Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
1
Principles and Purposes. Before there was Unitarian Universalism there
was the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of
America. Each of these liberal religious groups had struggled throughout
their history to articulate the beliefs that expressed their identity without
adopting a creed that would dictate what their members – or their
congregations – were required to believe. Our current statement of
Principles and Purposes is descended from all those earlier statements of
belief. This morning we will survey the history that led up to our current
Principles and Purposes.
Message
When the Puritans came to America in the 1600s, they were seeking to
“purify” their churches – to go back to absolute first principles and cast off
all the innovations that centuries of institutional religion had introduced:
dogma and doctrines and theological intricacies and ecclesiastical
hierarchies that served the church more than they served the worshipper.
These Puritans believed that the holy spirit was at work in the heart and
mind of every person – not just priests, or bishops, or popes, or kings – and
that the only authentic way to know the will of God is for every person to
open themselves to the spirit, and then for the community to gather in a spirit
of love, and humility, and deep respect to speak together, to examine
together, to reason together in love, as they seek to understand.
We – Unitarian Universalist churches – are direct descendants of those New
England Puritan congregations.
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
2
Our more recent ancestors – prior to 1961 – were Unitarians or
Universalists. The two traditions evolved separately during three hundred
years of American history, though their paths paralleled so closely that, in
the 1800s, one Unitarian minister [Thomas Starr King] said that “the only
reason Unitarians and Universalists had not joined together was that they
were too closely related to be married.” [Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, “The
Consolidation” p. 28 in A Lamp in Every Corner, 2004]. This morning, we will be
looking at
Those of you who have been Unitarian Universalists for a while – has
anyone ever asked you, “What do Unitarian Universalists believe?” [raise
hands]. It’s not an easy question to answer – not now, and not during those
three hundred years of American history, because a corollary to the idea that
the holy spirit works in the heart and mind of every person is the idea that
everyone’s different understanding of God’s will is valuable to the
worshipping community. Each person brings a different perspective, and
religious wisdom and revelation that we can trust arise out of the synthesis,
the dialectic of these different understandings. Revelation is not sealed. I
would not presume to speak for you, nor would I ever presume to tell you
what you should believe, lest I silence the voice of the holy spirit that speaks
uniquely through you. Therefore a creed – a statement of belief that the
worshipper must subscribe to as a condition or a test of readiness for
membership – is not in the spirit of these free churches. Individual freedom
of belief is a core value, and an organizing principle.
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
3
And yet, community gathered and sustained by mutual commitment and by
radical respect – these, too are core values. Institutional identity amplifies
the voices of its members. A community with a clear identity, a clear
message, and a clear mission can work effectively in the world, can speak
and work on behalf of common values, can stand as a beacon to others who
seek to join. And so, through three hundred years, there has existed a
tension between individual freedom and institutional identity in
Universalism, in Unitarianism, and in Unitarian Universalism. Individuals
come together in congregations, to walk together in love. Congregations
come together in associations, for mutual support and for public witness.
Carefully, thoughtfully, prayerfully, they craft statements of principle, of
purpose, of hope, of faith. The Purposes and Principles we read this
morning are part of the current by-laws of the Unitarian Universalist
Association of Congregations, (of which we are a member congregation).
They state the principles that draw and hold member congregations together
in community. The road to this current covenant is long and winding.
Perhaps the first significant milestone on the road comes from the
Universalists: the Winchester Profession of Faith, adopted by the New
England Convention of Universalists in 1803. Hear in these words an echo
of the story of Hosea Ballou, who was a party to this Profession. And listen
for any foreshadowing of our current covenant:
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
4
Article I. We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament contain a revelation of the character of God, and of the
duty, interest, and final destination of mankind.
Article II. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is Love,
revealed in one Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will
finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and
happiness.
Article III. We believe that holiness and true happiness are
inseparable connected, and that believers ought to be careful to
maintain order and practice good work; for these things are good and
profitable unto men. [David Robinson. The Unitarians and the Universalists.
p. 56].
