Unitarian Universalism in a Nut Shell

One of the topics that comes up from time to time is how to describe Unitarian Universalism. The old elevator speech. I use a more abbreviated version of this, but I think I will try to use the whole thing.

Unitarian Universalism started as two similarly progressive religions that merged in 1961. The two incorporated by agreeing on a set of principles that included insisting all humans have worth and dignity, and searching for religious or spiritual truths with integrity. Individual beliefs are very diverse. Membership and, more importantly, participation in the church community calls us to practice right relationship with one another. We can better adapt, adjust, and minister to, from the Latin ministrare, “to serve,” our increasingly complicated world.

Addendum 5/1/14:

Unitarian Universalism started as two similarly progressive religions that merged in 1961. The two incorporated by agreeing on a set of principles that included insisting all humans have worth and dignity, and searching for religious or spiritual truths with integrity. Individual beliefs are very diverse. Membership and, more importantly, participation in the church community calls us to practice right relationship with one another. Thus centered, our beliefs best influence our work for the common good.

— Thank you to Pope Francis for inspiring me to update the last sentence. It needed that little something.

Ideally this is to invite questions. What do you mean progressive? What kind of beliefs? What kind of principles? Why would I need or even want to go to a church?

The challenge was to write something with no negatives, i.e. this, not that. You can write to me to request my more cynical explanation of the above.