To my perception, ULC through Modesto, the Monastery, and the Seminary most definitely do not create “apostasy” of any faith; ULC is more in the nature of a civil religion to which a higher power leads.
While not accepting the basic reasons he was first to propose civil religion, I find in ULC the elements of such religion transcending mere nondenominationalism without compromise of any belief or unbelief as was proposed by Jean Jacques Rousseau (c. 1762): a purely civil profession of faith or metaphysics whose articles a sovereign is competent to determine, not precisely as religious dogma but as sentiments of sociability of Divine inspiration; belief in an all-powerful Deity, survival of the soul after death, in eternity reward and punishment, and a commitment to the social contract; and organization such that it can encompass many different faiths without alienating those in unbelief.
Indeed, ULC doesn’t require cessation of other faith practice or unbelief as one joins it in spiritual journey, and does require tolerance of diverse peaceful faith adherents. I myself use Parmenides as an avatar, in that this BCE philosopher is called the founder of metaphysics; in his day, monists like him saw matter as neutral, masculinity as irrelevant to a Creator, and referred back to pre-Greek Mediterranean goddesses to remind a male-dominant culture of their place in the Divine equation.
For me, although a Roman Catholic, ULC offers the opportunity for serving God and all His people of peaceful belief or unbelief, without darts to Catholicism constraining me or vice versa.
I thus see ULC as part of God’s plan, where each minister upholds their ontological views and practice to the point they adhere to doing what is right, regardless of how they are moved spiritually by grace.
