Or at least if some of the Christians I know DO limit their sources of inspiration to the Christian faith, they’ve done an awesome job of hiding that, appearing to be as capable of being inspired by, say, great art or secular wisdom, as anyone else.

Thus a Christian reading Hayes’ words gets to think “Not only do these UU folks call themselves by this snotty name that suggests they have transcended what I believe, but they justify doing so by saying they do something obvious that everyone does. What a stupid religion!”

Again, people with better theological heads than mine are arguing whether the term post-Christian applies to us. That’s fine. I just don’t think any salvos in the argument should take place in the Washington Post.

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I’ll agree that a UUA spokesperson should not use the term without explaining what Post-Christian means.

Fortunately, she did explain as one can see with the following quote from Janet Hayes in the Washington Post:

“We include the teaching of Jesus and we appreciate the wisdom of the Bible, but we don’t limit our sources of inspiration to the Christian faith.”

Since she explained what the term means and it appears to be an accurate description of who we are theologically today, why exactly are you upset?

:^)

((and admittedly sometimes people don’t have that right - but if draw that line there, it will mark the line on how we treat other groups in and out of the UUA as well))

The comparison I used at Radical Hapa was the word “Niggardly.” Now “Niggardly” comes from Norwegian, means “stingy” and is a perfectly grammatically correct term to use if you want to describe, say, Uncle Scrooge.

That said, it is a term that SOUNDS offensive to the average audience and spokespeople shouldn’t be using the term because it distracts from the message by drawing a lot of attention to itself because it sounds like it means something offensive even though it doesn’t.

Much like you can say “niggardly” all you want in Oslo, the term “post-Christian” is perfectly OK in theologically educated company that knows what it means. (There are smart people on both sides of the question of whether it applies to UUism, but it is, at least, something that can be argued.)

But if you’re using the term, say, in an interview with reporters, and not explaining it, you are likely needlessly pissing people off and if you’re a spokesperson, you shouldn’t be doing that.

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