We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.

I discussed earlier the Universalists’ understanding of a common destiny for all life after death, thus shifting the focus of religious life to this world here and now. Reverence follows this shift in focus. We nurture and rest our bodies not on a disposable planet, but on holy ground. We understand our bodies to be made up of the same stuff as the Earth and the stars, and we cherish our bodies and the body of the Earth.

In our affirmation of the interdependent web of all existence, we can also trace the profound integration of science in our theological heritage. In both Universalism and Unitarianism, ideas most visibly proclaimed in the 19th century by the Transcendentalists were initially resisted but then later embraced. They were influenced by critical interpretations of the Bible, the burgeoning fields of biology and other sciences, and by Eastern religions.

Among their many contributions, the Transcendentalists asserted that we could know more about God and the nature of existence by turning to the awe-inspiring beauty of the natural world and to the insights of science. They understood the non-human world to be more than inert matter moved by a mechanistic play of forces, but rather animated by a life force, a spark of the divine. One 19th century Universalist and Unitarian minister on the Pacific Coast went so far as to preach that we humans had been invited as guests into the community of all life that was God’s home. Many of the nature conservation movements of the late 19th century and 20th century in the United States can trace their roots to this theological heritage.

While we can be proud of these contributions, as love and reverence for the life systems of the Earth are needed perhaps now more than ever, we can also be rightfully critical of the accompanying imperialism, colonialism, and white-world making that caused great harm to indigenous peoples who had known these truths and tended these lands as home for hundreds of thousands of years. Many of our Universalist and Unitarian forebears viewed humans of European heritage, particularly Protestant Christian ones, as closer to God and thus at an apex of all life. We have since declared correctives to this arrogance, though we are still a long way from making effective reparations for all that was taken and lost.

While acknowledging this tragedy and complexity, we have the Universalists and Unitarians of the 19th century to thank for solidifying the place of science as a foundational source of our theology. As science has helped us to understand the radically interconnected nature of all existence as well as humankind’s utter dependence on the health of the Earth’s ecosystems from the microscopic to the massive for our very survival, our theology has evolved and our understanding of humankind’s place in it has become more right-sized.

In addition, increasing religious plurality in our congregations has brought in perspectives and practices from earth-based religions of many kinds, amplifying an understanding of humankind as one part of a great interconnected web of all existence and deepening our humility and reverence for the web of life. This core value of interdependence in Unitarian Universalism as informed by our unique theological heritage has a vital role to play in a time when all humans of power and means in industrialized countries are needed to take action to curb global heating to avert the worst scenarios of suffering and harm.