Welcoming words

AUBURN - Richard Gilbert, a retired minister, was a recent guest speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Auburn addressing what he calls “the new atheists.”

Although the Unitarian Universalist Association was formed as a merger of the Universalist Church of America and the American Universalist Association in 1961, the movement traces its roots to independent, self-governing churches in Colonial New England and Europe before then. Ken Mochel is the present pastor of the Auburn church.

Gilbert received a Doctor of Ministry degree from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and has pastored UU churches in Cleveland, Ohio and Golden, Col., and the First Unitarian Church in Rochester. He has also authored “Building Your Own Theology,” a text which is frequently studied by Unitarian members across the country.