We think of the UU Seven Principles as a summation of the values that form the center of our faith. That’s helpful. But the Seven Principles weren’t composed as an exhaustive list of our faith values and some important ones aren’t named. We’ll look at the values that are there, and some that aren’t, over the coming weeks.
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In 1961, The Universalist Church of America merged with the American Unitarian Association and took the name, The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
The merger had been a long time coming. The two separate churches had been noticing each other since the early 19th century. Ministers of one church often served pulpits of the other, such as the Universalist Thomas Starr King who served the Unitarian Church in San Francisco.
Both churches followed the path of liberal religion, meaning that the faithful were encouraged to explore widely, and discuss freely, their theological questions and answers, rather than assent to a rote creed. The term “liberal religion” refers to a method of engaging with questions of religion, rather than a particular set of answers.
In the decades prior to 1961, the consideration of merger grew more animated and serious. Several experiments took place with smaller bodies within the two organizations trying on merger to see how it worked. As with every Unitarian and Universalist issue there were committees appointed and debates and eventual a vote.
The arguments for merger were actually much the same as the arguments against merger. That is, people mostly agreed on the facts but they wondered whether those facts led toward a case for merger or against it.
For instance, the Universalists churches were far more rural and the Unitarian churches far more urban. Would the differences make a stronger, more expansive and far-reaching church if merged, or would the differences prove to be unbridgeable and unworkable? The Unitarian churches were far more humanist and scientific, populated by engineers and college professors. The Universalist churches were more theist, pious, and Christian. Would the diversity be a benefit to the merged church, or a detriment? The Universalist churches had once been large but had been declining for decades before 1960. The Unitarian churches had once been small but were growing rapidly in the decades before 1960. Would merger help continue the growth of liberal religion or drag it down?
And then, in 1961, the delegates made the decision, and the new church was born.
And here, immediately, began a problem.
It was clear what a Unitarian was. And it was clear what a Universalist was. But what was a Unitarian Universalist?
Both churches followed the liberal religious method and were open to a variety of beliefs, but both Unitarian and Universalist also meant something specific.
A Unitarian believed in the unity of God, that God was one person, not a Trinity. God was God the Father, not Jesus. Jesus was not divine, but was a human being like all human beings. Jesus was special in the way he fully realized his human potential and therefore it was profitable to follow him and his teachings in order that we could, like him, become sanctified. Jesus saved us by showing us the way to save ourselves.
A Universalist believed in the universal salvation of all souls. Some Universalists were also Unitarians, believing that universal salvation depended solely on the infinite love of God for all creation. But many Universalists were Christian, believing that salvation was won through the divine Jesus’ act of dying on the cross that paid the price for human sin. They were Universalists because they believed that Jesus’ death was sufficient to save all humanity, where Calvinist Christians believed that Jesus’ death would only save a part of humanity.
By 1961, both the Unitarians and Universalists had de-emphasized the traditional meaning of their names and adopted more expansive, less theological interpretations of their separate traditions. But even in the simplest, broadest, interpretations the difference was clear. Unitarians preached the power of humans. Universalists preached the love of God.
So what was this new theology, Unitarian Universalism?
But let’s be clear. When the American Unitarian Association and Universalist Church of America merged they created The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. They did not mean to create a new religion called Unitarian Universalism.
What they thought they were creating was a merged administrative structure that would support all the churches of both former bodies. They would combine the assets. They would elect one President and one Board of Trustees. The churches would continue to hire their ministers and teach their children, and read and study and debate theological questions as they wished following their own interests.
The merger intended to create Unitarian Universalist churches, not Unitarian Universalism.
But, if there are churches, and there are people attending the churches, it’s natural enough for someone to ask, or for us to ask ourselves, “Well, what does this church believe?”
And so, with the merger, in 1961, a new faith was born, and needed to be defined.
The statement that we call the Seven Principles, is actually a section of the Bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association: Article II, Section 1. The section continues with the statement of the Sources of our faith, and ends with this statement:
“Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles 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 mutual trust and support.”
Like any set of corporate Bylaws, the bylaws can be amended. The current seven principles and six sources were amended to the UUA Bylaws in the mid-1980s, replacing a statement from the original bylaws of 1961. That original Article II of the Bylaws reads like this:
“In accordance with these corporate purposes, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Association, dedicated to the principles of a free faith, unite in seeking:
1. To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship;
2. To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in their essence as love to God and love to man;
3. To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships;
4. To implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace;
5. To serve the needs of member churches and fellowships, to organize new churches and fellowships, and to extend and strengthen liberal religion;
6. To encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land.”
You can hear hints in that statement of language that would later appear in the Seven Principles of the 1980s. And you can also hear why sentiments expressed in language like “the dignity of man,” and “men of goodwill” written in 1961 needed to be updated twenty-years later.
