I was disappointed with parts of the remaining text however. The two main authors' beliefs and writing styles are too similar for a book written as an introduction to a very diverse religion. Even though they alternate in writing the chapters, I couldn't tell which one was writing unless I flipped back to the first page of the chapter. For a book like this, one of the authors should have been a "West Coast Unitarian Universalist"--someone less interested in God, the Bible, etc. and more interested in "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning". I'm not trying to indicate that the authors are Bible literalists--they certainly aren't. But they seem to think that UUism is in many ways "liberal Christianity" and I haven't found that to be the case in my local fellowship.

Probably more than any other group of "religious people", Unitarian Universalists differ in beliefs both at the individual and congregational level. While the authors summed up their own beliefs (and perhaps those of their congregations) well, they barely touched on those of many UUs. In fact, they criticized UUs who would fall in the atheist/agnostic/skeptical group. Atheism is "demonic pseudoreligion"? (p. 103) I was quite shocked to hear this from a UU--no matter how much of a theist he may be. Generally, UU Atheists are very tolerant of UU Theists and vice versa. Skeptics are also criticized which is very surprising since only the skeptical portions of ourselves can perform a truly responsible search for truth. Perhaps the authors don't really understand the word or the position of skeptics. Ironically, a quote from Emerson is used on page 173 which basically says the opposite of what the authors previously indicated:

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates and tyrannizes over a village of God's empire, but it is not the universal immutable law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

The authors (and sometimes UUs in general) like to make famous people of the past few centuries into UUs--even if those people only had a passing interest in the religion, left the religion for good at some point in their lives, or merely seemed to have some UU-type beliefs. Emerson is perhaps the most classic example. Although Emerson may have made for a pretty good 20th Century West Coast UU, he left 19th Century Unitarianism at a very young age and never returned. The authors never mention this fact, but they quote him throughout the book as if he was a very active, life-long Unitarian.

I've unjustly focused on the portions of the book I disagree with. My reason is that those reading the book and knowing nothing else about UUism may be turned off to it for the examples critiqued above. I'm hoping that those reading this page will at least test their local UU waters a bit before writing it off as 'just another nonsensical religion'. I certainly don't agree with everything the authors (or other UUs) believe, but the true beauty of UUism is that one need not completely agree with others in the movement to still contribute to and gain from the association.