Fourth Principle: Free and Responsible Search For Truth and Meaning
I am working on a sermon on the fourth UU Principle: “we covenant to affirm and promote…A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
In agreement with Paige Getty’s fine essay on the principle in the new collection, The Seven Principles in Word and Worship, I am focusing on Unitarian Universalism’s love of freedom in religious inquiry and practice but lack of understanding or agreement about what constitutes “responsible.”
In the older six principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the free search for truth and meaning was the first principle. It read,
To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship.
Now isn’t that interesting? What I love there is the use of the word “disciplined,” which, to my ears, rings with a kind of integrity and commitment that the murkier “responsible” does not evoke.
For those who see UUism […]