Unitarian Church Excommunicates Student For Having Specific Beliefs

Story by Ben Plowman 

| Published Nov 25, 2008

The Unitarian Church of Lincoln announced late last week that it has excommunicated UNL freshman Julia Spencer after she confessed to allegations of secretly believing in specific things that did not overlap or contradict one another, sources report. The announcement was made at a feast celebrating both the birth of Bahá'í founder Bahaullah and the election of Barack Obama as president.

“We are a liberal and open-minded faith, which is exactly why we cannot tolerate the disgusting sin of close-mindedness,” reverend Fritz Hudson said before the feast in a prayer that went on to decry the war in Iraq and the death penalty.

The congregation became suspicious that Julia harbored specific beliefs as early as last year during a combined Hannukah/Kwanzaa celebration. When reverend Hudson lit the first candle of Kwanzaa and recited the Principles of Blackness, Julia reportedly burst into laughter and wondered aloud if anyone else had a holiday they would like to make up.

“I guess there’s something about a room full of white people with Christian parents trying to pronounce Swahili words made up by an African American in the 1960’s that struck me as fundamentally wrong,” Julia said in an interview.

“Joyous Shalom Kwanzaa,” Julia added.

Julia’s parents are strict Unitarians and made it clear from when Julia was young that they would not tolerate intolerance in their children. Nonetheless, Julia knew from an early age that she was not the same as other girls her age. While other girls her age were out canvassing for voter registration, Julia preferred to be at home doing anything other than canvassing. While other children accepted the notion that everyone goes to heaven when they die, Julia felt something deep inside her telling her this was somehow wrong.

“How can we accept Christian beliefs and yet reject the Christian notion of salvation?” reads an entry in her journal from when she was a sophomore in high school. “I’m so confused,” it continues.

Julia has received widespread support from her friends, who went so far as to start the Facebook group “1 Million Strong To End Unitarian Discrimination,” which attracted over 100 members.

Support from Julia’s parents, however, has been lackluster. When father Jeremy Spencer found out Julia had been excommunicated from the Unitarian church, he promptly uninvited her from both Christmas and the celebration of the anniversary of Zarathustra’s death.

“I’m sure Julia has more logically coherent things to do than celebrate the birth of the one true God’s only begotten son, or the death of the prophet to the one universal and transcendental God, Ahura Mazda,” Jeremy Spencer said in a phone interview.

“Allah knows that she voted for McCain too,” he added.

In the end, Julia says she has come to terms with the fact she’s a little different.

“Now that I don’t have to celebrate over a hundred holidays a year, it feels as if I can finally be myself,” she said.