Tapestry of Faith: The Wi$dom Path: An Adult Program on Money, Spirit, and Life

Handout 1: Four Credo Perspectives

Part of The Wi$dom Path

Credo. noun (pl. credos) a statement of the beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions… — New Oxford American Dictionary (3rd edition)

A credo is a snapshot of your values, faith, identity, and belief at one point in time. As Unitarian Universalists, we understand that your religious ideas will evolve throughout your life…your credo is simply an expression of where you are now. — Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh in the Coming of Age Handbook for Congregations (UUA, 2009)

Try writing a credo sometime. Writing out a credo can be helpful in the living of one’s life. It puts your beliefs on the table. Once you get your major beliefs out of the way, other less well-organized beliefs may surprise you by surfacing. You may find that these less extravagant beliefs may affect your life far more than whether you believe or don’t believe in something so grand as God. — Rev. Maureen Titchener in the 2003 Gould Discourse

The heart is another commonly mentioned analogy for what we are trying to identify. A heart is a source of sustaining life, a motivating force, a place from which energy emerges… The concept of “credo,” usually thought of as a statement of individual belief, can be traced etymologically to the notion of “that to which I give my heart”—a commitment that is more emotional than intellectual in nature. — From “Engaging our Theological Diversity,” the 2005 report of the UUA Commission on Appraisal