Church Services (upcoming event) and some thoughts on it

Hello again fellow Neualtenburgers!

When Ulrika started gathering volunteers to help with Neualtenburg, I told her that since I'm no good at building/texturing, only a bad scripter/animator, and poor , my contribution would probably be very limited, and restricted to the only thing I do well: talk a lot

However, two ideas on the original proposal (wow, how time passes...) caught my attention: the Church and the Biergarten. I was very willing to take them (and expand the Biergarten to host a Tourist Office as well), but I was late (I usually am!) and they were already "taken".

Since then, there has been some problems with the former church priests leaving SL (?) or at least not being available any more, so I guess I'm willing to take up the "job offer" for the church services once more! At the very least, I will be able to do two events per week, say, one at 2 PM PST (appeals to Euro residents) and one at 2 AM PST (appeals to late-night US residents ). I won't be able to host any events between 4 PM PST and 2 AM PST, however - these, unfortunately, are my sleeping hours

The original Neualtenburg proposal called for an "unitarian" church (I would probably think that Ulrika was thinking more in the lines of an "unitarian christian" church to fit better into the medieval theme of Neualtenburg). Since unitarians are so liberal-minded, "almost anything" can be fit into their beliefs, so I would like to have some feedback on what type of religious services you would expect.

I must warn beforehand that I consider myself an "esoteric christian" (the politically-correct description is probably "enlightened christian", since the word "esoteric" is almost anathema for most christians...). I don't want to go very deeply into that, of course, but this means that people should have this in mind when attending the services - I have been brought up as a very liberal Catholic myself and certainly my touch with esoteric christian beliefs like the Gnostics and the Rosecrucians have shaped my own faith, as well as lots of input from Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, and the Classics (like Socrates). The net results are very similar to the "common denominator" of the unitarians, but I have approached them by rationalizing on them (ie. the "occult way" instead of simply "get enlightment from above" (ie. "the mystic way".

Now, to establish something like "an official church doctrine" is, for me, well out of bounds. Neualtenburg should promote an absolute neutrality towards all religions, faiths, creeds, etc., and I don't feel very comfortable about thinking about myself as the "official priest" - despite the tolerant liberalism promoted by the unitarians, some citizens may not agree totally to their views, or worse than that, my own interpretation of them. Thus, Church Services hosted by me should only be taken as "just one possible kind of church service" (and if there are more people willing to host alternate, also unitarian, church services, they should be more than welcome - as a matter of fact, I think I have found another potential volunteer for that, not yet a member of the Neualtenburg Projekt).

I will probably also invite some religious, but not unitarian/christian residents, to co-celebrate some of the services. This, of course, will change slightly over time, also depending on the volunteers I've gathered. Among these I count a "Jesusist" (not to be confused with "Jesuits" - Jesusists believe in Jesus' message, but not that He was the Christ) and a Taoist. Again, some people may find this an abuse, so I better warn everybody before!

What I most certainly will not do is "role-play" or "mimic" an established service or ritual, even if potentially this is something perfectly allowed by many unitarian congregations. But for me, all "ritualized" congregations usually have some sort of "ordained priest", which is supposed to be the result a holy ritual (even if some congregations are quite happy to just give them a card or a diploma telling them "so, now you're a priest" and nothing more is required). According to my own beliefs and convictions, I'm not worthy to be entitled to that kind of "title", so the "services" will probably look very much like "Bible circle discussions" (of course, I won't restrict myself to the Jewish/Muslim/Christian Bible for those "discussions", moderated by the event host. So don't expect High Mass to be held in Latin and preaching for half an hour (although we will probably be listening to some Bach if someone is so kind as to let me use my own Shoutcast server streaming to the Church parcel during the services).

So, what can you expect at the "church services"?

