AboutJon Bond Expertise Will answer all questions regarding Unitarian Universalist (UU)church; including ancient history (Universalists go back to at least 250 A.D.) and medieval history (Unitarians look to 1553 A.D. as their beginning) up to merger of the two movements in 1961 and continuing up to present. Am familiar with Christian church organizations and relationship of UUs to traditional churches.
Experience Currently member of Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado. Past vice-president of Board of Trustees and currently on Membership Committee. Have taught UU history for over 20 years. Have attended Unitarian Universalist General Assemblies (annual meetings held in June) for past 15 years.
Organizations Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado
Question I am getting the impression that UU basically have a personal belief system. Is there anything that you ALL believe in? Is this "religion" something that has a "one size fits all" basis? I don't understand something that has such a broad acceptance. Acceptance is not the right definition but I can't think of another appropriate term to describe.
Help me to understand...
thanks,
t
Answer Trudi:
What a great question ! ! !
Long answer short: We believe in the democratic process and vote on our Principles and Purposes. In addition, we submit changes to those Principles and Purposes that can be accepted or denied.
Much, much longer answer: I’m going to answer your question based on my being around UUs for thirty years. Before that, I was a Christian that believed in the fundamental Christian faith. Even there, one could probably say that not even ALL Christians believe in one thing (in actuality, I suspect that even Christians are not ALL in agreement on ALL aspects.)
I’d like to divide my answer into three parts: FIRST, a background of our association; SECOND, is there anything that we ALL believe in? THIRD, is this "religion" something that has a "one size fits all" basis? I don't understand something that has such a broad acceptance incorporate Christians into the UU fold; third, outline how UUs believe in and interpret the Bible; and then, fourth, an analysis of two of our principles being stated as moral ideals, reflecting our very cautious approach to theological affirmations, at least in terms of "we-language."
FIRST - a background (including where the two groups (Unitarian and Universalist)originated):
The concept of Unitarianism generally looks to a Catholic priest, Michael Servetus, as a spiritual originator. Servetus was born in Spain in 1511 and died in 1553, after attacking the doctrines of the Trinity. Unitarianism is a doctrinal system characterized chiefly by a belief in the unipersonality of God and the normal humanity of Jesus, as contrasted with the Trinity and the eternal deity (divinity) of Jesus. Most Unitarians I’ve spoken with reject the divinity of Jesus, but do recognize him (Jesus) as a great moral teacher
Universalism is the theological doctrine that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there are no torments of hell. Universalism has been asserted at various times in different contexts throughout the history of the "Christian church"--e.g., Origen in the 3rd century. The Universalists also denied the miraculous element in Scripture, and rejected such important Bible doctrines as the total depravity of man and the Trinity.
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was created in May of 1961 as a merger of Unitarians and Universalists.
SECOND - Trudi, in this part of my answer, I will answer your question on ‘is there anything that we ALL believe in? Without getting into too much details, etc., I will say that you must be aware of how most churches in America are organized. Basically, there are four types: 1) the Episcopalian who claim their authority from the Epistles and have a hierarchy (usually male) of authority – these include both Catholics and Episcopalians. 2) the Presbyterian form of authority which is sort of organized in a geographical or synodical basis – this group includes Presbyterians and Lutherans. 3) the Congregational form which allows each congregation to hire or fire their ministers – this group includes the Unitarians and Universalists. 4) Miscellaneous which includes those who ‘speak in tongues,’ the LDS (Mormons), snake handlers, etc.
I must point out that the Unitarian Church (hereinafter referred to as UUA) has no creeds, only statements of purpose. We pride ourselves in welcoming atheists and humanists, as well as Christians. To illustrate, the UU organization took a survey to find out what we believe is important in our religious lives.
Almost 10,000 Unitarian Universalists took the time to fill out and return the survey, giving us all an invaluable snapshot of who we are. Our association has been enriched by the knowledge gained from the answers many UUs provided.
