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Finding My Religion

Jill

This makes me want to start going to church again.

Unity Fellowship Church, housed in a gray former warehouse in East New York, is the New York outpost of the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, the only Christian denomination explicitly set up to serve gay, bisexual and transgender members of minority groups. Unity, founded in Los Angeles in 1982, has 12 churches nationwide, including two in New Jersey – one in Newark and another in New Brunswick.

(…)

A gay church in a battered neighborhood led by a black minister with AIDS may sound like something dreamed up by a politically correct screenwriter. But Unity is the very real, raucous spiritual home for hundreds who feel cast out by traditional churches, which for many people serve as the heart of the community and an extension of the family.

“There are churches here and there” that welcome gay worshipers, said Gerard Williams, an assistant minister who teaches the Sunday school course on homosexuality and the Bible at Unity, “but ain’t nobody going to love you like we do.”

Too bad it’s in East New York. Luckily there are lots of progressive churches (and other houses of religion) all over NYC. If you know of any good places of worship (in NY or elsewhere), feel free to leave their info in the comments.

9 thoughts on Finding My Religion

  1. Huh, I wonder if this is affiliated in any way with the Unity Church denomination? (Maybe not, as Unity was founded ’bout 100 years before this church and has quite a few churches all over the U.S.)

    So rare to see anything related to the actual denomination that I grew up in, I guess I get excited. I hope they’re affiliated, that would be very cool.

  3. Where have you found these progressive churches?

    A big reason I stopped going to church in NYU is that I found the Newman centers to be as pre-Vatican 2 as you can get. Coming from an area where churches were more liberal on campus, usually very pro-choice and pro-marriage-equality among other things, I was surprised to find college students my own age who were against homosexuality, legal abortion, and even contraception for married couples. Any NYU catholics who have noticed the same thing please shout.

    Please let me know where I can find more progressive churches in NYC, and maybe I will start going again.

  4. I’m not sure where the progessive Catholic churches are… I know Judson Memorial on Washington Square is pretty good, though. And Universalist Unitarian churches tend to be more liberal. Any one else know?

  5. Riverside is great. They have an authentic committment to social justice. It’s uptown on Riverside Dr at 120th Street.

  6. There are currently three Unitarian Universalist (the usual order) in Manhattan currently: The Community Church of New York UU at 40 E. 35th St; The Fourth Universalist Society at 160 Central Park West; and Unitarian Church of All Souls at 1157 Lexington Ave (at 80th St) (this one is the largest of the three). They all have their own character so it’s worth trying them out if you feel like traveling. My sister attended, I believe, Fourth Universalist while she was living in New York and enjoyed it.

    Or you can find UU congregations by searching at the UUA’s website. Over all, to say that UU churchs tend to be more liberal is an understatement in many cases. They all tend to reject strict doctrine and nearly all are open and affirming (UU ministers have been doing same-sex commitment ceremonies for years and UU ministers in Massachusetts were among the first to begin doing same-sex marriages).

  8. I’m pretty sure there are at least two Quaker meetings in NY, one uses some space in Riverside Church, and there’s a full-on Meetinghouse down on 15th street. I haven’t actually gotten to one yet (dilinquent Quaker that I’ve been) but if they’re anything like the one’s I used to attend down near Philly, they’ll be pretty darn progressive (and pretty friendly too).

    Of course, how willing you are to go to a Quaker meeting is up to you, I know in some folk’s eyes we don’t count as a “standard” protestant church for some reason. I think the no minister thing throws people.

  9. My parents are members of a United Church of Christ congregation in Connecticut. You may recall that the UCC is the church that had those TV ads with the couple that might have been gay that all the networks pulled. The national church organization actually adopted a resolution a few years ago to be “open and affirming” to all individuals who want to worship (regardless of orientation or gender or race or whatever… the old minister actually conducted a few gay weddings) and my parents’ church in particular has done a lot of interfaith outreach in the community to encourage understanding among people of different faiths. Although I am not a Christian, I think the church has done some great work. (The New England brand of Congregationalism from which the church is derived, despite its Protestant origins, is actually quite liberal.)

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