1. A general approach to spirituality - recognizing humanitarian attitudes like good will and compassion, and tying them to religious/spiritual values
   
2. Learn how to pray properly - what you should really ask for when praying
   
3. Interpretations of several religion's "core messages" without the burden of allowing for "institutionalized religions" which need extra creeds in order to survive
   
4. Do some comparative religion, discuss freely "holy texts" from several sources
   
5. Discuss human relationships and how we can improve them (both in SL and RL)
   
6. Assume, for all practical purposes, that everybody attending the services is a human being and not just a cartoon roleplaying their characters - so what we do and say affect our feelings and our relations with others
   

I will expect people to contribute to the event, and not be "passive listeners"!

I will always be available off-service for private conversations, and there will probably be a "meditation" phase somewhere into the service where people can always IM me if they feel shy about talking over things in public chat.

BTW, there should be a donation box at the church door, set up to give 10% of the donations to Neualtenburg's Treasury (service tax!!!) and 90% to VERTU.

So, these are my overall views on the "church services". I'll be glad about any comments/suggestions! Remember, it's still time to "fire the priest"!! LOL

Since we already have a "provisory government", I will certainly ask them to start with the services ASAP, meaning, uh, probably Friday morning (2 AM PST) and afternoon (2 PM PST). The soon people get used to "regular events" at Neualtenburg, the better.

I understood Unitarian to mean just that...accepting of all faiths and all peoples. Not Unitarian Christian. Although I'm not totally sure what that is.

Hi Talen!

Actually, that's the "modern" and widespread use of the word "Unitarian", or, better, "Unitarian Universalist", as defined by the Unitarian Universalist Association of America (similar organizations worldwide agree to about the same principles). The notion of "all faiths, all beliefs, overall tolerance" etc. are quite strongly emphasized.

However, the Wikipedia's entry for Unitarian, while agreeing on the "current" definition, also reminds that Unitarians started as Christians rejecting the Trinity of God (and well, as things go, one thing led to another...), thus their name: One God. Since discussing theology is beyond the purpose of this thread, let it suffice that "Unitarian Christians" are simply Christian free-thinkers that reject the Trinity of God and embrace a faith which has certainly Christian roots (i.e. they still view Christ as the "model" for their beliefs, or, rather, Jesus' message) but is completely open-minded about other faiths.

Yes, there are Unitarian Paganists, Unitarian Hindus, Unitarian Jews, etc. etc. for all possible combinations... that just expresses the beliefs that they stemmed from.

I just wanted to make clear that all services will probably be biased towards "Unitarian Christianism", while certainly incorporating much about other faiths. I'm the only one to blame for that

I can't really even define what I am, but I know from prior experience that Gwyn treats matters of faith like this with a lot of personal insight and very judicious consideration. She explains herself well.

Fantastic! What you have stated above is in line with the philosophy of the city. I am so impressed with your overview of the proposed services and your personal philosophy, that I give you full control over the church and the proceedings therein.

Don't feel that you are obligated to hold regular services. I don't want anyone's role in the city to become a job. It's whenever you want, even if it's once every four months.

Also, since this is an event in the city, I don't think the 10% tax should apply. Rather I think all the money should go to you directly, as we'll all benefit from the dwell and the increased traffic in the city. Also, I'd like to see you keep the donations for yourself, as you're providing a service and should be compensated.

Finally, since you are in charge of the church, I'd like to offer you a home in the North West section of District 4, if you'd like it (a map is here). We're leasing out land to those who donate land tiers and provide services. You can remove the "beta" home and build your own, pay someone to build a home using church donations, or move into the "beta" home for now. (The land remains property of the city. Total prims the land can support is 50.)

~Ulrika~

Torley, I try, I try God knows that I try! (uh, [Insert your favorite designation for a Supreme Being here] knows that I try)

Well, thanks for the support, Ulrika!

Just my L$0.02 and then I have to log in to get the position of the church to add it to the Event list (first service starting later this afternoon, PST time, with a new one Saturday late night/early morning).

A "job is a job" and while I certainly won't be able to do things as "regularly" as I wish (sometimes RL interferes ), from the experiences on hosting events in the past months, a "recurring event" has a higher probability of catching people's attention, while certainly "unique mega-events" will generate the most income.