In 1825, a group of young Unitarian ministers in Boston formed the
American Unitarian Association, to publish and help distribute educational
materials for Unitarian churches and missionaries. These words are from the
statement adopted at the founding: “We value our doctrines only so far as
they evidently are the revelation of the will and character of God and so far
as they tend to improve the religious, moral, and intellectual condition of
mankind. The great end of this association is the promotion of pure morals
and practical piety.” [spuuf.org/assets/HistoryUU.pdf]. I hear in these words a
wariness regarding institutions, power, doctrine, and anything that might
restrict or restrain freedom of belief or practice.
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
5
Over the next century, Unitarian clergy and congregations gathered and
organized in various conferences and associations. Individual clergy and
governing boards proposed and adopted various statements of belief and
practice. In 1887, the Western Unitarian Conference, frontier ministers and
congregations headquartered in Chicago, far from the more conservative
New England churches and clergy, adopted the following statement of “The
Things Most Commonly Believed To-day Among Us,” offered by the Rev.
William Channing Gannett It’s long, it’s wide-ranging, and inclusive. I will
read it all, as I think you will hear in this seeds of our modern statements.
We believe that to love the good and live the good is the supreme
thing in religion:
We hold reason and conscience to be final authorities in matters of
religious belief:
We honor the Bible and all inspiring scripture, old or new:
We revere Jesus and all holy souls that have taught men truth and
righteousness and love, as prophets of religion:
We believe in the growing nobility of man:
We trust the unfolding Universe as beautiful, beneficent, unchanging
Order; to know this Order is truth; to obey it is right, and liberty, and
stronger life:
We believe that good and evil inevitably carry their own
recompense, no good thing being failure and no evil thing success;
that heaven and hell are states of being; that no evil can befall the
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
6
good man in either life or death; that all things work together for the
victory of good:
We believe that we ought to join hands and work to make the good
things better and the worst good, counting nothing good for self that
is not good for all:
We believe that this self-forgetting, loyal life awakes in man the
sense of union, here and now, with things eternal, -- the sense of
deathlessness; and this sense is to us an earnest of a life to come:
We worship One-in-All, --that Life whence suns and stars derive
their orbits and the soul of man its Ought; -- that Light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world, giving us power to
become the sons of God, -- that Love with whom our souls
commune. This One we name, --the Eternal God, our Father. [David
Robinson. The Unitarians and the Universalists. p. 121].
Gannett’s statement of “Things Most Commonly Believed…” is descriptive,
rather than prescriptive. Over the next few years, it served to bring the more
progressive Western Unitarians and the more conservative Eastern
Unitarians into closer fellowship. In 1894, Unitarians east and west
adopted a statement of purpose that makes room for both diversity and also
freedom of belief:
The Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches was
formed …with the purpose of strengthening the churches and
societies which should unite in it for more and better work for the
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
7
kingdom of God. These churches accept the religion of Jesus,
holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is
summed up in love to God and love to man. The conference
…declares that nothing in this constitution is to be construed as an
authoritative test; and we cordially invite to our working fellowship
any who, while differing from us in belief, and in general sympathy
with our spirit and our practical aims. [David Robinson. The Unitarians
and the Universalists. p. 122].
And then, in 1899, the Universalist Convention added two new elements to
the 1803 Winchester profession. The first was a concise statement of “the
essential principles of the Universalist faith,” namely,
The Universal Fatherhood of God;
The spiritual authority and leadership of His Son, Jesus Christ;
The trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God;
The certainty of just retribution for sin;
The final harmony of all souls with God.
The second addition was a “liberty clause,” which differentiated this
statement from a creed: “The Winchester Profession is commended as
containing these principles, but neither this, nor any other precise form of
words, is required as a condition of fellowship, provided always that the
principles above stated be professed.” [Charles Howe. 1993. The Larger Faith. pp.
