Views from the pews

Money distinguishes the Unitarian church in Virginia from the Baptist one in California -- unlike the Baptists, the Unitarians have grounds, trees, parking, stained glass, exposed brick, casual clothes and flirting youth-group teens -- but under the money is a casualness that runs even deeper.

It feels like brunch. Which is to say pleasant, informal, reasonable and dull. When the minister delivers his prepared sermon, he's more like a talkative neighbor than a revered spiritual authority. When the choir sings, it's polite instead of urgent. And if anyone is set on praising the Lord, they're not falling on the floor about it.

But people do come -- over 50 -- so something must be going on. As with the Baptist church, it's a community event. Lots of smiling, and catching up and even hand-holding at certain parts. "Welcome," your neighbor might say, and he's being neither insincere nor moony. It's warm and open here, with just a hint of pride that this can be accomplished in the cold, conservative state of Virginia. You say "thank you" to your neighbor and turn to the robed minister, who invites everyone to say the daily affirmation.

Everyone does. It's spooky to read words out loud with a group -- no pretty organ to take the cultish edge off -- but the words are about being committed to truth and action, and this feels good. Indeed, these are liberal people, and if they have any agenda at all, it probably has to do with getting money for extra donuts after the service. God isn't forced down a single throat, and, if anything, you leave a little hungry.

What the minister talks about is helping others. He speaks gravely for a man in Rockports; it's a call for charity, for giving, for looking beyond our insular worlds. Our insular worlds themselves don't get much attention in this sermon -- the implication is that everyone is already close enough to how they should be, and ought to direct their arrived selves toward more pressing problems.

"The quest for truth is our daily sacrament," the congregation reads, "and service is its prayer."

The equation for spirituality, here, is questioning plus helping. Though Christians, Jews, Buddhists and even Catholics wander over to Unitarian services, the most comfortable seat in the house belongs to the agnostic. With a commitment to wondering about God -- the minister uses this word sparingly, says it with something like self-consciousness -- the happily undecided can settle in for an hour of religious inquiry.

Talking with members of the congregation, it's hard to imagine anything more conclusive coming off the pulpit. Beneath the veneer of tweed and denim is a mix of backgrounds more diverse than that of the Baptist church in San Francisco. The Unitarians span a greater income range -- though the lowest rung is still higher than the Baptist average -- and the overarching liberalism accommodates a surprising political scope. And while the Baptists boast of having been Baptists forever, few of the Unitarians were born that way, and come to the service imprinted otherwise.

It's religion by committee, and consequently nothing big gets accomplished. Souls aren't saved, sin isn't cursed and God is talked about, but not to. To the outsider, it's hard to say how Unitarian deliberation stacks up against Baptist dogma: Would you rather spend your Sunday morning getting knocked in the head with a hammer, or speculating about what the hammer might represent?

Faiths don't compare, but you can pick a small and arbitrary foothold: How, say, do different denominations appear at the moment of religion? At the Baptist church, people bawled but thanked God for the joy of living. Here they smile, but remind one another of all that needs fixing in the world: poverty, disease, famine, politics. The difference reveals nothing but what a few people look like for an hour a week. When the minister wraps up, and everyone spills into the commons for coffee, it's handshakes not hugs. But the handshakes are firm, and the eye contact warm, and it's not inconceivable that people have been transported here, too, even if they're not saying where.

• View blog reactions