Remembering and Renewing Our Universalist Values
Remembering and Renewing Our Universalist Values
By Charles Howe
(Editor's Note: Rev. Charles Howe, a member of the Herald Board, author and minister, identified seven historic
Universalist values or principles in one of his books. Here he writes about them again introducing a series we will
run in coming issues. In future articles, Herald Board members will write briefly on how a particular value
impacts their life, someone they know, or a past Universalist.)
Currently there are seven Principles that the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association
have covenanted to affirm and promote:
• the inherent worth and dignity of every person ;
• justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
• acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• a free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society;
• the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
[UUA 2008 Directory, p. 4; bracketed sources are not part of the text of the article, but put there so you would
know whence the information came.]
Against this background, It is important to remember that, almost half a century ago, I had identified seven
values which Universalists had brought to the consolidation with the Unitarians in 1961: [see The Larger Faith,
Skinner House Books, 1993, pp. 135-137]
• a theology founded on the affirmation of love;
• a thoroughly democratic church government;
• a social conscience motivated by their belief in the supreme worth of every human person;
• a conviction that liberal religion can and should speak to all sorts and conditions of people;
• an insistence on the equality of women and men in both church and society;
• a recognition that liberal religion requires emotional warmth and intellectual rigor;
• and, finally, the great vision of inclusiveness implied by the Universalist name.
To a significant extent I was motivated by a feeling that Universalism was not receiving the recognition it
deserved in the Unitarian Universalist movement, and that Universalists tended to be looked down on as "poor
country cousins." My being a member of the Universalist church of Canton, New York, was a factor, as was my
friendship with students and faculty members at the Universalist seminary there. I certainly was not claiming that
Universalism held any exclusive claim to these values; Unitarianism clearly embodies several of them. Nor was I
claiming that Universalists had lived by them in a thoroughgoing way--rather that these values served to challenge
them, as they do us.
Some of the concerns embodied in those values remain with us. While we are no longer looked down on as
"poor country cousins," our presence as UUs is too often simply ignored by those speaking of us simply as
"Unitarians." I contend, however, that all seven of those old values, with one revision, retain their significance for
us. While our insistence on the equality of women and men in both church and society has produced remarkable
results, the same kind of inequality has shifted from the gender front to the economic front.
While no comparison is possible with the seventh UUA Principle concerned with "the interdependent web of all
existence," based as it is on modern cosmology, those other six Principles find many counterparts in those seven
Universalist values identified so long ago. Our history provides a strong base for our present.
By Charles Howe
(Editor's Note: Rev. Charles Howe, a member of the Herald Board, author and minister, identified seven historic
Universalist values or principles in one of his books. Here he writes about them again introducing a series we will
run in coming issues. In future articles, Herald Board members will write briefly on how a particular value
impacts their life, someone they know, or a past Universalist.)
Currently there are seven Principles that the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association
have covenanted to affirm and promote:
• the inherent worth and dignity of every person ;
• justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
• acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• a free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society;
• the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
[UUA 2008 Directory, p. 4; bracketed sources are not part of the text of the article, but put there so you would
know whence the information came.]
Against this background, It is important to remember that, almost half a century ago, I had identified seven
values which Universalists had brought to the consolidation with the Unitarians in 1961: [see The Larger Faith,
Skinner House Books, 1993, pp. 135-137]
• a theology founded on the affirmation of love;
• a thoroughly democratic church government;
• a social conscience motivated by their belief in the supreme worth of every human person;
• a conviction that liberal religion can and should speak to all sorts and conditions of people;
• an insistence on the equality of women and men in both church and society;
• a recognition that liberal religion requires emotional warmth and intellectual rigor;
• and, finally, the great vision of inclusiveness implied by the Universalist name.
To a significant extent I was motivated by a feeling that Universalism was not receiving the recognition it
deserved in the Unitarian Universalist movement, and that Universalists tended to be looked down on as "poor
country cousins." My being a member of the Universalist church of Canton, New York, was a factor, as was my
friendship with students and faculty members at the Universalist seminary there. I certainly was not claiming that
Universalism held any exclusive claim to these values; Unitarianism clearly embodies several of them. Nor was I
claiming that Universalists had lived by them in a thoroughgoing way--rather that these values served to challenge
them, as they do us.
Some of the concerns embodied in those values remain with us. While we are no longer looked down on as
"poor country cousins," our presence as UUs is too often simply ignored by those speaking of us simply as
"Unitarians." I contend, however, that all seven of those old values, with one revision, retain their significance for
us. While our insistence on the equality of women and men in both church and society has produced remarkable
results, the same kind of inequality has shifted from the gender front to the economic front.
While no comparison is possible with the seventh UUA Principle concerned with "the interdependent web of all
existence," based as it is on modern cosmology, those other six Principles find many counterparts in those seven
Universalist values identified so long ago. Our history provides a strong base for our present.
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