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Making UUs better, more thoughtful, open-minded, and understanding people
by David Cycleback, Ph.D., the British Royal Institute of Philosophy
1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
A Unitarian Universalist congregation serves various roles for its members. Some seek community amongst like-minded people, some a Sunday morning refuge from the outside world or an education program for their kids. Others join for social justice and activism.
As a freethinking, pluralist tradition, Unitarian Universalism should, at its core, teach its members open-mindedness, curiosity, and how to engage with diverse ideas and perspectives. A church or belief system should promote spiritual and intellectual growth by broadening perspectives and deepening knowledge and understanding.
This means offering classes, sermons, discussions, and programs that explore different religious and secular belief systems, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints—including those that challenge our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices.
One of the greatest intellectual and spiritual challenges to UU is the increasing politicization of the church and the narrowing of perspectives. Though founded on independent thinking, many congregations have become politically and ideologically narrow and sometimes even intolerant. The national church now resembles a mirror image of a politically conservative Evangelical church. A church is not supposed to be a political party.
This makes critical thinking, open dialogue, and understanding differing viewpoints more essential than ever.
Political hyperpartisanship harms a church, creating a spiritually poisonous us versus them mentality. Many UUs who claim to value open dialogue and understanding abandon those principles when it comes to politics. People are often at their intellectual and emotional worst when engaged in partisan politics and this mindset should be discouraged in a spiritual center. I have seen otherwise thoughtful, kind, and open-minded UUs mischaracterize, defame, and make no attempt to understand people simply because of differing beliefs and backgrounds.
Echo chambers must be countered, as they promote an illiberal, close-minded mindset. A free and responsible search for truth cannot be confined to a single ideology. To claim that truth can or should only fit within one ideology—political, religious, or other—is both arrogant and obviously false.
These days, dissent and heterodoxy are critical to the health of the church and congregations and to preserving liberal religion. Those who promote groupthink and partisanship and suppress heterodoxy should not be in leadership positions.
UU congregations should teach their members critical thinking skills. Even if most members of a congregation belong to the same political party, being able to intelligently assess diverse ideas is crucial for thoughtfully engaging with the diverse world. All UUs should learn how to recognize cognitive and cultural biases and irrational thinking, practice intellectual humility and understand the limits of our knowledge, identify logical fallacies, and impartially consider diverse perspectives.
With today’s tribalism, a common read for a UU congregation could be social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. This book explores how and why people arrive at different moral and political perspectives.
One of UU’s core principles is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. To me, this is the foundational principle of the church, and why I support UU congregations working to be welcoming to people of many identities and backgrounds. However, unlike what UU does these days, truly respecting the dignity of others means listening to and learning about all people—not just those “who think like us."
Too often UUs learn about different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups through a narrow progressive lens and from just a tiny partisan subset of the groups, when the people within those groups hold a wide range of views and experiences. This does not create understanding—it reinforces existing biases and ignorance. If we only see others through our own ideological framework, we are not respecting or even trying to understand them.
Critical thinking, open-mindedness, curiosity, lifelong learning, and meaningful engagement with diverse and challenging perspectives are essential not only within UU congregations but in life beyond them. These skills, which UU should be taught in their congregations, transcend religious affiliation and are vital for navigating a diverse world.
UU congregations have the potential to model a more open, inclusive, and thoughtful society—one that values honest discourse, respects differing viewpoints, and seeks understanding over division.
This, to me, is what Unitarian Universalism should be about, and is the only Unitarian Universalism I am interested in.
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