On June 16, we held our annual “Question Box” service. Those present were invited to submit questions and I answered as many as I could in the amount of time given. There were many great questions left, so I’ll be answering them in today’s and upcoming columns.

Question: I was surprised to learn that not all UU churches have agreed to Principle #8. How many churches have added the 8th Principle?

First, some history: from 1985 until this June, Unitarian Universalism had seven named principles that identified what was important to us as a religious movement. In the last several years, many UUs felt that we needed another principle to more explicitly identify our commitment to work towards an anti-racism world. This was named “The Eighth Principle Project” and many UU congregations began engaging with this principle and voting to add it to the principles, as a congregation. (Live Oak did as well.)

Timing is everything, some say, but the reality is that sometimes timing is messy. At the same time congregations were discussing and voting on the eighth principle, there was a larger project going on, commissioned by the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) – The Article II Revisions.

Our UUA bylaws require us, as an association, to examine our principles on a regular basis, to see if they still reflect who we are, and perhaps more importantly, compel us toward the association we want to be. The Article II Study Commission, after much research, determined it was time for a change. Thus began four years of intense discernment, study, focus groups, surveys, amendments, and more.

There was, logically, some confusion – why were we (as congregations) doing work on the 8th Principle while we were also (as an association) doing the Article II Revision work? The Article II Commission answered this:

The process of examining and possibly revising Article II of the UUA Bylaws is a scheduled effort of the UUA Board, demanded by the bylaws themselves. The Study Commission, who has been charged with making a proposal to the UUA Board in January of 2023, has tremendous respect for what the 8th Principle movement has accomplished—and is accomplishing within UU communities. More than the language of the 8th Principle itself, we are moved by the ongoing conversations about what it means to be accountable to each other, and how we must—through our actions—take on the work of anti-racism and anti-oppression as an inextricable part of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

And so, though the task we have been charged with is larger than the specifics of the 8th Principle, we understand these ideals to be at the very heart of our work and very much part of the direction we are journeying. We understand the work we are doing to be building on the strengths of the 8th Principle movement. Whatever flowers grow from the process of engaging UUs in this reimagining, the seeds sown by the 8th Principle project will surely bloom brightly.

I don’t know how many UU congregations did or didn’t vote for the 8th Principle – though their votes were important to their congregation, it is through our delegates voting at General Assembly that changes to our bylaws happens. I do think it’s important to understand that not all congregations participated, not because they disagreed with the 8th Principle, but because they were putting their energies toward the Article II Revisions.

These revisions were clearly inspired by the work of the 8th Principle. And they passed our General Assembly this June.

Now, to apply them!