The UUA bylaws mandate a regular revision process of Article II every fifteen years. Article II has the language that is at the heart of our faith for many of us as UUs. It has the Principles and the Sources, and our purpose as an organization. The language in Article II lives in the UUA bylaws and has been revised a number of times over the course of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s history. We are a living tradition, which means regularly reviewing and asking ourselves: Does the Article II core language reflect who we are now and who we want to be?

Quote from About Article II: The Principles and Purposes of the UUA:

The UUA is required to create an Article II Study Commission when any changes to Article II are considered (unless there is overwhelming support for the specific change). There were a number of changes proposed over the years, and there was a large grassroots movement towards including the Eighth Principle. Instead of considering such changes one-by-one, the UUA Board created the Article II Study Commission in 2020.

Quote from UUA Executive Vice President Carey McDonald:

“My view of the proposal from the Article II Study Commission is that it’s a deepening and expanding of the language of the Seven Principles to include commitments and actions. It’s being clear about the values that are at our foundation and what they call us to do as people of faith. I think it does a very good job of articulating what it means to be a UU today.

Regardless of the outcome of the vote, individual congregations and UU communities can hold and value the Seven Principles as a meaningful part of our religious tradition, just as some have adopted the Eighth Principle on their own.”

Quote from the Article II Study Commission:

“The Commission spent a long time studying and analyzing the current version of Article II. What became clear was that we don’t explicitly name the values that we share, and that our covenant does not have enough verbs.

Shared values are what hold any organization together, and we often speak of our shared values without naming them. We asked Unitarian Universalists what were the values we shared. We took the many answers we received and synthesized them into the values in our draft. After our first draft was released we changed one of the named values from Evolution to Transformation.

We created a covenant related to each of our named values, as well as a very brief description of the values. The covenant has many verbs and is stated in broad enough language so as to allow congregations to find their way to live into our shared values.”

A covenant is not a promise, but is a “bond” or an “agreement” between two or more parties.  The individual congregations are the parties to the covenants in the UUA bylaws; these covenants are described as “congregation to congregation” in the Values and Covenants preamble.  Covenants within a particular congregation and amongst individual members are also allowed, within limits, as explained in the section on Freedom of Belief.

Unitarian Universalism is a covenantal religion, meaning that covenants take the place of dogma or creed. Our UU covenants place a high value on relationships, shared values, and community commitments. The covenantal approach encourages us to explore our beliefs while fostering a sense of belonging and shared responsibility within our community.  The covenants do not specify when and how we exercise any particular action; such action is a function of our individual conscience.

Quote from the Article II Study Commission:

”Unitarian Universalism is a covenantal, not a creedal, Faith. There is no belief requirement, or creed, that you have to say to join us in community, even though there are beliefs that we would consider to be outside the boundaries of our faith. Our covenants amongst congregations and within congregations, are the way in which we practice our religion together, and they are aspirational descriptions of how we want to be in the world.”

Quote from the Article II Study Commission:

“We mean the type of love known as Agape. It is the selfless love of the neighbor, the friend and even the enemy. It asks for nothing in return. More than a noun, love is a verb. It is creating justice. It is transforming our world. It is being generous of our spirit and resources. It is knowing we are all interdependent. It is upholding everyone’s dignity and worthiness. It is celebrating our many differences. It is deeds not creeds.”

As described above, Love works well with ALL the other values. Or said a different way, all the other values require Love to operate.

And remember the first line of our Covenant said at every service, “May love be the spirit of this congregation”. and the emblem on our T-shirts, which is “Siding With Love”.

The Article II Study Commission members felt that the current list of sources is a list which is always incomplete. The members want to describe how and why something is a source of inspiration, rather than just enumerating them.  People have different opinions about that, knowing that some people want to have their identity or beliefs explicitly reflected.

Everyone is welcome at a UU church.  There is no litmus test to become affiliated with one of our congregations.  However, as with any relationship, our experience has been that the more your values align with ours, the better the fit between you and UUism.  If you have a strong opposition to one of our values, you may begin to feel it is a burden over time.

Quote from the Article II Study Commission:

“Article II is the purpose of the Association and commitments of its member congregations to each other. It should inform our congregational and associational life, but is not written to be a personal code or set of commitments.

The Freedom of Belief clause expressly prohibits any creedal test of membership in our congregations. While these are our shared values, no one must swear or attest to them to become a member.”

Quote from UUA EVP Carey McDonald:

“The UUA is very committed, as a whole, to what’s in the Eighth Principle—understanding our commitment to dismantling oppression and white supremacy—as part of what it means to live out our faith. That’s not optional or secondary but is actually central to our understanding of how to honor every person’s worth, our interconnection, and our pursuit of justice in our world and in our faith communities. That is a core part of what makes us UU.

Because the proposal really zooms out and rethinks the entire structure of Article II, it doesn’t add the Eighth Principle as it’s been drafted, but I see it woven into all the elements of the proposal.”