UU Principles: How Are They Part Of Our Lives?

By Marguerite Robbins

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to all! And thank you to Colette for sharing the Canadian Thanksgiving background and the wonderful words of gratitude at the beginning of the service. An “attitude of gratitude” does go a long way toward nourishing our minds, our bodies, and our souls. It can indeed be a spiritual practice to reflect daily on what we are grateful for in our lives.

In recent years, my family has made it a ritual to practice an attitude of gratitude each Thanksgiving, right before we start eating the Thanksgiving meal. We go around the table, and each person in turn offers one or more things for which he or she is particularly grateful that year. I am wondering if all of us were sitting together at a very, very large Thanksgiving table and were asked to participate in that little ritual, how many of us would think to name the Unitarian Universalist Principles as something for which we are grateful this year?

Personally, I would be eager to name them. And I would also name the perspective of religious pluralism that is captured in the “Sources” statement which usually accompanies the Principles. The Sources statement substantiates the UU belief that “revelation” is not just a phenomenon of the past for one particular religious tradition, but rather it is an ongoing phenomenon that has continued to be present throughout the history of humankind. It is an ever present potential within and among us.

I remember when I first discovered the UU Principles and Sources statement. I was in my forties, and at the time a member of the United Methodist tradition, a wonderful tradition which nurtured me for many years. Then I entered a time of wanting more than the United Methodist tradition seemed to offer me. And as the saying goes that the teacher appears when the student is ready, Unitarian Universalism came into my field of vision and caught my attention in a big way.

The first time I read the Principles and Sources statement, I experienced an enormous sense of relief and joy – relief that such a magnificent list of spiritual concepts existed, and joy to know that there was a religion, and associated religious communities, which affirmed and promoted these concepts. Perhaps some of you can resonate with my experience of relief, and joy, and true thanksgiving for Our Principles and Sources statement.

In a few minutes, each one of you will be given a wallet size card that presents the Principles and Sources statement. I want each of you to have at least one of these cards, and if you should decide you want more, please let me know. I want you to have a card in order that you may refer to it when it can be helpful to you. I also want you to have it, in order that you will be able to show it to others when they express an interest in Unitarian Universalism.

Now having this card does not excuse you from having your own “elevator speech” on Unitarian Universalism. An elevator speech is a brief talk you can give - on what Unitarian Universalism means to you - in the time it would take an elevator to go 10 floors. Creating such a brief description can be a wonderfully clarifying spiritual exercise. And then you have it ready to offer as a gift to others as needed. Yet on some occasions, simply your new wallet card may become the “teacher” as someone is ready for revelation.

An example of such a circumstance occurred for me about four years ago. I worked for a brief period as a Chaplain Intern in a Care Center which was sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. The head Chaplain was a nun named Sister Nancy. Sister Nancy and I enjoyed each other from our first meeting, and I began visiting patients and residents right away.

On the third day I was there, Sister Nancy invited me into her office and said, “Marguerite, what is Unitarian Universalism all about?” She had told me that she had received some positive feedback about the visits I was making, and I suspect she was rather curious to learn just what I was doing and saying when I visited folks, primarily Roman Catholic folks. I responded to her question by pulling out of my purse a wallet size card of the Principles and Sources while saying, “I am happy to talk with you about Unitarian Universalism, and it might be helpful for you to read what is on this card first.” She took the card, read it, and then looked at me with an expression of relief and surprise. She said, “Well, I believe in all of these things.” I simply nodded affirmatively and quietly said “yes.”

That was the end of our discussion on Unitarian Universalism. We moved on to other topics. But my experience with Sister Nancy taught me that the Principles and Sources statement can go a long way toward dispelling fear about our religion, while concurrently planting seeds for hope and spiritual growth.

I want to share with you now, a brief history of the UU Principles and Sources statement. The first version of the statement, called the “Principles and Purposes,” was confirmed in 1961 when the Unitarian religious tradition and the Universalist religious tradition came together to become Unitarian Universalism. Both of these traditions had held liberal views of Christianity from their very early years in North America. And that common liberal bent resulted in a first attempt at bringing the two traditions together as early as 1856. However, that early attempt failed as did many others over the next 100 years of courtship.

But in 1954, the youth groups of the two traditions blazed the trail by successfully consolidating their two groups into a common organization. Two years later, a Joint Merger Commission was established by the national organizations of both traditions. The Commission worked tirelessly for three years, producing its final “Plan To Consolidate” - not merge. Finally in 1961, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America officially consolidated to become the continent-wide Unitarian Universalist Association, the UUA.

