Skip to main content

I love the Six Sources of Unitarian Universalism

I know the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism get a lot of criticism among a number of UU intellectuals. I do pretty much agree with these criticisms. I don't think older UUs realise that for UUs under 35 (especially life-long ones) the Seven Principles act as a kind of creed. Whereas with older UUs they are a (very) imperfect statement of secular beliefs made up by the UUA a few years ago.

The Seven Principles are not extremely inspiring to me, but I want to affirm that the Six Sources are. I don't know why we always consider the Seven Principles apart from the Six Sources. I find that the Six Sources describe a religion that I deeply want to commit my life to. I was meditating on them last night. They are very cool. We need to build a religion based on the Six Sources.

As much as I criticise, like any blogger, I want to be positive right now: I love the Six Sources of Unitarian Universalism:

The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:



Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.

Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes, many UUs under 35 use the 7 principles as a creed, although they will usually claim otherwise.

Personally, I agree that the 6 Sources are FAR more meaningful than The 7 Banal Comments of Social Justice Nuts.
3:32 pm
Anonymous said…
Yup, the "six sources" do more for me that the "seven principles." Either way, I always try to remember that the six sources and seven principles have an additional statement that everyone seems to forget to include, which goes like this:

"Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, covenant, or bond of union used by any society unless such is used as a creedal test."

Even though it's usually forgotten now, this statement was originally a part of the "principles and purposes" -- you can look it up in Article II of the bylaws of the U.S. Unitarian Universalist Association at --

http://www.uua.org/administration/bylaws.html
11:29 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Swords into Ploughshares

  "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:4 Palestine Action are doing just this: beating swords into ploughshares i.e. putting weapons out of use. In doing so they are fulfilling this biblical mandate. They are expressing God's peace as expressed in the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition. God desires that our swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, that we should unlearn war. That the government wants to make this action illegal has to be confronted in the strongest terms. To rush to condemn attacks on weapons but not attacks on children is perverse. To call attacks on weapons terrorism but not attacks on children is perverse. When government comes to such an extreme position - legislating that peace is war, that weapons need more protection than children - then they have fundamentally gone wrong. This is the definitio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Art Lester

  I've just heard the extremely sad and shocking news of the death of Unitarian Minister Art Lester. It shocked me even more as I was emailing him a few days ago as he spontaneously emailed me thanking me for my book and offering to send me a copy of his latest one (pictured above).  I already feel like I've missed the opportunity to get to know him better, as he's the kind of person I would really have liked to have been a mentor as he always seemed wise and spiritually rooted, in a mischievous, not-taking-himself-too-seriously way (which is a good sign of spiritual maturity I think).  He ended his email with, "I attach a portion of a sermon I’ll be giving at the Paris Fellowship next month.  It’s my 29th service over the past 27 years and possibly my last.  I wouldn’t normally bore a colleague with my scribbles, but I think you might like this one."  I do. I do like this one. And as he now won't deliver this at Paris Fellowship I thought it was worth shar...
1 comment
Read more

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it. Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state. No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this , discussed at Peacebang here , which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many. The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition , is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition , is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism. So to say that humanism and theism can bot...
14 comments
Read more