81-82]. Here is something like a creed, an easy answer to that difficult
question “what do Universalists believe?” But the liberty clause reassured
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
8
those who cherished the right of individual conscience, and who bristled at
the idea of prescribed theology, of orthodoxy, of catechisms with their
leading questions and “right” answers. At the turn of the twentieth century,
Universalists are closer to their Christian roots than Unitarians; Unitarians
are more intellectual, more “modern,” more focused on “practical” religion.
But both “cousins” follow their statements of belief with liberty clauses,
protecting individual freedom even as they seek to refine their institutional
identities.
The mid 1930s were years of political and moral and religious upheaval the
world over; in the wake of the first world war and the run-up to the second,
in the rise of science and technology, in the growing tide of skepticism and
humanism, both Unitarians and Universalists sought to revitalize their
churches and their denominations. In 1935, the Universalist Convention
added a new bond of fellowship and statement of faith to the existing
Winchester Profession and the 1899 statement. The statement of faith says,
“…we avow our faith in God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love, in the
spiritual leadership of Jesus, in the supreme worth of every human
personality, in the authority of truth known or to be known, and in the power
of men of goodwill and sacrificial spirit to overcome all evil and
progressively establish the kingdom of God.” [Charles Howe. 1993. The Larger
Faith. p. 104]. Do you hear in this echoes of Gannett’s Unitarian statement of
1887?
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
9
Meanwhile, in 1943, Unitarian A. Powell Davies offered five principles
“not as a creed, but as ‘a basis for Unitarian Advance.’”
Individual freedom of belief;
Discipleship to advancing truth;
The democratic process in human relations;
Universal brotherhood, undivided by nation, race, or creed;
Allegiance to the cause of a united world community. [David Robinson.
The Unitarians and the Universalists. p. 167].
These are not so much statements of religious belief as they are ways of
practicing religion – ways of living religiously, according to Unitarian lights.
As such, they are much like our current statement, which I read as a
covenant of right relations.
The two paths, Unitarian and Universalist, tracked ever closer. Social and
theological and financial and practical concerns drew them into
conversations about merging the two denominations. Carefully,
thoughtfully, prayerfully, members and congregations talked and listened,
considering the matter. Every person opened themselves to the spirit, and
then the communities gathered in a spirit of love, and humility, and deep
respect to speak together, to examine together, to reason together in love, as
they sought guidance, and wisdom, and understanding. In 1960, the
congregations voted, the close cousins joined, consolidated, forming the
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. In the sermon
preached to the assembled delegates, on the evening of the final vote, Rev.
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
10
Donald Harrington said, “Thus have the little Unitarian and Universalist
theological heresies grown up and been transformed in time into the broad
philosophical foundation for Unitarian Universalism, a new world faith,
which is inclusive in spirit, comprehensive in character and uniting in
influence.”
And the delegates joined their voices in a service of dedication, saying
together, “We, Unitarians and Universalists, children of the Judeo-Christian
heritage, inheritors of the wisdom of the universal prophets, eager to
experience the insights of the great faiths of the world, open to all sources of
inspiration ancient and modern, determined to explore the boundless ocean
of truth which lies about on every hand and on before, and welcoming into
fellowship all men of whatever background of faith, here together on this
night of Consolidation, conscious of the presence of the past, and of our
urgent tasks, dedicate ourselves anew to the free and universal fellowship of
all mankind that is the church to be.
We declare our allegiance to the new Unitarian Universalist Association,
and pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our faith to its high purpose and sure
upbuilding.
And so we come to this day, this congregation, this Unitarian Universalism.
Principles and Purposes
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
© Rev. Sally B. White
August 16, 2015
11
Take a moment now, in silence, to listen to the echoes of all we have heard
here this morning, spoken and unspoken. The bell will lead us into silence,
and music will lead us out.
Bell
Silence
Music
Blessed be and amen.