We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive.

Early Universalist theologians in America argued that believing Jesus’ death on the cross saved humanity harmed the spirit of God and indeed allowed people to imitate this violent behavior and justified cruelty. Instead, they believed humans are saved by creative and active Love. Unitarians joined them in believing humans need protection not from a vengeful God but from human capacity to create hell for one another on earth. The Unitarians also understood it as an affront to God when human beings were not afforded opportunities to develop fully their God-given capacities or what they called the powers of the soul. Salvation, then, is in our hands. The religious responsibility of the faithful is to remove and dismantle the systems and structures that prevent the full flourishing of life and to enhance and side with the movement of creative and active love.

These theological perspectives led Universalists and Unitarians to be at the forefront of many social movements including abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, better treatment for prisoners and people with mental illness, opposing Chinese exclusion and Japanese internment, Civil Rights, pacifism, and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights. At the same time, the implications of this theological heritage were not integrated by all in the same way, and in every generation, there were Universalists and Unitarians on the opposite side of many movements for social reform as well as those who advocated for Eugenics, colonialism and imperialism, and the decimation of indigenous Americans and their way of life. In our congregations, our theological perspectives can be observed in the ways we organize as a religious community, protesting patterns that concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few. Our congregations retain the power to self organize and call their own clergy. We rely on democratic processes in our decision making, and we practice rotation of leadership in the governance of our congregations and our denominational association.

In the Unitarian Universalism of the 21st century, we hold a variety of beliefs about how and whether humans co-create on earth with God (known by many names and by none fully known, as one of my students recently began a prayer) or as humans alone, but we carry forth the theological lineage that understands it is our responsibility to dismantle the human made systems of oppression and exploitation that cause harm to life and inhibit the full flourishing of every person. We do this toward creating just, compassionate, and sustainable communities where all can thrive. As the preface to the 2020 Report of the UUA’s Commission on Institutional Change, Widening the Circle of Concern, makes clear, we still have a great distance to travel to live fully into this value mandated by our theological heritage, but we are on the path.