This means that residents try to fit in their own schedules to attend "recurring events" that they like. Some groups (uh, several Trivia groups, and the Thinkers, for instance) do recurring events on the basis that even when someone skips one of those, they know that "tonight is trivia at XXX" or "Monday is Jinny Fonzarelli's turn to discuss Theology". When when they don't log in for a while (say, a few weeks) they feel comfortable to get online again and see their "favourite" recurring events being announced over and over again.

When events are spread out randomly, it is harder to get an "interested group" together. Of course, there are many exceptions to this.

The "job" of event hosters in Neualtenburg is to devise a strategy to attract people on a regular basis to "meet quota". In my case I feel that regular church services are a way to do that (we'll see!).

As for donations... well, one of the philosophies I usually adhere to is that people wanting payment in return for helpful advice are usually too greedy to actually feel compassion towards your fellow human being. This is also a philosophical aspect that is arguable, but you can see this trend in things like Mahayana Buddhism or the Rosecrucians. No "true" mahayana buddhist monk or rosecrucian brother will ever "charge" (or accept donations) for helping people out.

Nevertheless, donations/contributions are welcome - but to the Church instead (or, in this case, the organization that supports the Church, which is the Neualtenburg Government). So if someone sets up the donation box, please make the money go to the city's treasury instead. What I can agree to is that the Representative branch proposes and votes on what the "church-generated money" is used for! I would propose a split between the City (for, say, a fund to improve the Church... we don't need conservation of our monuments since they won't fall apart and decay with time, but we certainly could have new features, redecorations, etc, and all of these could be outsourced, thus the need for money) and charity - VERTU and eventually also another social cause in SL that I currently promote.

Thanks for the house offer You can "reserve" it in my name if you wish, but I must admit that for the next 2 weeks or so I won't be able to do anything about it hehe.

any objections to my moving into the upper floors of the Blacksmith's in Spital?

Ulrika, you should state this in a new thread. To make it clear, that the city is leasing out land to those who donate land tiers and provide services. Not everyone reads the Church thread, as religious matters don't concern everyone. Just a suggestion to prevent the discussion "I heard you can get land in Nuealtanburg if you do x,y and z" floating amongst SL.

It all sounds good with me. Seeing as the church will bring people in such as events then it is supporting the city in that way and shouldn't be taxed. I think the best Idea for a donation box is to use the VERTU atm as a donation box...they support many different chairities.

Perhaps the Church leader should be a paid position as well as it is bringing something to the community as much as any other creator. Whereas they will be proffiting off of their work others who provide a service to the city should as well.

I have no objections to Kendra living over the blacksmithy...I would ask that I can be put somewhere close in relation to her new home so that my catapult can reach if necessary...otherwise I have to build siege engines

Will the Church have any services other than Unitarian?

For example, I am a Christian and would love to attend a Christian service. Other than for curiosity I wouldn't attend a Unitarian Church service that combines all religions since it is against my own personal religious beliefs.

I do not have a problem with others worshiping in any way they see fit though so please do not read into this that I want to stop what you are doing in any way.

The reason for the Unitarian church is so everyone is welcome of every religion ....this is the only church.

I'm a heathen so I 'm good with it.

So you won't be attending my monthly services to the all-father Odin? shucks.

Perfect -- You can live in the Pesthaus. It's right across the street!--ya don't mind rats do ya?

nah...they make good amo

being as this is a Unitarian church...can I hold black mass?....I don't exactly need to do the virgin sacrifices...although they are the fun part

okay -- You can have the third floor and attic as soon as I'm finished with it

I understand that and it is an interesting idea but people who really are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists etc... would not attend such a church as it would be in direct conflict with their RL beliefs. Same thing with a Christian service. Everyone is welcome but those of different faith will not come.

It is up to Y’all if you wanted to allow services from existing religions. I would be very excited to attend a Christian service and am sure that people of other religions would feel the same way.

LOL

Done

I was just wondering if my question was going to be answered.