This survey began a process designed to reach out to all UU individuals and congregations called "Fulfilling the Promise." This Concept was set in motion by the Unitarian Universalist Association's Board of Trustees. Its goal was to help us move toward agreement about why we come together as congregations and as an association, and what we hope to accomplish.
The survey questions came from individual UUs, as did the suggested responses. More than 500 people helped create this survey. We hope you will find your own experience reflected in the questions and answers, even if the exact language you would use is not perfectly captured here.
What follows are the total tabulations for the first 8118 surveys. At least one question deals with theological perspective. Question number 30 results follow:
Please check the one of the following which best describes your theological perspective:
The balance of the questions (age, sex, length of church membership, etc.), gave us a picture of who are demographically and as church persons. They provide a picture of what we say our values in religious community are.
As you can see, there is no consensus on what ALL believe. For example, those in the UUA who consider themselves Christian may believe Jesus is god or son of god. However, many may consider Jesus a prophet of god like the Muslims. There is a belief in Jesus as the highest model of the religious life: At the same time, there is an interpretation of Jesus that equates his ministry with that of Moses, Buddha, Socrates, and Mohammed. The main differences would be the fact that the UUA welcomes people from all faiths (see results of survey.)
THIRD - In this part of my answer, I will attempt to outline how UUs live within an organization that certainly doesn’t have a a "one size fits all" basis?
For example, no one, to my knowledge, believes in the infallibility of the Bible. Our Unitarian and Universalist forebears accept the authority of biblical truth, but affirmed that it must be reasonable interpreted. The advancement of human knowledge and experience over the years has led the UUs to find truth in many written works as well as to accept scholarly criticism of the Bible. Nevertheless, this speaking of the truth, as the minister or other speaker best understand it, is still basic to us. Each individual congregant (member of UUA) must, of course determine for him or herself what rings true. It is not required that people agree with all that is said. You might even try typing in “biblical contradictions” and you might see that in any faith/religion, there certainly is room for infallibility in reading the bible and, consequently, not even in the ‘word of God’ is there absolute conformity on what ALL believe.
But, we have democratically adopted our Principles and Purposes and arrived at something we can all believe in. Some of our Principles are stated as moral ideals, reflecting our very cautious approach to theological affirmations, at least in terms of "we-language."
One exception may be the seventh Principle, which can be understood as a vision of ultimate reality: "the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." The seventh principle has assumed prominence in recent years, probably because it reflects ecological ideals and resonates spiritually with our times. Although there is no uniform or authoritative interpretation of the Principles, the seventh Principle is sometimes given a quasi-creedal aura. We see this when it is used as a statement of shared beliefs and values, or recited in church services, or used to justify resolutions of social issues, or used to ground religious education curricula.
The second part of the Principles statement begins: "The living tradition which we share draws from many sources." Religious as distinct from secular covenants are grounded in spiritual realities that were understood traditionally as divine gifts; for these gifts the people entering the covenant acknowledged gratitude.
James Luther Adams has emphasized that an authentic covenant is rooted in love, not law. Rules and regulations are secondary to the originating motive of the covenant. The sources section of the UUA Principles statement fulfills this motivating function by saying, in effect: We are grateful for being heirs to a "living tradition" that has taken these diverse forms. The psychic impact of this understanding is immense. To the extent that consciousness of a cherished common heritage is strong among us, our sense of unity is also strong. (CAVEAT – we are strongly united but certainly don’t require or even believe that we ALL believe the same things!)
Trudi, for more information, please feel free to check out our web site http://uua.org/ A good book to check on is - A Chosen Faith - ISBN 0-8070-1617-9.
In conclusion, please remember that I’m one of over 250,000 people and, if you ask another UU (Unitarian Universalist), you may get a different (but, hopefully, not conflicting) answer. I must thank you for taking the time to question whether or not we can ‘co-exist’ when we don’t interpret ALL things the same. Trudi, I wish you only good luck in your search - you’re on the right track!
