Did you know that a recent poll shows 69% of United States residents believe in hell? Maybe it’s time to dust off some of those old Universalist beliefs — you know, those old beliefs that there is no hell and that each person is of infinite value. This is a longish video — 9:56 — so set aside some time to relax and enjoy it.
Note: I think Web videos should feel like you’re having a one-on-one conversation with someone. Most of the sermons I’ve watched online have been pretty unsatisfactory because they show the preacher talking to a big crowd — not to me personally — and because they’re too long. This video is my attempt at presenting this Sunday’s sermon in a shorter and more personal form. However, I admit that it’s an experiment I won’t repeat very often, because it took three hours to rewrite the sermon and to shoot and edit this ten-minute video.
you’re speaking too fast!!!
Amazingly done, Dan.
It as a tad long for our internet-trained attention spans, but I’m not sure how you could have edited it down any further. I was very impressed with your ability to read from your text with such subtelty. Did you have a teleprompter or something?
I think you are right, the personal touch was much more effective than the sermons on line I normally see.
Shame it takes sooo long to do it right.
What do you call what happened in Rwanda? The whole 20th Century? There is a place in Wheaton were survivors of all the recent genocides who have found refuge in the Chicago area come for treatment and counceling. How do we face them and say there is no hell when they’ve been there?
UU Jester — I used my laptop as a teleprompter. As far as it taking sooo long, what I’d like to see is one of our big Unitarian Universalist congregations free up five-ten hours in their senior minister’s schedule to rewrite the weekly sermon, give them a twenty-hour-a-week Web video guru, and have that congregation start creating such Web-based sermons.
Bill Baar — Yeah, I’d say Rwanda is hell. Closer to home, I know of some homes that have been turned into hell by domestic violence. There are certain parts of certain cities that look like hell. But these are human-created hells — and no one is condemned to these human-created hells for eterntiy, because if worst comes to worst you can die to escape. That kind of hell is very different from the traditional God-created hell, where God sticks people God doesn’t spprove of for all eternity.
Actually, Bill, you’ve given one Universalist approach to hell — some Universalists would say that hell exists here on earth. But I don’t buy that — hell is supposed to make only sinful people suffer, and Rwanda and domestic violence make innocent children suffer — so I can’t call that hell, I can only call it utter insanity, an ethical black hole, a moral horror.
You aren’t pointing at any large churches in particular, are you, friend Dan?
Maybe after that mythical 3rd year you mention in a later post.
(Personally, I think the “first year honeymoon” is as much a myth as the “slow summer.”)
Enjoyed that. I like your little videos and you’ve inspired me to do some kind of vlogging myself. Three hours is not too, too bad is it? Do you think it will take less time if you continue to do them once in a while? I forwarded the link for this post to some other folks who do anti racism/anti oppression work.
While I don’t need evidence from the Bible to believe me I should strive against the discrimination, it’s probably important to have evidence from wherever you can get it, for those who need it.
UU Jester — No, I’m not pointing at any large churches in particular. But now that you mention it, Marilyn Sewell is supposed to be an excellent preacher, and you’d think that First Unitarian in Portland (1,000+ members) might spare some resources for this kind of project….
hafidha sofia — It’s three hours on top of the ten or so hours I spent researching and writing the sermon to begin with. Yes, I will probably continue to do them once in a while — when time permits and when the sermon allows itself to be chopped in half easily. The sad thing is that as of today, my video host shows that less than forty people looked at this. Not sure the time spent is quite worth it!
I like it, Dan! I’ve been meaning to ask: what software do you use to edit your videos?
Phil — I use iMovie, which came with my Mac (Windows Movie Maker is the equivalent free program for Windows, and Blender and Cinelarra are the free open-source programs for Unix). I would strongly recommend getting a book like “Videoblogging for the Masses” by Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson, because such books will fill you on details like codec settings, video hosts, etc.