Richard Hurst sticks mostly to liturgical writing for the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., at his blog, Universalist Sundays, but he also has a sympathetic post on the way rapid changes in a church can disorient “liberals” and “conservatives” alike:
Every 20 or 30 years or so, a large portion of every UU congregation seems to look around and say … where has my church gone? What have these interlopers done with my faith and my religious home? . . . These people legitimately feel as if they are losing their church. They actually feel disoriented when at General Assembly our President Sinkford says “let us pray” and addresses his remarks unapologetically to God. They roll their eyes when they read about communion services and healing services, and when we sing “Amazing Grace” at the opening of Plenary Session. As post-modern and liberating and progressive as it all seems to me, as Emersonian as it seems to me to shake off “cold-corpse Unitarianism,” they view it as a return to superstition of the past. Their feeling that their church is disappearing before their eyes is real.