Shared Values

Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote 6 shared values, centered around a core value of love:

• Interdependence: We honor the interdependent web of all existence and acknowledge our place in it.
• Pluralism: We are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology.
• Justice: We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all feel welcome and can thrive.
• Transformation: We adapt to the changing world.
• Generosity: We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.
• Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.

Sources

We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience:

1. Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
2. Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
3. Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
4. Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
5. Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
6. Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions that celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

These Values and six Sources of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) grew out of the grassroots of our tradition, were affirmed democratically, and are part of who we are.