This history is important to understand because it was out of the difficult consolidation work that the first version of the “Principles and Purposes” was created. And yet, after all of that hard work, twenty years later the “Principles and Purposes” were rarely remembered or referenced. In 1979, Eugene Pickett, the new President of the UUA, set the stage for a major review and revision of the Principles and Purposes while speaking about the problems facing the movement at the time. He said and I quote:

The deeper malaise lies in our confusion as to what word we have to spread. The old watchwords of liberalism - freedom, reason, tolerance - worthy though they may be, are simply not catching the imagination of the contemporary world. They describe a process for approaching the religious depths but they testify to no intimate acquaintance with the depths themselves. If we are ever to speak to a new age, we must supplement our seeking with some profound religious finds.

In the same year at a Continental Conference on Women and Religion, one workshop was called, “The UUA Principles: Do They Affirm Us As Women?” The participants’ answer to that question turned out to be a resounding “No.” (Among other things, the wording of the original Principles was sexist.) So in 1981, a committee was formed to study the Principles and consider serious revisions to them.

Our own Reverend Brian Kiely, the minister of the Unitarian Church in downtown Edmonton, participated in the extensive process that followed. At the time, Brian was living in Toronto. He was a University student thinking about ministry while attending Reverend Chris Raible’s church in Toronto. Reverend Raible asked Brian to participate in the process. Brian shared the following information with me:

Revising the Principles was actually started by the women’s movement. The UUA’s response to this movement was to re-envision what Unitarian Universalism was all about. Walter Royal Jones headed up the Task Force. A booklet was created that was sent to all the congregations asking that they hold major workshops to define their values. Brian led the workshops at his church.

A year later, a second booklet arrived with draft statements to work on. Brian conducted workshops again and sent in the feedback.

The result of this work was a revised statement of Principles and Sources which was brought before the annual General Assembly meeting of the UUA. The statement needed to be voted on by the delegates at this meeting because the statement resided in the Bylaws of the UUA Constitution.

There was a tremendous amount of politicking and discussion around whether the phrase “world religions” was enough, or if Jewish and Christian heritage should be singled out. The people who valued the historical perspective wanted to acknowledge the progression of Judaism to Christianity to the Reformation.

In the end, the revised statement passed with a 2/3 majority. Brian noted that the notion of the “interdependent web of all existence” was the first public religious statement ever to place humanity in the world – as part of the world - rather than over the world.

There are two relevant and significant postscripts that I need to add to this brief history of our Principles and Sources. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the population of Pagan UUs was growing. This growth resulted in a 4-5 year lobbying effort by the organization called CUUPS (for Covenant of UU Pagans) which wanted to add a new source to the list of Sources. The source they wanted to add was the spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions. They argued that the existing phrase “world religions” was not enough for them and that an ecologically based source needed to be included. In 1995, adding this new source was confirmed, almost unanimously.

The second post script relates to an effort currently underway in Canada to review and potentially revise the existing Principles and Sources statement within Canada. This effort is now appropriate because two years ago, the Unitarian Universalist Association recognized an agreement between United States’ UUs and the Canadian Unitarian Council. The agreement specified that shared resources between the Canadian Unitarian Council and the Unitarian Universalist Association would be maintained in the areas of Youth and Ministry. It also acknowledged Canadian autonomy in all other areas. As part of that new autonomy, the Canadian Unitarian Council recently commissioned a Task Force to ask Canadian Unitarian congregations to hold workshops in order to consider whether or not, and if so how, to revise the current Principles and Sources statement into a truly Canadian statement. It is possible that within this church year, Westwood may become acquainted with this effort.

Now as part of a guided meditation for this morning, we invite each of you to take a wallet size card of the Principles and Sources statement. When these cards have been distributed to all, we will begin a guided meditation.

The Principles start with these words, “We, the member congregations of the Canadian Unitarian Council, covenant to affirm and promote:…[stop]” I want to focus with you on two words in this opening. The first is “congregations.” The Principles and Sources statement is a collective statement. That means it is not about individuals, necessarily. Some of you will resonate with all of the items in the statement and some of you will not. And that is okay. This statement is meant to be a collective, expansive statement from many UU congregations. It is not intended to be a creed for every individual.

Now let’s focus on the word, “covenant.” Our religious tradition emphasizes the point that we are non-creedal, where “creed” is defined as “a statement we must accept to be members in good standing.” Instead, we are covenantal. We extend an invitation for people to join in promoting and affirming the Principles and Sources statement, but doing so is not a rule, or law, or condition for being an active UU. Ultimately each person’s desire to affirm or promote the Principles and Sources statement is up to each person’s inner wisdom. In Unitarian Universalism, each person is his or her own religious authority.

A few weeks ago I shared that my personal definition of religion is a “system of beliefs, values, and behaviors which facilitate meaning-making and direction in the lives of human beings.” I think it may be a worthwhile exercise for us to review each Principle, followed by silently reflecting on whether it is a belief, a value, a behavior, or a combination.