SIXTEEN HISTORICAL AFFIRMATIONS OF THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FAITH

1. that God is a Unity as opposed to a Trinity
2. that all human beings can hope for salvation
3. that there is in each human person a spark of the divine
4. that relevant and meaningful statements of belief are personal statements
5. that truth grows and changes
6. that people should be free to judge whether or not to accept the pronouncements of the church
7. that a broadly inclusive tolerance in religion is preferable to an enforced uniformity
8. that religious assertions must be reasonable if they are to be accepted as valid
9. that doubt can help to winnow truth from untruth
10. that a person must develop a trusting reliance on him or herself and his or her own capacity to make sensible life-improving choices
11. that religion ought to be concerned primarily with this life
12. that answers to question, solutions to problems and comfort from discomfort-to have any real or lasting effect-must come from within a person not from outside
13. that God is in the world, not outside the world
14. that suffering is part of Life, not punishment for a way of living
15. that religious literature gives symbolic, rather than literal, truth
16. that religion ought not to involve only ritual, but also reflection and action for goodness

    Rev. Roy Phillips, St. Paul, Minnesota