Most of us at one time or another wonder about the ultimate questions of life:  Is there a God?  What is life’s meaning?  What is my purpose?  What is good?  What happens to us after we die?  These are fundamental religious questions.  Most religions—at least in their orthodox varieties—believe they have the answers.

Unitarian Universalism is different.  We respect the answers offered by Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and the world’s other great faith traditions—we even draw our inspiration and some of our forms of worship from those traditions—but we respect the mystery more.   We believe, in other words, that no single religion has a monopoly on wisdom; that the answers to the great religious questions change from generation to generation; and that the ultimate truth about God and Creation, death, meaning, and the human spirit cannot be captured in a narrow statement of faith.  The mystery itself is always greater than its name.

This is why ours is a creedless faith and respect for others’ beliefs is a high value.  We do not require our members to subscribe to a particular theology in order to join our congregations.   Instead, we encourage individuals to garner insights from all the world’s great faiths, as well as from Shakespeare and from science, from feminism and from feelings.  We invite people to explore their spirituality in a responsible way.  We ask Unitarian Universalists to cherish the earth, to free the oppressed, and to be grateful for life’s blessings.  Out of this combination of reflection and experience, each one of us shapes a personal faith.  For Unitarian Universalists the individual is the ultimate source for religious authority.

 – from The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, ©Unitarian Universalist Association

Much more information about Unitarian Universalism and the Unitarian Universalist Association can be found at the web site of the Association at www.uua.org.

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