My Alarming Discovery that The Seven Principles of UU Have Been Replaced

I've been hearing for a while about the UU Shared Values, that orbit around Love, and the comical acronym, JETPIG. Today at the "Worship" service, kids aged 6-12 years old lit candles and were asked how they would approach each of the values. As I wondered if they knew what words like "Equity" and "Pluralism" meant, I began to wonder if I really understood what their meaning. I mean, I have a working idea of Equality. For example, there was the Equal Rights Amendment, which my mom cared about deeply--and which didn't pass Congress in the 1970s. And I understand what Affirmative Action means. And I know that Donald Trump is getting rid of DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So, roughly, Equity means that two people doing the same job at the same level of expertise ought to be paid that same amount. But women in our society are paid 17% less than men... so that is not equitable. 

Equity, then, is the second letter in JETPIG. 

By the way, my name is Cal Clements. I'm almost 60 years old. I'm a white male who is currently wearing white pants, a yellow button-down shirt with an vintage flower print, and a blue ball cap with a schooner embroidered in tan thread. My pronouns are He/They. I grew up in the UU Fellowship in Athens, Georgia, where I was christened by Reverend Clifford Hoffman. Today I was at the Fellowship with my father, who is 87 years old, and has been attending the church more regularly than I for the last many decades. We like to discuss the service afterwards.

This afternoon we puzzled over the Shared Values, each of which consists of a rather abstract word. How does Justice differ from Equity? Does Transformation simply mean that life changes? Pluralism must have something to do with diversity. And Interdependence--is that sort of like the Interdependent Web of LIfe? Because we remembered that from the Seven UU Principles. 

So I began looking things up. And that is when I made a discovery--WOW--as of July 2024 the governing body of the UUs voted to replace the Seven Principles and Seven Sources with these new Six Values. Somehow I missed that. It is true that my attendance has been rather slack. I've been going much more lately, especially since I've become my dad's caretaker. Nonetheless, that is major news! We were both shocked.

I began to compare the old Principles with the new Values to see how they had changed. I learned that the order of the Shared Values actually begins with Interdependence... such that the acronym should read IPJTGE. While that doesn't have much of a mnemonic, it disclosed something fascinating. The new Values align with the old Principles in reverse order! In other words, the first Shared Value of Interdependence corresponds with the last (or seventh) Principle, which read, "Respect for the interdependent web of life of which we are a part." 

I must say, I always liked that principle the best. So how do we know that this corresponds with the Shared Value of Interdependence? Well, the wording of the value reads:

We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.

There are so much overlap in the language that it seems obvious that this is the new Seventh Principle. And since this value is now designed to be first, given the intentional reversal of the order, it must be given extra consideration.

So what has changed? Well, first of all, we now have complete sentences. These sentences have actual verbs. Moreover, each Value is accompanied by a call to action, which takes the form of a Covenant. 

I must say, I'm not really used to words like "covenant" in any UU context. I'm assuming that this means a vow. I looked it up just now and, in religion, it means a sacred and binding commitment. In the UU Fellowship of my youth, there were no covenants. What we had was the independent search for meaning. The general idea was that everyone ought to follow their own star. This was formally articulated in the Fourth Principle, "A free and responsible search for truth and meaning." Maybe your quest led you to form a personal commitment to a certain value... or maybe it didn't! Who could say? In any case, let's see what the covenant is for this first Shared Value of Interdependence. It reads:

We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.

There's quite a lot of action here. Verbs are: covenant (vow), create, nurture, and work. So the broad view is that UUs are now tasked with actually doing something. The days of just coming to the fellowship and chatting with your friends while having coffee are over! That's pretty funny :) But of course some UUs have always been engaged in some level of activism (some people more than others). I remember, from when I was a kid in the 1970s, that there was a member named Joy Lee. She was a science teacher and very committed to the Save the Whales movement. Once, when I skipped Sunday School and went up to sit with the adults, I was delighted to discover that the entire service was about saving the whales. Subsequently, when kids would ask me if I was a Christian, I'd tell them that I belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. 

"Oh, what do they believe?"

"They believe in saving the whales."

That amused me to no end; I felt proud to provoke my peers in such a way. I mean, I knew I was stretching the truth... but it got right to the point. 

Ok, but let's get back to this Shared Value of Interdependence. In summary, we have a restating of the Seventh Principle, but added on is a call to action, which probably should be worded, "You are encouraged to protect the Earth and all beings..." because otherwise the UUA has set up a situation in which UUs cannot easily keep up with their vows. I mean--let's be real--animal agriculture is highly exploitative. Chickens are squeezed into cages, fed unsustainable amounts of antibiotics, and then slaughtered after 45 days of a miserable life. Modern agriculture is profit driven, with no regard for the inherent worth or dignity of these beings. So, technically, the UUA has pledged all UUs to avoid supporting the factory farming of chickens and other animals--which would mean not eating them. But my sense is that no one knows that this is a covenant they've made. 

The other Values correspond with their vanquished Principle in reverse order. It would take me a while to go through all of them.... but here's some interesting observations:

Justice repeats the language of the democratic process from Principle #5. But the old "right of conscience" has been replaced with a call to fight racism. I thought the right of conscience was interesting especially in relation to the democratic process. It seemed to me that Principle #5 was saying, "Hey, we know that each of you have your own opinions--and we respect that. But also we need to be able to get along as a community. So, hold your views as strongly as you like, but be led by the majority when it comes to making policy for the group (the congregation or the government)." That's a great principle--unless your minority view is exceptionally true. 

It seems to me that the UUA (The Unitarian Universalist Association, which is the governing body) wants to spur the UUs to action. When they were voting on the new Shared Values, policemen were suffocating George Floyd--which was incredibly wrong and resulted in the worldwide Black Lives Matter protest. Thus the Value of Justice is given real specificity. We UUs now vow to dismantle racism and all forms of systematic oppression. That's a tall order. In other words, if a UU congregation wonders if members should march in a civil rights protest, the answer is, "YES, most certainly! In fact, you've taken a covenant to that effect." Before, the answer would be more vague. It would be more of an open-ended dialogue, beginning with, "Well, what do you think you should do?" 

Another observation is that the Value of Transformation encompasses both Principle #3 and #4. It mirrors the language of "spiritual growth" from #3 and its emphasis on change relates to the "search" for meaning from #4, which implies that we are all in transition. 

When the Seven Principles were adopted in 1985, they were controversial to many people. Language of God was removed along with wording that alienated women. So how has the language changed in the new Shared Value form?

1. There's the expanded explanations, the full sentences, and the verbs. This goes hand-in-hand with the call to greater activism. 

2. There's more religious-sounding language. We now have covenants. That is pretty extreme to my ears! And the Sunday services are now called "Worship." This is also a strange word from (the old) UU perspective. Worship connotes placing one's head at the feet of the divine, much like surrender. For example, if someone asks, "How do you feel about your wife?" and you reply, "I worship her!" You'd be saying that you adore her to no end and think of her as a goddess. She'd be on a different plane of existence, like a deity. In a religious context, it implies that there's a God... or a supernatural being... that needs to be adored. And there's an implication that your own ideas are egoic and ought to be shed in relation to this "Higher Power." At least, that is what springs to my mind when I hear that word. 

(By the way, in the old UU system, there were Six Sources in addition to the Seven Principles. These were sources of inspiration and guideposts for a spiritual journey. The Fifth Source is comprised of "Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason." In the old style of UU, we had the idea of never letting anything or anyone dim one's personal intelligence. So "surrender" and "worship" were not popular ideas.)

And here's something new:

3. The new language is less-anthropocentric. That is, when you look at the Old Principles, they include only humanity--with the exception of #7, Interdependence of the Web of Existence. The Shared Values, to the contrary, begin with the inclusion of "all beings." That sets the tone to read the remaining values with less of a speciesist lense. 

Pluralism: We are ALL sacred beings. 

Justice: Dismantle ALL systematic oppression. 

Transformation: Be open to change. 

Generosity: There's mention of open-ended compassion and interdependence (whereas in Principle #2 compassion was limited to human relations). 

Equity: The word "person" may or may not be defined by species. Normally, a "person" is limited to humans, but it is possible to have "non-human persons." 

My concluding thought is this: I'm intrigued by the new Shared Values and their calls to action. I'm curious to what will come of them. It is certainly true that our world needs to change--and that means we need to change first.

As for the idea that the values all circulate around Love...

God is Love... so naturally Love is at the center.