Heart of UU Identity

Rev. Dr. George Kimmich Beach

Late Update: Pre GA 2023

Rev. Dr. Beach eloquently discusses two major objections to the Article II replacement of the Principles and Sources which lie at the very heart of our identity as as Unitarian Universalists. Beach (now retired) is intimately familiar with how the 1985 version of our Principles and Sources came about. He was a major contributor to the creation of the process that lead to the overwhelming adoption of the Principles as we know them in 1985. After the UU Women’s Federation proposed changes to the 1961 principles 1981, which many thought would lead to serious division:

Denise Davidoff, who had succeeded Gulbrandsen as UUWF president and was later to succeed her as moderator, made a bold decision. Even though it caused a rift among the women delegates, she broke with those who favored immediate adoption of the proposed draft. Persuaded that a vote that year would be needlessly divisive and in any case would probably lose, Davidoff endorsed the proposal that a committee be set up to study the issue and report back to the GA in a subsequent year. This concession not only avoided confrontation but led to the formulation of a far more eloquent and inclusive statement, one that fulfilled the wish voiced by the Rev. George “Kim” Beach for a “strong” statement of Principles “with religious integrity, intellectual coherence, and literary quality.”

The motion to study the issue passed, the committee was set up, and it launched what Davidoff has described as “an enormously well-done, grass-roots process.” The Rev. Walter Royal Jones Jr., a parish minister now retired, who headed the special committee for most of its existence, recalls that they sent out questionnaires asking congregations and individual UUs for suggestions about what the new statement of Principles might say. While some respondents expressed skepticism, considering the process a waste of time, the committee also received many contributions of great merit which, in turn, it circulated for further comment.”

From UU World (2000 and 2006).

The argument for strong statement of principles “with religious integrity, intellectual coherence, and literary quality” is as valid today as it was in 1981.