the opening of the Essex Church where the headquarters of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches now stand.
25 August, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Foundations for Friendship and Maturity”
You can love certain people whom you do not like, but a friend is one whom you like and admire, and in whose company you are profoundly at home. Friendship is not possible without considerable maturity, for friendship is in fact shared maturity: and the sign and gauge of one’s maturity is precisely one’s capacity to be a friend.
1 September, Martin Horlacher: “Postmodern Conservatism”
One doesn’t often think of ideological conservatism having that much in common with philosophical postmodernism – indeed, one might traditionally assume the two are essentially antithetical to one another. And yet, in this age where those on the political right frequently toss phrases like “fake news” and “alternative facts” around with gusto, it seems the line between truth and falsehood is becoming increasingly blurred
8 September, No Meeting
15 September, Morandir Armson: “Gaia and Environmental Activism: An Examination of Gaia-Beliefs in the Neo-Pagan Community”
The Gaia mythos is one of the most common belief systems among Neo-Pagans. But how does this mythos unite the Pagan community, and how does it divide it?This talk will examine Gaia-style belief systems in Neo-pagan communities
22 September, Rev. Geoff Usher: “In Memory of Gunpowder Joe”
Joseph Priestley is best known as the scientist who discovered oxygen. Few people remember him as a minister of religion, but science took second place to his calling as a Unitarian minister.
In 1791, Priestley was Minister of the Unitarian New Meeting, Birmingham. As leading supporters of reform in England, Unitarians had initially welcomed the French Revolution, which began with the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, 1789. They saw it as extending to the French people liberties that the English already enjoyed. During four days of rioting by the “Church and King” mob in Birmingham, Priestley’s house was ransacked and burnt. His library, laboratory and manuscripts were destroyed and he barely escaped with his life. Unable to resume his ministry, he went to America and became a major force in developing Unitarianism there.
29 September, Rev Rex A E Hunt : “The Trouble with Tribalism: A Retelling of the Scientific Thoughts of Marcelo Gleiser”
Marcelo Gleiser, a native of Brazil, is a world famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books to his credit—his latest being The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected. He is also into fly-fishing, a hobby he says that teaches humility.
In 2019 Gleiser was awarded the Templeton Prize, the first Latin American to be awarded The Templeton Prize. The Templeton Prize is an annual award granted to a living person who, in the estimation of the judges, has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.
Humans are tribal animals.
There is no question that belonging to a tribe had essential survival value to our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago.
But are tribes necessary…?
10 November, No meeting
17 November, Martin Horlacher: “Cosmism and the Origins of Transhumanism: An Overview of the Philosophy and Ideas of Nikolai Fyodorov”
Russian cosmism is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia during the 19th and 20th centuries. A precursor to the 21st-century philosophical and scientific movement known as transhumanism, it entailed a broad theory of natural philosophy, combining elements of religion and ethics with ideas about the potential future of the human race. Perhaps its best known and most outspoken advocate was the Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, who advocated radical life extension, physical immortality and even resurrection of the dead – all using scientific methods, rather than religious ones.
24 November, Rev. Geoff Usher: “Spiritual Gifts for Human Needs”
Unless you are a contortionist, you can see less than two thirds of your body without the aid of a mirror. For some parts, like the back of your head, you need two mirrors. We cannot see our whole selves without the aid of the mirrors which other people hold up for us. We are incomplete psychologically or emotionally without the companionship, the support, the love of other people.
1 December, Rev. Rex Hunt: “Cards, Carols, and Claus: Christmas in Religion and Popular Culture.”
Following on from this time last year, I want to briefly present some examples of Christmas popular culture.
I have chosen four:
(i) the Christmas Card,
(ii) the world’s most popular Christmas Song,
(iii) Christmas ‘Carols by Candlelight’,
(iv) the artistic development of Santa Claus.
8 December, No Meeting
15 December, Christmas Party Service
22, 29 December, and 5, 12 January, No Meeting