All that said, somehow, we\u2019ve pulled it off, we\u2019ve in fact managed to come up with a common statement. You\u2019ve seen it, the Principles and Purposes. However, getting to it, as you might imagine, has been a rough process. In brief, in 1961, at the time of consolidation, when representatives of the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association struggled to write some statement of common purpose, the whole thing nearly fell apart over how to express our historic connection to Judaism and Christianity. <\/div>\n
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The specific question was how to acknowledge that ancient line about Love of God and neighbor attributed to numerous sources and enshrined in the New Testament as Jesus\u2019 great commandment. The Universalists for the most part were quite clear on their debt to Christianity, while the Unitarians for the most part thought not so much. For a while it looked like the whole thing was going to fall apart. After an all day meeting that became an all day and all night meeting, at pretty much the very last possible minute, a final compromise was found, shifting this acknowledged source from being \u201cour Judeo-Christian heritage\u201d to being \u201cthe Judeo-Christian heritage.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Considering all the turmoil and even hurt surrounding the adoption of an inaugural summary statement of common principles, when it came time for a revision, and as it is a summary statement of what the majority among us currently think, it does need to be revisited from time to time, its surprising how easy, relatively speaking that revision was.<\/div>\n
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The initial impulse was correcting the relentless masculine by preference language of the original document drawn up, as it was in the middle of the century. In 1977 the UU Women\u2019s Federation called on the Association to draft a revised document. No good deed goes unpunished and they were charged with coming up with some language. In 1981 a revised draft Principles & Purposes document was presented to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. The responses revealed many of the same tensions around the place of God and that same troubling and compelling great commandment that proved thorny the first time around. This time the compromise placed the phrase along with other sources as a sort of appendix.<\/div>\n
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With that compromise a final document quickly came into place and with a single major change was passed by votes in the General Assembly in both 1984 and 1985. That the final vote registered a single no is something that probably counts as a UU miracle. <\/div>\n
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But there was something else, something really, really important. The single major shift from the document as presented in 1984 was changing the seventh principle from a statement about ecological concern to that phrase we probably all know now, \u201crespect for the interdependent web of existence, of which we are all a part,\u201d a line offered from the floor. And with this a startling theological assertion was made. Even more startling, perhaps, was that we embraced it with considerable enthusiasm. It spoke our truth.<\/div>\n
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In my opinion the first and seventh principles articulate the genius of Unitarian Universalism as a spiritual path, as a way of life. We acknowledge the uniqueness and preciousness of the individual, while noting our individuality births out of, is sustained by, and finds it\u2019s the ultimate source within some mysterious, radical and complete interdependence. Those and the fourth principle, which calls us to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and which, I believe, hints at the methodology of free religion, give us a sense of a real spiritual path. If you will, as I said: a way of life.<\/div>\n
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Time passes, and remember this is not a creed, but rather a description of what most of us see as commonly held among us at some given moment. And so toward the end of the first decade of this century, a standing committee of the Association, the Commission on Appraisal, was charged with exploring and possibly bringing forward a new draft statement of Principles and Purposes. <\/div>\n
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I was drawn into the debate fairly early on as an opponent of draft language enshrining the phrase \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d as unethical behavior. That could make for another sermon. And someday, may. I was, however, increasingly enthusiastic about most of the other possible changes, including a trending toward a more spiritual cast of language throughout the document. This more spiritual cast turned, most controversially, on the substitution of the word \u201creverence\u201d for the word \u201crespect\u201d in the phrasing of the seventh principle, calling us to reverence for the interdependent web. The proposed revision failed by just a few votes to achieve the super majority that was required at the 2009 General Assembly. So, we\u2019re good with the current language for another decade or two.<\/div>\n
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I would have preferred that change, but absolutely can live with the current statement. Because, I think it calls us to something we know deep within us as who we are and what it is we\u2019re about. Whether we are Humanist, Christian or Jewish, Buddhist or Pagan, our major self-identities, or whatever miscellaneous other, and there are a lot of those, as well; we\u2019re for the most part all of us tied together by an intuition of deep interconnection.<\/div>\n
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And what\u2019s so powerful about this, I feel, is that we can come to it any number of ways. We can bring our heads into the matter, investigating how we emerge in the great evolutionary arc and understand our existence is completely contingent upon a great and ultimately fragile web of relationships. Or, we can follow our hearts and look into our beings and at each other and find there some deep sense of family, of relatedness with all of life.<\/div>\n
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If we consider the interplay of our individuality, precious, unique and so fragile, emerging out of the web of connections, of causes and conditions that tie us all together, a whole raft of ethical considerations emerge. How we need to walk gently upon this planet, and how we are related to all things. If you know ants and birds are cousins, how do you treat them? If you know the very soil is made up of your ancestors, how do you choose to walk on it?<\/div>\n
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Bottom line. We don\u2019t need no stinkin\u2019 badges. We don\u2019t need no stinkin\u2019 creeds. Yes they can have limited usefulness. But ultimately we don\u2019t need anything written down on a piece of paper. This wisdom that is our way is written on our hearts, it is a body knowing. All we need to is open our eyes, open our ears, open ourselves, and we can find what we need. Everything we need.<\/div>\n
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It is all here.<\/div>\n
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This, dear ones, is what I understand is Unitarian Universalism.<\/div>\n
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Amen.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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