What is Unitarian Universalism?

Introduction

Most of us, at one time or another, wonder about the ultimate questions of life: How did time begin? Is there a God? Has life meaning? What is good? Why must we die?

These are fundamental religious questions. And most religions, at least the orthodox varieties, believe they have the answers. Those orthodox answers may be framed in terms of Jesus Christ, the law of the Covenant, or the eight-fold pat to Enlightenment, to name but three.

Unitarian Universalism is different. We respect the answers offered by Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and the world's other great faith traditions, we even draw our inspiration and some of our forms of worship from those traditions, but we respect the mystery more.

We believe, in other words, that no single religion has a monopoly on wisdom, that the answers to the great religious questions change from generation to generation, that the ultimate truth about God and Creation, death, meaning, and the human spirit cannot be captured in a narrow statement of faith. The mystery itself is always greater than its name.

Similarly, we believe that religious wisdom is ever changing. Human understanding of life and death, the world and its mysteries, is never final. Revelation is continuous. We celebrate unfolding truths known to teachers, prophets, and sages throughout the ages. We affirm the worth of all women and men. We believe people should be encouraged to think for themselves. We know people differ in their opinions and lifestyles, and we believe these differences generally should be honored.

There is no creed of belief to which you must subscribe to be a Unitarian Universalist, no statement of doctrine. We do not require our members to hold a particular theology or set of affirmations in order to join our congregations. Unitarian Universalists value the individual spiritual journey and believe that there is no one right way to lead a religious life. For us, religion is ultimately not about what you think. Religion is about how you live. Ours is a faith of deeds, not creeds.

This, then, is why ours is a creedless faith and respect for others' beliefs is a high value. We encourage individuals to garner insights from all the world's great faiths, as well as from Shakespeare and from science, from feminism and from feelings. We invite people to explore their spirituality in a responsible way. We ask Unitarian Universalists to cherish the earth, to free the oppressed, and to be grateful for life's blessings. Out of this combination of reflection and experience, each one of us shapes a personal faith. For Unitarian Universalists the individual is the ultimate source of reality. More on Beliefs, Creeds and Doctrines.

We keep our minds open to the religious questions people have struggled with in all times and places, yet we believe that personal experience, conscience, and reason should be the final authorities in religion. In the end religious authority lies not in a book, person, or institution, but in ourselves. We put religious insights to the test of our hearts and minds. We uphold the free search for truth.

We seek to act as a moral force in the world, believing that ethical living is the supreme witness of religion. The here and now and the effects our actions will have on future generations deeply concern us. We know that our relationships with one another, with diverse peoples, races, and nations, should be governed by justice, equity, and compassion.

However, our focus on action does not mean that we do not value thought. There is perhaps no faith community that affirms more completely the power and potential of women and men to find and/or create meaning. Nor is there a religious community whose religious thought and practice are more diverse. It is typical in our congregations for liberal Christians, humanists, Buddhists, pagans and person's whose religious beliefs are less clearly defined to sit side by side in the same pew.

What we share is our commitment to the religious journey. We know that "revelation is not sealed". The wisdom and teachings of all the world's great faith traditions are resources for us. But our relationship with the holy rests in the human heart, however we may name the sacred in our lives.

What brings us together is our commitment to community, to the church. We call ours a "covenantal tradition." When we covenant with one another, we promise to walk together on our journey. A covenant is a promise to be faithful.

The very pluralism of belief that may seem a weakness is actually our great strength. In a world where racial, cultural, and religious diversity is a reality, Unitarian Universalists know, because we live it every week, that our differences need not divide us, that they are blessings rather than curses. More on Unitarian Universalist Commitments and Covenants.

Because each Unitarian Universalist congregation is independent, each has its own covenant. But many congregations use some variation of the following covenant:

Love is the doctrine of this church,
The quest for truth is its sacrament,
And service is its prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
To seek knowledge in freedom,
To serve human need,
To the end that all souls shall
Grow into harmony with the divine--
Thus do we covenant with one another.

The word religion comes from religare, which means to bind together that which has been sundered. It is about the making and re-making of connections. It is about naming the holy in our lives and answering the call to work for healing and wholeness.

Unitarian Universalists have a proud history of working for justice. From the abolition movement, to the women's movement, from the Civil Rights movement for person of color to the current civil rights movement for bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender persons, Unitarian Universalists have been in the forefront.

But the making of justice does not define our faith. Rather, our faith calls us to work for justice. That faith is grounded in the two great liberal traditions that came together in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association. From the Unitarian side of the tree, we hold that there is one spirit of life, one promise of love, one power of human possibility. And from the Universalist tradition of salvation for everyone, we know we must work to leave no one behind. Unitarian Universalism stands on the side of love.

