What are the UU Principles?

I. Introductory Comments – R. A. Hays

1. The UUA Commission on Appraisal has requested that congregations engage in study and reflection on the seven principles. This is part of a periodic review mandated by the UUA By Laws. This review doesn’t necessarily mean that any proposals for revision will be made.

2. To start, it=s a good idea to briefly review what the seven principles represent.

$ They are not a creed that is, a statement of belief that every UU must subscribe to. You don't have to promise to believe in them when you sign the membership book.

$ Rather, they are a covenant; that is, an agreement that these are the principles that will guide the actions of our religious community.

$ They do not contain any theological statements; that is, assertions about the nature of the divine or about a single prophet whose teachings reveal the divine. Quite the opposite - the seven principles are linked to an affirmation of the multiple religious perspectives that inform and inspire these principles - including Christianity, Judaism, humanism, and nature-based spirituality.

$ From the perspective of traditional religion they are "merely" a statement of ethical principles. For traditional religions, ethics are derived from theological statements about the nature of the divine. In other words; "God is like this; therefore people should behave in this way."

$ The UU perspective is fundamentally different - that people can arrive at an agreement on ethical principles even if they derive these principles from somewhat different theological assumptions.

2. When UU's are asked, "What do you believe?" we are often inclined to emphasize that we accept different beliefs.

a. To many traditional Christians, this is the equivalent of saying that we believe in nothing. According to the traditional religious paradigm, in which acceptance of a creed is central, a non-creedal religion appears to be a permissive vacuum.

b. To people who are unhappy with the constraints of fundamentalism, but who want some kind of structure of meaning and belief, this image of a vacuum can be off-putting. We've lost members who have said "We want more structure in our religion."

c. The irony is that UU's do not behave like people who believe in nothing or everything. They are some of the most strongly ethical people that I know - people willing to act on their deeply held beliefs, even in the face of personal risk.

d. I'd like to present for your consideration an alternative way to answer the question "What do we believe?" This alternative way stresses our different paradigm of religious belief.

$ Unitarian Universalists share a covenant to support and defend a set of central ethical principles. These principles offer guidance as to how human beings should relate to each other and to the planet.

$ We recognize that people can arrive at these principles from a variety of religious perspectives, as evidenced by the fact that many of these principles are common to all the world=s religions. That is why we don=t require the uniformity of a creed within our faith.

$ These ethical principles have a spiritual dimension. They are not just pragmatic rules of behavior but suggest something profound about the place of human beings in the cosmos.

$ For us, the purest and noblest expression of our spirituality is to work to realize these principles in the world. Our spirituality leads us to focus on the collective fate of the human species, not on individual salvation.

$ If you join us, you will be joining a group of people who strive to act upon their principles and to reshape the world for the benefit of all people.

3. I must confess that when I first became a UU, the principles did not seem that important, because they sounded a bit like "motherhood and apple pie." That is, they seemed somewhat trite and obvious.

a. The reason I reacted that way is because many of these principles are at least given lip service by a wide variety of both secular and religious institutions in our society. They seem like a part of our common cultural heritage, not unique beliefs that identify a particular religious community.

b. The longer I have been a UU, the more I have realized that true and honest adherence to these principles really can make us a unique religious body. Many of the assertions of these principles by other institutions and their leaders are revealed to be superficial and hypocritical upon closer inspection.

c. Of course, we, too, can be superficial and hypocritical in our espousal of the principles if we don't constantly examine and challenge ourselves to improve the ways that we live them out.

d. The principles can serve as aspirations and as goals that challenge us to be better people and a better community. They can move us away from religion as something we Aconsume@ for our own individual benefit towards religion as something that asks a lot of us. We can invite people to become part of an important religious movement, not as spectators to entertaining services.