I’ve long been taken with the current Unitarian Universalist Statement of Principles & Purposes.
It is the most recent of a long line of attempts not to formulate a creed, that is a statement one must assent to in order to belong to a group, but rather an attempt to describe what is commonly held among this band. As such there have traditionally been “escape clauses,” that is in one manner or another an acknowledgment no individual must subscribe to this statement or they will not be admitted into membership or that they will be expelled from membership.
At the same time it has real authority, it is part of the bylaws of the organization.
Among the protections is a requirement the document be reviewed on a periodic basis. Indeed, after a process of review over the past two years which included considerable debate and several drafts, a final draft document is up for a vote at General Assembly, the annual convention of the denomination.
The changes are relatively minor. The part called called sources has been rewritten as an introductory paragraph. Beyond this, most notably the cast of language has become more “spiritual” or “religious.” Otherwise the “seven principles” remain intact.
Now I admit much of it is mom and apple pie. And if I were in charge I would trim it quite a bit. But of the parts I would cut I find none are particularly problematic, merely, to my mind, unnecessary.
But there are three principles which I find worthy. In fact I think they speak to who we are as a religious liberal institution and particularly describe our intuition of how the world works, and how we might act within it. Two of these as theological assertions, which to my mind need to be taken together. And a third which is a call to a method of spiritual inquiry.
That later is the fourth principle, calling for “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Free in that the spirit lists where it will, and we just don’t know what might open the heart and mind for any given individual. Responsible in that it doesn’t mean everything is going to work, and indeed some things are going to do nothing more than feed the ego or distract one from the real concerns of our quest for depth and our hopes for the world. This project is about life and death and in this assertion we’re called to not fool around, not to waste our one precious life.
But for me, by far and away, the most important thing is to be found in joining the first principle, an assertion of “The inherent worth and dignity of every person” together with the seventh, “Reverence for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” (In this new draft the original word “respect” is now replaced by “reverence.” Within the context I’m presenting here, that seems totally appropriate.) It is fairly easy to join them as they bookend the principles.
There are those who do not like that first principle, saying it means everyone has worth and dignity, even Hitler, even Pol Pot. And they do not believe it. I actually go even farther in this universal assertion, and would include not just people but every creature in the universe, including things very dangerous to human beings and our existence such as the ebola virus or an exploding star.
Here’s where a Buddhist lens helps. Each thing is woven out of all else. We’ll come back to that in a moment, because that’s the seventh principle. But that universal connection must always be part of the picture. Another way to assert this observation of worth and dignity is to say the universe is infinite and every point within it is the center. As we explore who we are, just you, just me, this is the place where all things come together. And the universe expresses completely within the singular reality that is you, that is me. Or, as a dying galaxy or a fly.
One modern Zen master describes this through a bad math analogy. He suggests that the denominator is what he calls empty infinity, but which for our purposes can just as easily be called the interdependent web. The numerator is any given thing. You, me, that galaxy, that fly, that virus. The first principle calls us to notice the numerator of existence.
If we just stopped with the preciousness of the individual we are missing the point.
It requires the other aspect as well, that, if you will, denominator; the seventh principle.
In the original draft of the original statement this seventh principle was actually a call for ecological awareness. And no doubt that’s contained within this. But, from the beginning people saw that this pointed to something more, and reworded to the language we now know, it has become a placeholder for that something which is much bigger than a concern with ecology. Here, in fact, we can find Spinoza’s God. Here we begin to walk out from a world of isolation into a sense of the sacred that has captured many imaginations, that is the root intuition for many who have walked the great spiritual way.
It is neither a pure atheism, nor is it a traditional (by the standards of normative Western religions) theism. And yet it has room for both views.
It is a description of the whole of which we are, each of us, a part.
Now if the seventh principle were nothing more than a static assertion, a bare claim that the universe is God and we are a part of that God, I wouldn’t have much interest in it. Perhaps a truism, but probably not. Nor do I find the bare ecological view buried within it near as compelling as some do. In fact one person I admire finds that view idolatrous. I don’t go that far, but I get the point.
But, once the dynamic is introduced. Now the whole, now the individual, now both, now neither; then magic happens.
The universe is born.
God is revealed.
And you and I discover a cascade of possibility.
There is the salvific vision to which we are all called, and to which these words point. And of necessity which these words fail to comprehend to completely describe, as would be true of any words… But, like a finger pointing to the moon, there is a true pointing…
And there is an ethic implied to which we are called to engage and further understand. Just how do we relate if everything has value, but some things are dangerous to others? Self protection is a good in this view of the universe, but it is moderated by the knowledge that everything has value, and nothing can simply be dismissed.
It is a whole view of the world.
It isn’t traditional Western religion. And it isn’t Advaita Vedanta, Taoism or Buddhism.
But rather a new vision of what is that, if its adherents are careful and wise, can be enriched, and corrected, and made ever deeper and truer by reference to the older traditions. To my mind particularly by reference to Judaism and especially Christianity on the one hand, and to Vedanta, Taoism and especially Buddhism on the other. All part of the responsible quest. I would add in the universal solvent of spiritual quest: sitting down, shutting up & paying attention.
And once that has been added in, this, in fact, describes my faith.
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