Our Faith
Unitarian Universalism
“We are people of all ages, people of many backgrounds, and people of many beliefs. We are brave, curious and compassionate thinkers and doers. We create spirituality and community beyond boundaries, working for more justice and more love in our own lives and in the world.
Unitarian Universalism affirms and promotes Eight Principles, grounded in the humanistic teachings of the world’s religions. Our spirituality is unbounded, drawing from scripture and science, nature and philosophy, personal experience and ancient tradition as described in our Six Sources.”
UUA MEMBER CONGREGATION
The Eight Principles
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven Principles, which we hold as strong values and moral guides. We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience.
As Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove explains, “The Principles are not dogma or doctrine, but rather a guide for those of us who choose to join and participate in Unitarian Universalist religious communities.”
1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part;
8. Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.
The Six Sources
Our six sources are a quintessential feature of Unitarian Universalism, creating a “religious pluralism that enriches and ennobles our faith.” They take seriously the fact that our religious sensibilities differ. We are invited to embrace those sources that speak to our soul, using them as touchstones to nurture us and inform our actions, using them to deepen our understanding and expand our vision, using them to lead lives of integrity and authenticity.
1. Direct Experience
Religion begins with experience, not with words. It is through our direct experience of life, that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. Through our experience, enduring and nurturing connections are created, ones that uphold us through this journey that we call life. We are not isolated beings. Rather, we are both made of the stuff of stars and connected through time and space with all that exists.
2. Deeds of Prophetic Women and Men
Religion begins with experience, not with words. It is through our direct experience of life, that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. Through our experience, enduring and nurturing connections are created, ones that uphold us through this journey that we call life. We are not isolated beings. Rather, we are both made of the stuff of stars and connected through time and space with all that exists.
3. Wisdom from the World’s Religions
Religion begins with experience, not with words. It is through our direct experience of life, that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. Through our experience, enduring and nurturing connections are created, ones that uphold us through this journey that we call life. We are not isolated beings. Rather, we are both made of the stuff of stars and connected through time and space with all that exists.
4. Jewish and Christian Teachings
Love is a gift to our religious tradition from both Judaism and Christianity. When Ferenc Dávid, one of our founders who lived in the 16th century said, “We do not need to think alike, to love alike,” he was recalling the words of Jesus who demanded a radical and transforming love as both the basis for human relationship and the gateway to relationship with the divine. With those simple, but profound words, Dávid said we will gather as religious communities based on love, not intellectual propositions; on covenant, not creed; on orthopraxy or right practice, not orthodoxy or right belief. Because we have tended to embrace the religion of Jesus, rather than the religion about Jesus, we share a religious affinity with Judaism that is as strong as our historical association with Christianity. We have taken the foundation of love from both traditions and used it to build Unitarian Universalism. Because of this, we have always been standing on the side of love.
5. Humanist Teachings
Humanist teachings counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit. The constructive work of reason and science involves synthesis, seeking order out of chaos. At the deepest level, this is the search for unity. And this often results in surprise and paradox. Danish physicist Neils Bohr captured this when he said, “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
6. Earth-based Spirituality
Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. Creation did not end on the sixth day as the story in Genesis would have us believe. It is a continuous process and we have become co-creators with nature. Our appropriate role is not to dominate the earth, but to use our technology to allow us to live human lives with dignity and meaning within the earth’s ecological means. The first step in changing our relationship with the earth is to awaken in us and in all humanity a reverence for the earth. May this reverence lead us to honor the earth. May it deepen into something so profound that the earth becomes sacred to us. May this deep reverence transform our actions, so that our very living becomes a touch that caresses the earth.