Gertrude Edge of Columbia, South Carolina writes in response to "UU Bookstore has Christian Voices:
"We are looking for a book to use for a book discussion on Liberal Christianity. I am thinking about using "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. Any other suggesitons?"
Asking a UU minister to recommend one book is cruel, I have lots of titles in mind. I recommend Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism: Contemporary Essays for example. I especially recommend
"Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time : The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith" (Marcus J. Borg) and that will be my one "liberal Christian" book.
C.S. Lewis is no liberal. I think he is worth reading, but he is a conservative Christian.
I should note by way of disclaimer that I am a radical in my Christianity, a liberationist. Liberal Christianity as I understand the movement teaches that Jesus is Christ as Teacher of Individual Moral Virtue. That is what I was taught in Unitarian Sunday School.
For me fifty years later, Jesus is Christ the Liberator. I believe we live in a world ruled by "the powers and principalities" of domination and violence and the resurrected Jesus is embodied in the intentional communities that witness justice to the oppressed, inclusive love to all, and non violence in their collective lives and in the lives of their members. Some of my best friends are liberal Christians, but I have found that we have different priorities. I can preach the liberal's Jesus when I have a bunch of liberals in the congregation, but I try to talk about how Jesus pushed the limits of propriety, and challenged the way things were (and are.) So I preach a radicalized liberal Jesus.
For a good radical Christian book I like Walter Wink's 
"Transforming the Powers: Peace, Justice, and the Domination System" (Fortress Press)
As a Unitarian Universalist I have a religious humanist understanding of the Christian "revelation" and tradition. Jesus witnessed the "God of Justice and Love." Those who experience his good news have a revelation of the divine. I do not need any other "nature" than this one that is itself divine. I believe that the arc of the universe bends toward peace, justice and love between all creatures. So with the religious humanists, I am content with one miraculous cosmos and need no super nature. Jesus was born a man, and he died as a man. But he rose as a Church and that Church constantly needs people to come forward to witness the gospel that he embodied. I do not believe any "Christian denomination" institutionalizes the Church, the Witnessing Church exists wherever two or three are gathered together "in the name of Jesus." (Jesus means Healer in Aramaic, to gather in his name is to gather "to heal.")
Any liberal Christians want to speak for liberal Christianity? Got any books that you think a study group should read?