Will there be any church services allowed other than those of the Unitarian doctrine?

Billy as far as I understand it Unitarian leaves the church open to all religous theories without leaning towards any one religion but accepting all. Seeing as we all come from different backgrounds and religous upbringing I don't think having services of any one reigion would be in keeping with the spirit of what most people believe Unitarian to mean.

I feel somewhat awkward to discuss theology here. I prefer to do it either at the Thinkers' events (4 days per week, at 2 PM PST - there, shameless plug! ... and yes, I'll try to host one of these in Neualtenburg as well, will contact Die Gilde for that), or - why not? - at the "church spaces".

But since Billy asked a concrete question, I think he also deserves an answer. Even if I just have a theological answer for that, and not a practical one. Talen, I fully agree with your reply to Billy. It's exactly what I think as well. Let me try, for Billy's sake, to explain why I agree with you.

Technically, there is no "Unitarian doctrine" - there are just some basic rules, which allegedly all Unitarian churches adhere to. A belief in a God ("supreme being" or any other thing), a belief that Humanitarian behaviour is in some way tied to the Divine, and a belief that an assembly/meeting is a good way to discuss theology-related issues together (while not necessarily excluding a personal path outside the assembly). Open-mindedness and tolerance towards other faiths are not only encouraged, they are a "must".

Since this is so vague, it follows that almost all types of "faiths/religions" can be incorporated inside Unitarian views. There are about 1000 self-labeled Unitarian churches in the US, and each one has completely different views on specific aspects - like rituals, or details on what exactly they believe additionally in. As long as each and every one of those churches has enough open-mindedness to allow that they aren't the only ones being "right" and don't scorn the others for their "strange" beliefs, they technically are Unitarian - even if they are more Christian-oriented, Paganist-oriented or Buddhist/Taoist/Shintoist-oriented.

The original proposal for Neualtenburg - supposedly a social-democrat republic - called for a church, and I guess that, since one of the features of social-democracy is tolerance and an open-minded spirit towards all ideas, this should be translated to the church as well. I'm not sure, but I guess the choice for "Unitarian" is just because currently it seems to be the best "description" or "label" (since it's not even a "religion", a "faith" or even a "doctrine" that fits this spirit of open-mindedness and tolerance.

The real problem is that 2 different people hosting an "Unitarian" event will talk very differently. Each one will have different views. I haven't hidden that I was raised a Catholic - and this means that I naturally will call the Deity "God" or eventually "Our Lord" or even "Father", and that I believe that Jesus Christ has a Message for us, and emphasize the "love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself" as my personal motto (as a side note, it's a very hard formula to unravel and interpret correctly, despite the apparently simple wording). Were I educated as a Mahayana Buddhist, I would call the Deity "Stream of Consciousness" and believe that Buddha has a Message for us, and emphasize compassion towards my fellow humans as the ultimate sacrifice we can do when reaching Enlightenment. In both cases, if both event hosters can reduce the key elements of each type of faith, and keep their minds open towards what the other faith says about the same key issues, both will be able to "hold an Unitarian service". But it certainly will look/sound very differently!

Thus, the approach as in the proposal of the Neualtenburger Projekt looked very good to me - especially because my own path through faith and religion is exactly trying to "distill" all key elements of all major faiths and read the Message behind them.

But, following this line of thought, I would refuse to either perform or attend a Catholic service in SL - unless the celebrant was an ordained priest with a (written) allowance by his bishop to perform a service in SL. I'm not an ordained priest, and impersonating one is more than "being bad in the eyes of the Catholic Church" - it's tricking and lying to other people who would attend the service, probably true believers expecting a "real service" and getting a mockery instead. This is threading on thin ice. In some countries and with some faiths, impersonating a priest could be considered a criminal offense (I believe that this is not the case in the US); but even if it is allowed, I think it would be still mockery, and a disregard for other people's beliefs. Oh, and allowing for my lack of modesty, I have worked for a decade with dozens of priests and even some bishops, in several official positions, and I think I could do a pretty good "impersonation" using a male AV - I even would be able to perform High Mass in flawless Latin (except for actual communion of the Host, there would really be no real difference). But I certainly would have a very guilty conscience about hosting that kind of event - I would be cheating. And that's not something I would like to offer to a religious audience.

