Religious community is essential

Religious community is essential

The central task of the religious community.

At the 2012 General Assembly, more than 2,500 people sang, prayed, and shouted “Shut it down” at a vigil outside the notorious “Tent City” jail in Phoenix, Arizona.

© 2012 Nancy Pierce/UUA

© 2012 Nancy Pierce/UUA

Advertisement

The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.

It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.


Reprinted from Singing the Living Tradition, the Unitarian Universalist Association hymnal, in which this passage is Reading #580.

Advertisement