For Your Consideration

The Touchstones Project

An Intriguing Way

of Doing Church

A Unitarian Universalist congregation can transform the people it serves, inspiring them to help transform the world. This requires an intentional, sustained, integrated, holistic process of deepening that informs, nurtures, and challenges.

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Please note that the materials can easily be adapted for use by all liberal, progressive congregations.

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Developed over eight years, the Touchstones Project has been dramatically expanded to make a meaningful difference in people's lives: those within your congregation and those who live in the community that your congregation serves.

We invite you:

     1. To browse our website to learn how

          what we offer can transform

          your programming.

     2. To request our materials for the  

          theme of beauty to facilitate a

          comprehensive review by your staff           and key volunteers.

     3. To schedule a conference call with

          us so that we can answer any

          questions that you and others

          may have.

     4. To order a trial subscription for

          three months to implement and

          evaluate our program.

     5. To become a member of the

          Touchstones community by

          extending your subscription for the

          balance of the program year, which

          ends in August of each year.

Click here for information about subscriptions.

  September Theme

Reflections on

Reason

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Whether in science, philosophy, law, and so many other fields in the academy and in the “real” world, reason has been and is a powerful tool in the search for truth and the accumulation of wisdom. Yet, given fake news, alternative facts, falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and deception, reason is under assault from many places.

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The Elements of Thought:

An Introduction

Gary Meegan (1:41)

This is a two-minute tutorial on The Elements of Thought in critical thinking. The information in the video is based on the work of Richard Paul and Linda Elder. For more information go to https://theelementsofthought.org/

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Duz6MzB1U

Reason, No-God, and God

DeReau K. Farrar

     …A dominant voice in contemporary Unitarian Universalism …believes the existence of any God is irrational. For many, even …mentioning God in Unitarian Universalist worship is downright offensive. We are … “smarter” than that.

     The function of reason as a means by which Unitarian Universalists process possibilities is an extremely important characteristic of the faith, and has been so since at least the nineteenth century …in America. It is this function of reason that now calls us to see that of course people of color, women, immigrants, queer people, genderqueer people, poor people, and refugees deserve the same rights and opportunities as educated, middle-class, cisgender, straight, white men.

     …The use of reason is critical to Unitarian Universalism.

     However, …are we not also called to be both perfectly inclusive and respectful of others’ searches for and expressions of truth and meaning?

     …Atheism is a White Thing. That is not to say that there are no atheists of color. …But, for the most part, atheism lives fairly solidly within “white space.”

     …People of color have, by and large, clung to their beliefs in God, in whatever form, not because they are insufficiently educated, but because it is God who has given them the strength to endure, resist, and—in some small ways—overcome systems of racism and white supremacy, in the myriad ways it has persisted, for centuries.

     …Many theists need Unitarian Universalism just as much as any religious atheist might. And, I would argue that Unitarian Universalism needs theists just as much—especially at a time such as now, when so much is at stake, and we are being brought to face our own shortcomings around racial inclusion and justice.

   Source: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/moving-beyond-whites-only-uu-theology

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Like our Facebook Page where we post something inspirational each day related to the theme.

Touchstones Themes 

for 2021-2022

Our theme-year begins in

September 2021. Please click on

the pdf icon to access a flyer for

the themes for the year.

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Annual theme for 2021-2022

Repairing the World