Unitarians Welcome "Naked Prophets"

Fort Worth, Texas - The Unitarian Universalist Church has come under fire in the last few decades from most mainline conservatives for what they consider to be "an unwillingness to be remotely Biblical." Recently in an effort to seem more tolerant and open to Biblical Christianity the UUC released a statement saying that they were "making efforts to appear more Scriptural in certain areas." But their latest effort, while supposedly "biblical" is still expected to upset many. The church declared on Tuesday that they would now welcome into their midst, without question, all self-proclaimed "naked prophets."

"We too believe there's a place for Scripture in spirituality" said Rev. Dorris Pinchner. "And when I read Scripture I see two places where prophets went naked."

Pincher is referring to 1 Samuel 19:24 where Saul is said to have stripped off his clothes and prophesied naked, and Isaiah 20:2 where the prophet Isaiah was told to go "naked and barefoot" for three years. While many conservative Christian theologians argue that the word "naked" in these passages probably refers to the removal of only the outer official garments that a king and a prophet would have worn, Pinchner and other's from the UUC beg to differ.

"No, if they want us to obey the Bible, then we're going to do it literally" said Pinchner. "If a naked prophet wants to join our church, then who are we to stop them. The parts of the Bible that we choose to believe, we are going to do so in a very straightforward manner."

While some in Pinchner's congregation have their doubts, most received the news with gladly.

"I hope this will silence our critics out there that are constantly accusing us of not ever being Biblical" said member Judith Zale. "And I think in some ways we'll even be more Biblical than those fundamentalists who are always criticizing us. I mean really how many Southern Baptist churches out there allow naked prophets? Why don't they follow the Bible more literally, huh? Tell me that now!"

"I'm not too sure about this" said another member, Trevor Lake. "I mean, I want to be careful here not to be too critical if this is someone's calling, but I'm not so sure I want someone coming to our church and standing up to prophesy naked. I mean, we've got children in our church for crying out loud."

Still, Pinchner and the other members of the church's leadership are eager to begin this new phase of "Biblicalness" in their church.

"We don't know what's going to happen in the weeks and months and years to come" said Pinchner. "But we are looking forward to the day when a naked prophet will finally feel led to join us. Then people will look at us and say 'Now there's a church that's really following the Bible.'"