» UUism? What’s That? Imperfect Genius

Saturday, April 1st, 2006...10:38 am

UUism? What’s That?

Recently a fellow blogger posed a question about secular homeschooling. My response was lengthy because although we began homeschooling for non-religious reasons, we’ve had two interesting things happen since we undertook the journey that is homeschooling.

First, we began to move naturally towards unschooling, which is as much a lifestyle and philosophy of living as it is a method of homeschooling. Second, we discovered (to our surprise and delight) a spiritual community we deeply identify with. It wasn’t long before we realized that these two things were not only compatible, but extremely supportive of each other. Unschooling affirms our spiritual beliefs, and our spiritual views affirm our way of living.

To sum up my response, I said that it was impossible to consider ourselves entirely secular, as more and more we’ve come to understand how everything in life overlaps and naturally our spiritual views cannot be (nor would we want them to be) entirely separated from other areas of our life.

About two years ago my husband and I joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation, although in our hearts and our ways of thinking, we’ve been UUs our whole lives, we just didn’t know such an organization existed. After years of feeling like we’d never find a place we fit in, we stumbled upon UUism and it were immediately drawn to it.

Saying I’m a Unitarian Universalist usually doesn’t explain much to most people, as they’ve probably never heard of this before. I’ll try my best to explain a little bit about what this is and what it means to us as a family, but first, a few handy abbreviations: Unitarian Universalism is a mouthful, so we use “UUism” for short and members are often called UUs. It’s much easier to say!

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal, non-creedal religion. We believe that personal experience, conscience and reason should be the final authorities in religion. UUism is a religion that keeps an open mind to the spiritual questions people have struggled with in all times and places. Rather than creeds, we have what is referred to as the Principals & Purposes, which are seven basic ideals we share and try to uphold in our lives.

I like the children’s version, which is simplified:

Because UUism is not well known and often misunderstood, many people assume it is a type of Christianity, a denomination such as Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic. The short answer to this is that we are not a branch of Christianity. UUism has roots in Judaism and Christianity, but is considered a separate, independent religion.

Unitarian Universalism is considered a multi-faith religion. We have members from many backgrounds with a variety of spiritual interests, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, ancient nature-based traditions and a variety of other world religions. Members might say they are religious humanists, liberal Christians, agnostic, or countless other labels. Some would say they defy labels altogether.

We believe that it is up to each of us to discover our own personal truths about our spiritual beliefs and to seek meaningful interaction and strive for learning experiences within our religiously diverse, open-minded community and the larger world. We might come to similar or differing conclusions about the big questions in life, such as: Why are we here? What happens when we die? What is my purpose? How can live a good life?

Because we are non-creedal religion, no one person can speak for everyone. If you asked ten UUs a question about our religion or their personal spiritual beliefs, you’d probably get ten different answers. The sites below are helpful and interesting sources of information, but they also speak in very general terms, as no one is expected to have the exact same beliefs and experiences, nor to agree with every statement.

The UUA, representing over 1,000 congregations in North America
Religious Tolerance offers several essays in it’s section on UUism
UU Radio, a streaming audio webcast for religious liberals
The free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, has a good summary of UUism
100 Questions non-members ask about Unitarian Universalism

I bet you didn’t know that Christopher Reeve, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Isaac Newton, Pete Seeger, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Beatrix Potter are all connected to UUism? And I bet you didn’t know that UUs have a very big sense of humor! Here are a few fun links to explore: