Unitarian Universalism engages your whole self: your full identity, your questioning mind, and your expansive heart.

At MDUUC, you don’t have to check your brain, background, and beliefs at the door. Like you, we honor everywhere we’ve been. As part of our community, you are part of a force for personal transformation and social justice more powerful than any one person or single system of faith. We see diversity — in faith, ethnicity, history, and spiritual path — as an important strength in our community.

Our beliefs are diverse and inclusive. Replacing a standard creed, our shared covenant (the seven principles) supports “the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Although Unitarianism and Universalism were both liberal Christian traditions, this responsible search has led us to an inclusive spirituality drawn from six sources ranging from scriptural wisdom to personal experience to contemporary heroes.

As a Unitarian Universalist, you can think for yourself.  We reflect together about important concerns, such as:

• The existence of a higher power
• Life and death
• Sacred texts
• Inspiration and guidance
• Prayer and spiritual practices
• Morality and ethics
• Right relationship

MDUUC’s broad and inclusive outlook builds a foundation for shared experience: open and stirring worship services, religious education, and rites of passage; working for social justice; striving to include the marginalized; expressing love in all its forms.

UU Principles and Sources

Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven principles as strong values and moral guides — not dogma or doctrine:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person
2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part
8. Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.*

We express these principles within a living tradition of wisdom and spirituality drawn from six diverse sources:

1. Direct experience of the transcending mystery and wonder — affirmed in all cultures — moves us to renew the spirit and to be open to the forces that create and uphold life.
2. Words and deeds of prophetic women and men challenge us to confront structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.
3. Wisdom from the world’s religions inspires us in ethical and spiritual life.
4. Jewish and Christian teachings call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.
5. Humanist teachings counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science and warn against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
6. Spiritual teachings of earth­centered traditions celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

The seven principles and six sources of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) grew out of the grassroots of our tradition, were affirmed democratically, and are part of who we are. You will find them in the UUA Bylaws.

Kids’ Principles

Unitarian Universalists have many ways of articulating our seven Principles  (with a newly introduced 8th*) in simpler language. Here’s the way our Tapestry of Faith children’s programs describe them:

We believe that:

1. Each and every person is important.
2. All people should be treated fairly and kindly.
3. We should accept one another and keep on learning together.
4. Each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life.
5. All persons should have a vote about the things that concern them.
6. We should work for a peaceful, fair, and free world.
7. We must care for our planet Earth, the home we share with all living things.
8. Build the beloved community, free from racism and oppression.*

These principles are woven into Mt. Diablo UU Church’s religious education programs for children and adolescents.

 

*On November 20, 2022, our congregation voted to affirm the 8th Principle and joined the over 217 Congregations and UU organizations that have adopted this principle into their congregational/organizational life.  For more information about this principle, please visit: https://mduuc.org/8th-principle/