News Article

Unitarian church appeals to people of all religions

Lynette Wilsonlwilson@pnj.com

“Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law. This is our covenant, to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.” — Church Covenant.

Freedom of religious expression attracted Laurie Winterberg to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pensacola in the late 1990s.

Raised Catholic and educated in Parochial schools, Winterberg, 56, who once thought she’d heard the call for religious service, left the Catholic church in her mid-20s. “Many of us come from different faiths based on our families; we tend to question things a bit more,” Winterberg said. “I can develop my own personal theology.”

Unitarian Universalists belong to a community of truth, service, holiness and love. They believe in challenging the orthodoxies of the time and prefer to face the real and the known world with integrity rather than yearn for the imagined and unknown hereafter. Social justice is at the center of Unitarian Universalist philosophy. The church began out of Christianity, but appeals to people of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and of no religious beliefs whatsoever. The Unitarians and the Universalists joined forces in 1961.

The Rev. Julie Kain writes her sermons, or lessons, culling the from the sacred texts of all religions and the writings of other Unitarian Universalists, including notables Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

The teachings often center around personal inspiration, relationships, a person’s work in the world and their contributions as citizens.

Kain became the church’s first full-time minister in August. The church will celebrate 50 years in the community in 2008.

Part of Kain’s responsibility is to lend stability to the church’s growing momentum and disassemble the veil of superstition surrounding Unitarian Universalists; they are a free association of people who come together around common religious values.

“We feel there are a lot of people in Pensacola who don’t know about us, but would be happy to find us,” Kain said. “I think in a city this size there are a lot of people looking for us.”

When Dolly Berthelot, 62, of Pensacola, first became associated with the church, her family, Roman Catholics, expressed concern.

“Truly they had a hard time when I left Catholicism. But finally when I was in my 40s, I shared the basic values and principles with my mother and she surprised me and said, ‘I believe all of that,’” Berthelot said.