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WE, THE MEMBER CONGREGATIONS OF THE
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION,
COVENANT TO AFFIRM AND PROMOTE:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth
in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of democratic process
within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty,
and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence
of which we are a part.
THE LIVING TRADITION WE SHARE DRAWS FROM MANY SOURCES:
Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder,
affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit
and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life;
Words and deeds of prophetic men and women which challenge us
to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion,
and the transforming power of love;
Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us
in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love
by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
Humanist teachings which council us to heed the guidance of reason
and the results of science, and warn us against
idolatries of the mind and spirit.
Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennoble our faith,
we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our
An Introduction to the Seven
Unitarian Universalist Principles
"What Do UU's Believe?"
A Homily
Recently, two men from my church tried to explain Unitarian Universalism to friends during a round of golf. Their explanation, they said, was awful. The trouble began when they mentioned that Unitarian Universalism doesn't require specific beliefs.
"How can you have a religion if you can believe anything you want?" they were asked. They replied, with good instincts I thought, that UU's share certain Principles about justice, compassion and the inherent worth of the individual.
They felt pretty good about this until it prompted:
"Oh, so, to be a UU, you have to believe in the Principles?"
"Well, not exactly," they said, and found themselves feeling quite stuck....
Trying to explain that we can't really believe anything we want, yet we don't have to hold any particular belief in common is very tricky business.
Unitarian Universalism is deceptively difficult to talk about. Even our Principles are hard to talk about if you get right down to it. But that's what I'd like to do today because a look at our principles, what they are, and how they work, explains much about us as a gathered community.
Our principles aren't a creed. We admit we are creedphobic - they couldn't possibly be a creed. So what are they? Webster's Dictionary defines a creed as "a statement of religious belief accepted as authoritative by the church." How do we stand in relation to our Principles if we don't accept that they are "authoritative," which would make them a creed? I submit that as a church we don't take issue with the idea that a statement can have authority -- but we rail against the idea that any statement can have permanent authority - and that is the stance of a traditional creed.
It was the Universalist minister L.B. Fisher who said: "Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move."2 Perhaps our statement of Principles and Purposes should be printed with a date next to them as a reminder that they are subject to change.
Allowing our Principles to evolve is part of a continuous process of self-definition that is fundamental to our religious journey on a personal, parish and denominational level. The question that underlies them is this: "We all have to live together -- what's the best way to do it?" Who answers that question? We all do.
But coming up with the Principles is not only meant to be an act of self-definition. Far from it. Our Principles help us to determine how we as a denomination ought to act in the world. They can be seen at work in every resolution and, I hope, in every new statement of conscience that comes before the General Assembly.
It is significant and important that each statement begins by naming the principles in which it is grounded. Unitarian Universalism doesn't expect to answer the larger "religious" questions about whether there is a God or immortality, and it doesn't want to. But the common ground that we do work out together, our principles, are precious, important, carefully thought through, and considered the common possession of the group at this particular time. The old resolution format showed very clearly how our actions in the world related to our faith witness. The beauty and potential of our principles didn't dawn on me until the day I realized that those resolutions sounded a bit like geometry proofs.
They brought to mind an article by Isaac Asimov entitled "Euclid's Fifth"3 about the magnitude of Euclid's contribution to human knowledge. A lot that we know as geometry was known before Euclid, but it was a random collection of knowledge, accessible only to a privileged few to whom it could be transmitted proof by proof. Euclid built his mathematical system on the idea that it was useless to try and prove everything; that it was essential to make a beginning with some things that could not be proved, but that could be accepted because they satisfied intuition. Such intuitive assumptions are called axioms.
To refresh your memory: Euclid's axioms are straightforward, seemingly obvious statements such as: "Things equal to the same are equal to each other" or "The whole is greater than the part."
Euclid is called the Father of Geometry because he culled a huge, confusing body of knowledge into a manageable, workable size by recognizing that out of ten deceptively simple axioms the rest of geometry could be built. As a result, for the first time, this wealth of knowledge could be transmitted from person to person and culture to culture with ease. These axioms became tools that helped us to navigate and to build roads, pyramids and skyscrapers. They helped build a civilization.
Like Euclid with his geometry, Unitarian Universalists have tried to winnow a huge body of knowledge down to bare essentials. Like Euclid's axioms, our principles can't be proven or disproven, but based on the assumption that they are true, we use them as tools to create a better world.
Our seven principles express the best Unitarian Universalist spiritual insight at this time. We can measure our health as a parish or as a society by our progress in learning to live them. Each represents a spiritual and an intellectual challenge to us as people of faith, a means of locating our progress and our failures. Is it heresy for a UU to disbelieve one of these? No more than it would be considered heresy for a mathematician to disbelieve one of Euclid's axioms.
Former US Senator Sam Ervin said, "Religion is not a storm cellar to which men and women can flee from the storms of life." He is right. Our principles won't shield us from life's storms. What they do for us is to identify the points of battle. Each principle describes an area of human endeavor in which we fall short of perfection, spheres in which our learning and yearning should be most exercised. The principles serve as a compass; by offering a sense of direction they offer hope.
I know of no other religion that puts forth religious insight that has been produced by committee and votes it, as our Principles have been. If we extol the virtue of the seven principles to non-UU's we may find ourselves teased on that score. ("You vote your commandments, do you!") But that homely little fact represents perhaps the greatest hope of all. We are learning slowly, perhaps reluctantly, that quality knowledge about groups needs to come from the mind of quality groups.
While writing this sermon I came across an essay entitled, "Seven Wonders" by Lewis Thomas, in which he admires termites. He writes: "There is nothing wonderful about one or two termites, but keep adding termites until they reach a critical mass and a miracle begins. Following the chemical blueprint encoded in their genes, flawlessly and stone-blind, they begin constructing a cathedral in which their colony will live out its life, air-conditioned and humidity-controlled." Thomas suggests that someday, when sufficient numbers of human beings are sufficiently connected to one another, collective thinking might be possible. That's a wondrous idea. But in the meantime, we do what we must. Unitarian Universalists have given birth to our seven Principles after sustained collective effort - effort which will continue. Since, unlike termites, we have no chemical blueprint encoded in our genes that tells us how to live together to the benefit of all, we are stuck with having to piece together a blueprint, no matter how crude it may seem.
This homily is entitled "What Do UU's Believe?" I imagine someone of another faith listening to this might politely hold back what he/she is really thinking - "Is that all?" But, as I mentioned earlier, Unitarian Universalism doesn't attempt to answer the larger questions for all. I believe that Fredrick May Eliot's description of the humanist within Unitarianism accurately describes Unitarian Universalism today: Eliot said, "He saw ... opportunity for complete sincerity in religious life...He may not believe very much as measured by orthodox standards, but what he does believe he believes with his whole mind." Are the Principles everything that a Unitarian Universalist believes? Of course not. But they may constitute the sum total of what we believe collectively. And that is okay. We can think of the Principles and Purposes as guides that tell us how to live together because we have different beliefs. They are based on the extraordinary premise that - even with our differing beliefs - we all can walk on holy ground - together.
1Parke, David B. The Epic of Unitarianism, (Beacon Hill, Beacon Press. 1957) p. 33
3The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphia, NRSV (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)