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As Christians who profess the beliefs of the
Unitarian Christian faith and tradition,
We declare that the Bible is the sacred scripture
in which our religious convictions are founded upon and that Jesus of Nazareth
is our spiritual guide, leader, and head of our church.
We declare that God is one in being and person and
that Jesus the Christ is God's anointed and best child.
We declare that God's revelations to humanity are
revealed in a myriad of ways; therefore, we should search for God's truth and
divine wisdom within the pages of our holy book, the world's many sacred
scriptures, and our everyday spiritual and scientific explorations to know and
commune with God.
We declare that our higher faculties of common sense
and reason are inherent gifts from God and should be applied when discerning
revealed scriptures and one's spiritual awakenings and encounters with the
Divine.
We declare that, apart from our shared theological
views, rituals, and rites, our fellow Unitarian Christian brothers and sisters
are free to interpret their Unitarian Christian faith according to their own
personal conscience, understanding, and religious schools of thought or
denominations in which they belong.
Point 1
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who have
found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
Point 2
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who
recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to
God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are
true for us.
Point 3
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who
understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation
of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples.
Point 4
By calling ourselves progressive,we mean that we are Christians who invite
all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting
that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited
to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;
without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us.
Point 5
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who know
that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest
expression of what we believe.
Point 6
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we find more grace in the search
for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning
than in absolutes.
Point 7
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who form
ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we
feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting
and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those
Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers.
Point 8
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who
recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love,
conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
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