We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: “Sincerity is not enough.” We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it’s true doesn’t make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

This morning, an email went out over the Unitarian Young Adult listserv that I moderate, announcing that the phrase Unitarian Jihad had made it into Wikipedia. Is it wrong that I’d like this to be a real movement? As a lifelong Unitarian (and by birth a Jew) I’ve never been a member of the religious mainstream and I like it that way. But I do identify with the words faith, love and even god (shocking for a Unitarian, I know), and I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the manner in which they’ve been co-opted by people with a particularly hateful and militant perspective. Long live the Unitarian Jihad.

Click here to read the entire Jon Carroll article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday, April 8, 2005.