What the writers of the 1961 bylaws did, was to define the new religion of Unitarian Universalism not in terms of what we would believe together, but what we would do together. They used action words like, “strengthen one another”, “cherish and spread the universal truths”, “affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality”, “implement our vision”, “serve the needs”, “encourage cooperation.”
But in the vague language of what we would do, the authors wrote not so much a mission statement focused on action, as a statement of our new UU values. That is, the authors aren’t specific about the work we’re going to do, but they are clear about the principles that will inspire our work.
It’s the values that stand out most prominently in that statement. “A free and disciplined search for truth. Supreme human worth. Dignity of all persons. Democracy. A world community. Justice. Peace.
The new Unitarian Universalism was defined by leaving behind any of the theological meaning of those old words, there’s no mention of God or Jesus or salvation, and replacing beliefs explicitly with values. In the liberal religious manner, we would be a religion where we could choose for ourselves what we think about our faith, or what we do with our faith. Instead, our religion would be one where our common core was the values that we held to be important: the shared principles by which we would guide our lives and our spiritual communities.
This emphasis on values as the center of our faith, became even more pronounced in the re-writing of that section of the bylaws in the 1980s. The action words are gone. No longer do we have, “Strengthen” and “Cherish” and “Implement”. Now we simply have the values:
We 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.
a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.
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.
Since the beginning of this church year, in September, I’ve been talking about a model of a complete faith that includes three aspects.
A complete faith is our Beliefs, plus our Values, plus our Actions.
Our Beliefs are everything that we hold to be true about ourselves and the world around us. Our Beliefs are our worldview, our description of reality.
From our understanding of the world the way it really is, we then derive a set of values. Because the world is the way it is, some organizing principles become important. In a world that looks like this one, compassion becomes important, or fairness becomes important, or equality of the sexes becomes important, for example. These are my faith values. These are the principles that help direct my path in life.
And then, growing from those underlying principles, we then take action in the world. We act in ways that we think best affirm and promote the values that are important to us, based on our beliefs about the way the world is.
Our faith is what we say we believe about the world, the values that we derive from those beliefs, and the actions that we take in line with our values.
Over the next several weeks, we’re going to look together during worship at our Unitarian Universalist values.
We start with our seven principles because that’s a piece of common language that we were gifted with 40 years ago. But that statement was not intended to list all of our faith values. And it’s not clear that the authors were even then as clear as we are now that it really is values that lie at the center of our faith. A close reading of the seven principles reveal a couple of hidden belief statements and action statements. And there are also more values that I think we hold in common that aren’t listed in the seven principles.
That will give us much to work with over the next several weeks.
And also, as we did when we discussed various religious beliefs together throughout the fall, I encourage you to use this worship time to examine your personal faith as well as our shared faith. What do you believe? What are your core values? What do you do, inspired by your faith?
Many religions begin with a set of beliefs. They write out a creed statement that says explicitly this is what we believe. In order to be a member of this community you have to believe what we believe.
And a lot of non-profit organizations and commercial corporations are centered around mission statements, which are statements of actions the group is organized to undertake. If you join us, they say, you agree to help us do this particular piece of work.
For Unitarian Universalists, though, our core is neither a set of beliefs that we all hold in common nor a statement of a particular work that we’re organized to accomplish. Our core is our shared values.
We don’t all believe the same things, about God, or Jesus, or life after death, and that’s OK. Actually, it’s better than OK, it’s great. It keeps us interesting and growing and learning.
And it’s great that, inspired by our shared values some of us choose to do certain work in the world and others choose to work on something else. And it’s great if now and then we all choose to join together on some big project. But we don’t have to. It’s OK if we don’t. It’s OK if you are inspired by our shared values to do one thing, and I choose something else, or even if I simply support you in doing your work and am proud of what you accomplish. Just as we can disagree about God and Jesus, it’s also OK for us to disagree about the best way to affirm and promote our values. Our values can take shape in many ways. We don’t have to agree.
We need not think alike, to love alike. Nor does our common love demand a single expression. We are the people who hold these principles to be important. If our values are your values than we invite you to join us. Unitarian Universalists are not gathered to believe together, or to do together, but simply to be together.