Unitarian Universalists respect multiple points of view

Editor’s note: This is another in an occasional series of stories about faith traditions in the valley, called My Faith. In this story, we ask Unitarian Universalists what they would like others to know about their faith.

There is a joke among Unitarian Universalists that being in the choir is a tough gig because everybody is always reading ahead in the songbook to see if they agree with the words. Lisa McAllister, who sings in the choir at the valley’s only Unitarian Universalist congregation, gets a kick out of this particular quip because, well, it’s fairly accurate about her chosen religion.

“We are constantly agreeing to disagree. … (In the choir) we have been known to say, ‘OK, well, we’re not going to sing that verse,’” she said. The joke conjures up an amusing image, but in reality it also demonstrates the religion’s core belief in the importance of a very personal search for faith. This means accepting everything that comes with it, including a rainbow’s spectrum of opinions and beliefs.

Unitarian Universalism is perhaps one of the most misunderstood religions for that very reason; members have belief systems that embrace everything from Eastern philosophies to Judaism to atheism. But looking at its history helps explain how this inquisitive, interfaith religion came into being.

It is actually rooted in Christianity. The Unitarian branch can be traced back to at least 16th century Europe, its name stemming from the movement’s core assertion that God is one entity and there is not a holy Trinity of God as Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus is a human prophet, not a deity.

Among the most well-known members of the early Unitarian church were U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and feminist Susan B. Anthony. The Universalist element also stems from the rejection of specific Christian dogma, particularly that of predestination, by asserting that all souls will be reconciled with God. The movement can be found as early as 17th century England and Colonial America.

“The Universalists taught that all of humanity will be saved and that a loving god would not condemn any of God’s creation to an afterlife in hell, and that all beings, all people will be saved and go to heaven,” noted the Rev. Rachel Allen Baker of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Las Vegas. The two faiths were joined in 1961 and the result is a religion with a background in liberal Christian thought that came to embrace the interconnectedness of all faiths and backgrounds.

Sunday services at the North Las Vegas home of the UUCLV, for example, are structured much like a Christian service, with hymns, readings and a sermon. If you look at the back of the hymnal, however, there are readings based in the Jewish and Christian religions side-by-side with wisdom from Humanist tradition and Eastern religions such as Hinduism.

Baker said she will read from sacred texts such as the Bible now and then, but her services are mostly a patchwork of voices from all kinds of faiths and backgrounds, such as African-Americans or transgender men and women, and contemporary poets and writers.

“For me, it’s not about me talking, but hearing the voices of many people. … Within our current Unitarian Universalism there’s a whole range of what people believe and don’t believe about life and love and God, and the big questions of life and meaning,” she said.

According to the Rev. Nancy Bowen, regional lead for the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Pacific Western Region, one of the biggest misconceptions is that congregants can believe anything they want. While the religion does not follow religious creeds or dogma, it is based on seven guiding principles, she said. Among them are: a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Everything from the nature of the services to the tone and goals of a congregation is influenced by the seven tenets. On a personal level, congregants noted that some of the principles hold more resonance than others depending on where they are in their search.

McAllister and her husband, Larry, raised their children in the former First Presbyterian Church (now Grace Presbyterian Church) but became members of UUCLV in 2009. Lisa still considers herself Christian and has attended Christian-themed discussion groups at UUCLV.

Larry said he has always considered himself “faith challenged,” a questioner of the rigid belief systems inherent in traditional religions, and believes one of the most important principles of the U.U. religion is the free search for “truth and meaning,” he said.

“I’ve never really been a believer, but I like to put some order and some understanding into my world and look for truth,” said the 56-year-old electrical engineer.

Unitarian Universalism has given him the sense of community that so many religions provide but in the midst of questioners like himself, he added.

His “faith” during the past seven years has come to mean the idea of putting moral values and principles into daily practice to help improve the world as it stands, in the here and now. He refers to it as “painting a picture in your mind of what reality could be like, and what the world could be like,” he said.

Terri Boling, also a member of UUCLV, was confirmed in the Methodist faith as a teenager and as an adult spent many years as a member of the Episcopal church. But as she grew older, the retired teacher started to explore different religions, and began to find the uniqueness and beauty in the different belief systems. She became a Unitarian Universalist about 11 years ago because of its interfaith approach and the way women are “celebrated” compared to what she’s experienced at traditional churches.

The religion’s principle that everyone is connected in some way is threaded through the way she lives her life and the mainstay of her own very personal approach to faith and spirituality, she added.

“I believe there is something incredibly creative and divine, and that it is part of all of us. But it’s not something up there that I can’t reach, it’s within me and it’s something within you and something we all have that connects all of us together,” she said.