The current principles and purposes were drafted in the mid-1980’s, and they now sound selfish and narcisisstic principles — a true product of their time. Pity that Mr. C. isn’t King of the Universe (yet), for if he were, the principles and purposes would already be rewritten. Of course you want to see Mr. C.’s version of the principles and purposes. Read on, fair reader….<\/p>\n
Knowing that no words shall ever be used as a creed among us, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association do enter into covenant together to uphold these religious principles:<\/p>\n
That every person is worthy of love; and therefore we shall treat each other, and all human beings, with justice tempered by love and compassion;<\/p>\n
That we shall remain religious seekers all our lives, acknowledging that as individuals we are finite beings with limited understanding; and therefore we acknowledge that we must remain responsive to the insights of other human beings, particularly those within our covenanted religious community;<\/p>\n
That we shall depend on love, reason, and liberty in the day-to-day and year-to-year running of our religious communities, making them an example to the world of the best in human communities;<\/p>\n
That we shall promote openness, fairness, and honesty in in our own communities and in all human interactions, living out the highest democratic principles to the end that we shall resist authoritarianism wherever it springs up;<\/p>\n
That we shall extend morality and our love to all living beings and Earth’s entire biosphere.<\/p>\n
Ongoing revelation continually opens new insights to humanity. We acknowledge the beauty and insights present in all great world religious traditions; we recognize that as a religious movement we are rooted in the Western religious traditions, though individuals among us may be rooted in other traditions; and we recognize our responsibility to re-interpret Western religious traditions in light of the lives we live in the present.<\/p>\n
As free, but mutually interdependent, congregations we enter into this covenant; we promise to one another our mutual trust and support; and should we break this covenant with other congregations, we shall accept the guidance of, and appropriate discipline by, other congregations within this covenant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Nit-pick if you will, but you have to admit these are far better, and far truer to our deep religious core, than the nasty principles and purposes currently in our bylaws.<\/p>\n
Too bad Mr. Crankypants isn’t king of the universe.<\/p>\n
Later note:<\/strong> As of September 4, 2008, the new draft version of Article II has been released… and Mr. Crankypants has graded it as if it is a term paper<\/a>. Let’s just say it does not get a high grade. If only Mr. C. was King of the Universe this all could have been avoided….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan, my stupid alter ego, is on the train to General Assembly. Time for Mr. Crankypants to tell you what’s what…. Mr. Crankypants’s denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, is currently facing up to the fact that the denominational bylaws require us to review Article 2, the principles and purposes — that in fact we’re five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[82,80],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-religion","tag-creeds","tag-seven-principles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7294,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/7294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}