Auckland Unitarians

Nov 24 2024 142 ep. 27 mins 818
Auckland Unitarians Podcast artwork

A weekly (usually) service from Auckland Unitarian church. We are a group of free thinkers who are committed to supporting each other in our individual spiritual journeys in a generous, kind and compassionate community of progressive Christians, humanists, atheists, neo-pagans, and seekers, with the occasional Muslim and Hindu joining us. We respect all faith perspectives that concur with our seven principles.

  Religion & Spirituality
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


Listening for Your Own Truth

Nov 24 2024 35 mins  
Speaker:- Ron Ahnen Worship Leader:- Viv Allen Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 24 November 2024 As you all know, we just finished an election in the U.S. with so many different candidates—not just presidential ones—putting forth many competing claims about what “the truth” is. The good news is that we’ve got fact-checkers and journalists all trying to help us sort o

RUMInations on Ageing and Dying

Nov 17 2024 19 mins  
with Barbara Thomborson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 17 November 2024 Ageing and death are two timeless themes, universal to our human experience. Our culture’s near phobia about death has created unneeded anxiety and irrational fear about “passing on, passing away, kicking the bucket, giving up the ghost, breathing your last, losing your life, expiring (like a use-by

The Age of the Machine — What Kind of Society do we Want?

Nov 10 2024 36 mins  
with John Maindonald Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 10 November 2024 Today, no business of any size uses paper based accounting. The move from paper based systems started in the late 1950s when large corporations started using computer mainframes, as they were called, for basic operations. In the 1980s personal computers made computer-based accounting systems widely availab

A year and a day

Nov 03 2024 30 mins  
Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 3rd November 2024 Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel Demon Copperhead, has Demon say this: “… she looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad together for a while. I’ll never forget how that felt. Like not being hungry.” Like not being hungry. She looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad to

Annie Jane Schnackenberg (nee Allen) New Zealand fighter for women’s rights

Sep 15 2024 49 mins  
Speaker:- Randolph Hollingsworth Worship Leader:- Viv Allen Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 15 September 2024 With scarce documentary evidence, one might be tempted to relegate to the sidelines any efforts to examine the political ideologies of Annie Jane Allen Schnackenberg (1835-1905) of Auckland, New Zealand. A national leader who oversaw the petition campaigns of the Wom

The American Transcendentalists

May 01 2024 49 mins  
Speaker:- Peter Lineham Worship Leader:- Ruby Johnson Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 28th April 2024 Ralph Waldo Emerson knew how to upset Unitarians, for he had been one of them. Emerson was from a Unitarian family, trained at Harvard College, and his brother William was educated at Gottingen and was a minister. Waldo became minister of Second Church Boston in 1829. But he

Remembering Anzac Day

Apr 25 2024 25 mins  
with Karn Cleary Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 21 April 2024 I titled today’s service “Remembering Anzac Day”, purposely. It disturbs me to see or hear references to “celebrating” Anzac Day, when I believe it should always be a day of mourning for all those who died so futilely at Gallipoli, and all the others whether they returned or not, who have gone off to war

Roots hold me close, wings set me free

Apr 21 2024 23 mins  
With Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 14 April 2024 Unitarians are a mixed metaphor. Roots from flora, wings from fauna. There is no exact Greek mythical creature to represent this idea but perhaps we can think of a dryad or tree-nymph, maybe combined with a phoenix, the bird who rises. We are a mixed metaphor and a mixed faith, one that

Charles Darwin’s religious life journey

Apr 17 2024 41 mins  
Speaker:- John Maindonald Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell Recorded 7 April 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church From the time when he returned from his five year journey around the world, Darwin thought long and hard, not just about the relationships between living things, but also about life and living. He moved from relatively orthodox Anglican to an agnostic who never ceased to

The empty tomb: holding lament in one hand and joy in the other

Apr 15 2024 26 mins  
Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded 31 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church I preached in this church last year on Easter Sunday. My theme was resurrection — I spoke about the power of love over hate. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Knowing that when life is gone, love is left for shining.” Since then, as most of you know, I have become