I never have liked the “seven principles” that so many Unitarian Universalists use as an affirmation of faith. It’s a legacy of my liberal religious Sunday school years, I suppose, but I prefer an older affirmation of faith:<\/p>\n
We affirm:
\nThe fatherhood of God,
\nthe brotherhood of man,
\nthe leadership of Jesus,
\nsalvation by character, and
\nprogress onwards and upwards forever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThat’s something that stirs my soul, and it’s something that’s easy to remember. But I don’t like the gender-specific language. Plus I’ve grown leery of that last phrase, both because of all the evil that was done in the name of “progress” in the 20th C. and because I don’t want to have to wait “forever” for progress to happen. So I wrote a new affirmation based on that old affirmation, to use with my congregation this Sunday:<\/p>\n
Here we gather in covenant:
\nnurtured by that which is highest and best in life, which some call God;
\nbound together by common humanity;
\nled by the great spiritual teachings of the ages;
\nfinding salvation in character;
\nto the end that we may institute true peace and true justice,
\nhere and now, here on earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis affirmation isn’t nearly as good as the old one, but it seems to me it’s an improvement on the “seven principles.” The congregation I serve is distinctly post-Christian, a real stew of Christians and theists and pagans and humanists. A more Christian congregation could, I imagine, use a pithier affirmation, something like this:<\/p>\n
Here we gather in covenant:
\nnurtured by God;
\nbound together by common humanity;
\nled by the teachings of Jesus;
\nfinding salvation in character;
\nto the end that we may institute the kingdom of heaven,
\nhere and now, here on earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI would love your theological thoughts and critiques (to say nothing of your poetical thoughts and critiques), as I continue to search for alternatives to the dreary, leaden, uninspiring “seven principles.” I would love to hear from religious liberals who are not Unitarian Universalists — what do you<\/em> use as an affirmation of faith, and why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I never have liked the “seven principles” that so many Unitarian Universalists use as an affirmation of faith. It’s a legacy of my liberal religious Sunday school years, I suppose, but I prefer an older affirmation of faith: We affirm: The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-religion","tag-seven-principles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2031,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/2031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}