Tradition and Community

While the individual is the ultimate source of religious authority, the individual is not the only source. If that were the case, Unitarian Universalists could easily fall prey to the condition that afflicted Otto von Bismarck, of whom it has been said that "he believed firmly and deeply in a God who had the remarkable faculty of always agreeing with him." No, our individual predilections need to be tempered by conversation with our tradition and tested within the crucible of our community.

Our history is important to us. Both our Unitarian and our Universalist traditions rejected the notion that "higher" authorities--be they theologians or bishops, rabbis or preachers--could impose their views upon the laity. This is the historical source of our commitment to freedom of belief, congregational polity, and lay empowerment. But our traditions also supply us with a rich legacy of positive affirmations, from Universalism's faith in the benevolence of God to Unitarianism's assurance that human beings have within them the capacity to shape the future. More on Unitarian Universalist History.

The result is that today our tradition provides us with a lodestar and a sort of "early warning system" for the recognition of tenets at odds with the norms of our faith. The tradition is not definitive--it will inevitably be modified and even superseded by new "revelation"--but if you hear someone preaching hellfire and damnation or that the future is solely in the hands of God, chances are its not a Unitarian Universalist!

The other resource which helps shape our faith is the religious community; that is, a supportive context within which to pursue one's religious pilgrimage. If what we discover on that pilgrimage is ever to realize its full potential, it must be shared, pondered, and even tested with others.

Individual freedom of belief exists, then, in dynamic tension with the insights our history and the wisdom of our communities. It is this tension which puts the lie to the oft-heard shibboleth that Unitarian Universalists can believe anything they like. It is true that we set up no formal religious test for legal membership, that we welcome the devout atheist as readily as the ardent Christian, but it is not true that one can subscribe to views at variance with our basic values. Clearly, one could never advocate racism or genocide, for example, and still in any meaningful sense call oneself a Unitarian Universalist.

Commitments and Covenants

Though we have no creed, we surely have made covenants--with each other, with previous generations, and some would even say with God--to live as a community united around certain precepts. The most recent form of those commitments we hold in common is to be found in our Principles and Purposes. But what about the fundamental religious questions? What does Unitarian Universalism have to teach us about God and meaning, the Good and suffering?

Obviously our answers may differ in detail depending upon our theological perspectives. Some of us would understand God in very personal ways, as the source of love of hopefulness; some would see God in nature or as Ultimate Reality; others would take the Goddess as a model; and still others would have no truck with the whole notion at all. Similarly, some of us would find life's greatest meaning through Christian prayer or Buddhist meditation; others through communion with the natural world or the pursuit of scientific understanding; and still others through the companionship of their loved ones. It is this diversity which makes Unitarian Universalism a congenial home for those who come from different religious backgrounds.

Regardless of the details or differences, however, there are a whole host of faith affirmations with which the vast majority of us would be comfortable:

Whatever we think the holy be, Creation itself is holy.

We make no distinctions between the natural and the supernatural, the secular and the sacred. We simply cherish the earth and all its creatures.

Life's gifts are available to everyone, not just the Chosen or the Saved.

Only human artifice or blind ill fortune can separate us from the source of blessings. Whatever that source be, it makes no artificial distinctions among its supplicants.

That which is most precious, most profound, Divine, is made evident, not in the miraculous or otherworldly, but in the simple and the everyday.

We look not to the heavens or an afterlife for our meaning, but to the exuberance of life's unfolding. Whatever abundance there may be is lodged right here on earth.

Human beings themselves are responsible for the planet and its future.

Social justice is a religious obligation. The future is never fated.

Every one of us is held in Creation's hand--we share its burdens and its radiance--and hence strangers need not be enemies.

The "interdependent web of all existence" offers an embrace to everything and everyone. Our only inherent enemies are violence, poverty, injustice, and oppression. The earth is our cherished home.

Though death confronts us all, we love life all the more even though we lose it.

An honorable and impassioned life may not deny death its due, but it can surely rob it of its victory.

Beliefs, Creeds and Doctrines

What do Unitarian Universalists believe?

• Every individual should be encouraged to develop a personal philosophy of life.
• Everyone is capable of reasoning.
• We do not need any other person, official or organization to tell us what to believe.
• We should be able to present religious opinions openly, without fear of censure or reprisal.
• All people should be tolerant of the religious ideas of others.
• Truth is not absolute; it changes over time. Everyone should continue to search for the truth.
• Everyone has an equal claim to life, liberty and justice.
• People should govern themselves by democratic processes.
• Ideas should be open to criticism.
• Good works are the natural product of a good faith.

Source: http://www.stanford.edu/group/uu/what-is-uu-introduction-content.htm.

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