About The Eighth UU Principle

EIGHTH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST PRINCIPLE

UUCC adopted the following Eighth Principle at the Annual Meeting, June 4, 2023.

 “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

Background:

The 8th Principle Project is a grassroots movement started in 2013 aimed at articulating a commitment to dismantle racism and other forms of oppression within UU congregations. The 8th Principle is founded in the realization that although the 7 Principles affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all people and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, they do not explicitly address racism. As explained by Paula Cole Jones, Director of Racial & Social Justice for the Central East Regional Group of the UUA and co-founder of the 8th Principle Project, a person can believe they are being a “good UU” and following the 7 Principles without ever thinking about systemic racism and oppression. The 8th Principle was born of the need to de-center whiteness and dominant cultures in UUism and hold ourselves accountable for dismantling racism.

Beginning in 2017, Paula Cole Jones and fellow co-founder Bruce Pollack-Johnson, of the UU Church of the Restoration in Philadelphia, worked with other antiracist activists to propose the following as an 8th Principle within our faith:

 Beloved Community happens when people of diverse racial, ethnic, educational, class, gender, abilities, sexual orientation backgrounds/identities come together in an interdependent relationship of love, mutual respect, and care that seeks to realize justice within the community and in the broader world. UU Congregations across the continent are discussing adoption of the 8th Principle at local levels, and a UUA Study Commission is currently considering the essence of the 8th Principle in a formal periodic review of the 7 Principles of UUism

More information is available in Background. The Eighth Principle at UUCC.