Other faiths/beliefs would probably have a much cleaner conscience about "role-playing" a religious service. I'm not sure about it, since I haven't been asking around. What I have tried to do is to reach the Bishop of Parthenia - a rather weirdo "borderline", radical bishop of the Catholic Church which has recently "embraced the virtual communities" as his parish. This is not only intriguing, but possible a very interesting way to have, one day, a Catholic priest in SL, with the bishop's permission and the Vatican's allowance, to perform an "official" Catholic rite service in SL - and this time, with no "role-playing" or "pretending", but the "real thing". This intrigues me and I will certainly explore it in the future (even if I'm not really sure if the Neualtenburger Kirche would be the right place for that).

So, if mockeries of RW rites are something offensive to do in SL... what remains? Well, fortunately, assembly-type services are not restricted to Mass - Christians do Bible Circles, Buddhists do meditation retirements, for instance. I wouldn't mind having those at the Neualtenburger Kirche. Many modern faiths have all sorts of events that can be organized in non-sacred (secular) places, including praying opportunities, and these would probably be fine. But these aren't "religious services".

Personally, I don't think that these types of events will be terribly against the original spirit of the Neualtenburger Projekt. After all, freedom of speech is supposed to be one of the fundamental pillars of our upcoming Constitution, and assembling to exercize the right to talk about your own system of beliefs and faiths should be allowed by the Government of Neualtenburg. The question is to find out the appropriate place for them, what kind of wording will be allowed when posting the Event, and if they will be officially endorsed by the City, or simply tolerated as an act of freedom of speech.

Thus, "Come to the Bible Circle! We will try to explain how to correctly interpret the Pentateuch according to Baptist doctrine" sounds appropriate to me. "Christmas High Mass at the Neualtenburger Kirche according to the rites of the Ortodox Church. Greek translations provided on-site" is not.

That would be great if you could host a Thinkers' event in the city! It was the first real group I joined in SL. Unfortunately, I haven't been in ages, as the regular meeting time is difficult to make for those of us who work and live on the West Coast of the U.S.

What do you mean by "supposedly a social-democratic republic"? This isn't more condescension is it? I thought you swore off of that in an earlier post.

Anything that is PG and does not violate the ToS is allowed in the city!

I wanted to say, that I went to the first half of one of Gwyneth's events and it was fascinating. I highly recommend dropping in, to check it out. It also was quite a thrill for me to see someone else holding an event in the city. If there's any infrastructure you need for your meetings that the church doesn't have, just let me know.

~Ulrika~

I must say as a Jew in RL I'm troubled by the notion that everything is subsumed in Unitarianism. The Unitarian Church deserves great praise for is openness, its social stances, and so forth. But it simply doesn't _subsume_ my religion. (And the fact that it's UNITARIAN rather than trinitarian puts it in more or less direct conflict with more standard forms of Christianity).

So without taking anything away from either the beautiful Church or Unitarianism (which has, as I said, its own _particular_ merits), will there be room for other religious establishments?

I would note that: 1) there's nothing remotely medieval about Unitarianism; 2) medieval Germany contained a Jewish minority (though I would hope that the social democratic aspects of Neualternburg would trump the medieval ones in regards to the treatment of any organized Jewish presence in Neualtenburg); 3) our city would be all the richer with a thoroughly modern mix of religious possibilities.

So why not allow people to form other churches if they so choose? And if they can to build architecturally appropriate buildings of their own?

Phineas --as another Jew --you might be happy (or not) to know that I am infact building not only a small synagogue, but a Judentanzhaus --a Jewish Dance Hall. I greatly look foward to this Spring especially when I plan a Purim parade. I'm also entertaining the idea of a Seder --let me know if you'ld like to help bring some jewish culture to Neualtenburg.