chalice_circle: Refer to UU FAQ II

Br Garotte of Moderation (

ferndalealex) wrote in

chalice_circle,
@ 2008-05-14 11:33:00

Refer to UU FAQ II
For some of the new folks, or perhaps some of us looking for a view to think about. On his blog, Doug Muder gave the best answer that I've come across for the question: Aren’t there any common beliefs in Unitarian Universalism? (June 24, 2005).

The UU Principles make a crummy membership test, because billions of people who don’t consider themselves UU’s can pass it. The principles describe the center of Unitarian Universalism rather than its boundaries. They provide a focus for our attention, not a way to differentiate ourselves from the infidels.* Moreover, the principles are in no way sacred. We are pledged to revisit them from time to time, and they will undoubtedly be changed or reworded from one generation to the next.

He also touches on the point that the principles are a bit vague.

*This reads as a bit of humor in the fuller context...please don't get hung up on it.

(Post a new comment)

	sparkofcreation 2008-05-14 06:51 pm UTC (link)
	Congregations subscribe to and agree to actively promote the Principles. Whether a particular person affirms them or not has nothing to do with anything. They're not meant to be a "membership test"; they're meant to be a mission statement for the member congregations. (Reply to this)(Thread)

entropyspring
2008-05-14 07:43 pm UTC (link)

Good point. Another point is that member congregations don't covenant to *believe* the Principles,but to "affirm and promote" them -- they aren't meant to be abstract thoughts about how the world is, but promises we will act on to make the world better!

Imagine what the world would be like if we didn't just believe abstractly that people have worth and dignity, but instead actually affirmed and promoted the worth and dignity of each person we met...

(Reply to this)(Parent)

entropyspring
2008-05-14 07:38 pm UTC (link)

Sometime recently a visitor to our congregation called to our attention the work of UU scholar and general wise guy James Luther Adams. Adams proposed "five smooth stones" that constitute a common worldview of people who come to our congregations.

I guess these could be seen to join the other "numbered lists" of UUism -- the 7 Principles attempt to sum up our vision of the life well-lived (our religious outputs, if you will), the 6 Sources summarize the wells to which we go for religious/spiritual inspiration (our religious inputs), and the "5 Stones" then describe the core beliefs, independent of inputs or outputs, that help us parse the Sources and define the Principles. They are one way of stating the nebulous "UU theology," perhaps.

Here they are, for your reading enjoyment, as copied-and-pasted from http://www.msu.edu/user/uulansmi/kbert/Sermon_print_2005_0717_Smooth_Stones.htm (with my attempts to translate into non-scholarly language in parens). They can be seen, as I read them, as a sort of anti-fundamentalist manifesto.

"Revelation is continuous." (we will update our religious understandings as revelation (see the 6 Sources) continues to refine them, and we will never point to a closed set of Holy Writings and say "this is it, if you can't somehow prove your point using these writings then you're just plain wrong")

"All relations between persons ought ideally to rest on mutual free consent and not on coercion." (there is no higher authority than the individual conscience, period.)

"Moral obligation to direct one's effort toward the establishment of a just and loving community." (being a "Good UU" is all about learning to treat others with justice and compassion, and our sense of "mission" is to foster a just, loving, and accepting world; when we think of "saving" the world we think of creating beloved community, social justice, and environmental stewardship, not converting the heathens to the One True Belief)

"We deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation." (the definitions of good and evil, wrong and right, (even legal and illegal?) are not fixed, but are relative to the social context; a deeper understanding of virtue is needed than "the ten commandments" or any similar legalistic moral system)

"The resources that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism." (Unitarians have always had faith in the better nature -- even the perfectability -- of humanity; we are optimistic that we can create heaven on earth, rather than looking to some afterlife for the perfect world)

(Reply to this)

	dreams_of_all 2008-05-14 07:41 pm UTC (link)
	Why do we need a membership test? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	entropyspring 2008-05-14 07:44 pm UTC (link)
	It's part of no churchmember left behind (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dreams_of_all 2008-05-14 07:50 pm UTC (link)
	...Well, that's a scary thought. blinks (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ferndalealex 2008-05-14 08:34 pm UTC (link)
	We don't, but you'll find that most folks in mainstream denominations can't get their minds around the idea of not having a statement of faith (doxology) to which all members must ascribe, like the Nicean or Apostle's Creeds. Thus we get the question "Aren’t there any common beliefs in Unitarian Universalism?" (Reply to this)(Parent)

morningdove3202
2008-05-14 11:00 pm UTC (link)

I disagree that our principles are secular. Yes, they are written in secular language, but that doesn't mean we can't, as individuals find spiritually in them. The big one for me is the first one, "the inherent worth and dignity of all people". To me that's the anti-thesis of "Original Sin", the idea that we are not born flawed. I would argue that the God(s) that I worship also affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Naturally I can't prove this to anyone because it's based on my own "unverified personal gnosis", to use a phrase common in the Pagan community, but one can find spirituality in the 7 Principles, if you want to. The secular language doesn't confine one to thinking only in secular terms.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	Question ferndalealex 2008-05-15 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	Can something be spiritual without being sacred? Or, are the two exactly the same? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Question morningdove3202 2008-05-17 02:09 am UTC (link)
	As a Pagan there are few things that are not sacred, but our awareness of the sacred is what really changes, not the inherent sacredness of something. There are different connotations between "spiritual" and "sacred", but they are close. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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