Is This Your Religion?

Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

October 15, 2006

To be a Unitarian Universalist, it helps to have a sense of humor! On the internet you may encounter an awful lot of awful UU jokes, most of them told by UUs.

For example:

Two people were having lunch. One of them asks the other, “What do Unitarian Universalists believe?” Her friend replies, “Reduce, reuse, and recycle.”

What do you get when you cross a Unitarian Universalist with a Jehovah's Witness? Somebody who rings your doorbell for no apparent reason (or proceeds to ask you what you believe).

Why don’t UUs sing better? Because we’re always reading ahead to make sure we agree with the words.

How many UUs does it take to change a light bulb? We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. If in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that’s fine. We explore many light bulb traditions, including incandescent, compact fluorescent, halogen, mercury vapor, three-way, long-life, energy-saver, and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Some people say we pray "to whom it may concern." They say our sacred text is Robert's Rules of Order and our creed is our bylaws.

They say our sacred vessel is a coffee pot and that coffee and cookies are our equivalent of the blessed sacraments.

They say that UUs are actually Quakers who talk too much or Quakers with attention deficit disorder.

While we can delight in joking about Unitarian Universalism, there is so much more for us to cherish, to learn, and to love regarding our faith.

When I first started to dabble in Unitarian Universalism thirteen years ago, many of my Indian friends would ask, "Did you convert? If so, what are you?" At first I was put off by this question, but I finally realized they were wondering whether I was a Christian, an atheist, or some kind of a weird, new-age groupie. Implicit in the question was the assumption that UUs fit neatly into one of these three categories. I have, at times, fantasized about coming up with a nifty answer something like this: “I am so glad you asked. Well, today I'd say I am feeling about 50% Hindu, 40% atheist, 10% Christian, but it feels like there's a Buddhist front moving into my theological weather system over the next few days with a real possibility for some Islamic thunderstorms and Shinto showers." I wish I possessed the spiritual clarity to simply say: “I'm a Unitarian Universalist."

In recent years our UU movement has outgrown its diffidence towards this question and its too-limited answers. Today UUs know that there are far more than three answers to the question, “What are you?” We are not entrapped or fettered by dogmas and creeds. In Unitarian Universalist congregations, there may be as many opinions about who we are as there are members!

Also, we do not possess a central gospel imperative like some of our Christian neighbors or a prophetic imperative like our Jewish brothers and sisters. Nor are we required to follow any pillars of faith like our Muslim friends.

But we do have a rich heritage that champions freedom of thought, belief, and expression, the use of reason in religion, and a deep commitment to individual search for truth and meaning. We were founded on the principle of tolerance for others that was first expressed in our tradition in Transylvania in 1568.

Today, we are guided by the seven principles and six sources that, while not a creed, have been used for half the UUA’s existence to describe the living/lively center of our movement. These principles were re-written in the early 1980s at the prompting of some women who felt excluded by the patriarchal language of the UUA principles that were written in 1961.

All of you who are newcomers to our spiritual home are most welcome. You are the reason I shall offer here a contemporary finish on the foundations of our faith. Often people who visit Unitarian Universalist congregations never hear about the rarely stated but implicit principle of our tradition: when you enter through our doors, you may not close them after you. Others will come, as you have. They will come bringing their own ideas, and they will have things to say. Our movement and the people you see here will grow and change with the times. You, too, will change. You may be transformed. And, you will change others. But you may not lock the doors to keep others’ ideas out. And you may not close your hearts against anyone.

So, what are we?

Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies proclaimed that we are the consummation of thousands of years of religious history, heirs of thousands of years of stripping off superstition and battling with tyranny; of struggling to remove fear from religion - and from human life.

What do we believe?

We believe that revelation is not sealed nor is it sealable. We believe that ultimate truth is too vast to be contained in a specific creed, that no single religion has a copyright on truth, and that answers to the great religious questions may change with new insights in theology, philosophy, and science. We believe that ours is not the only path. We resonate with the Vedic sages’ insight, “Truth is one, people call it by different names.” Even though we are proud to be Unitarian Universalists, we understand that there is wisdom and truth in other paths as well. We understand and appreciate that other religions share some of the same affirmations that are central to our UU faith. This is the hallmark of our liberal, open approach to religion.