According to the Principles and Purposes the sources of Unitarian and Universalism include Jewish and Christian teachings that call on us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. I suppose for some saying that the source sof our living tradition include Jewish and Christian teachings is an act of courage, but I find this too anemic. Among the sources of our faith tradition is the Biblical vision of justice and restoration, and the radical gospel of inclusive love that breaks down conventional ideas of who is my neighbor.
I guess we could play with our Biblical heritage. But when the Principles and Purposes were written we were in a wholesale retreat from our history. Some more thoughts below, inspired by Alice Blair Wesley.
One of the contributing factors in the rise of New England Unitarianism as a distinctive movement within liberal Protestantism was the development of a Biblical scholarship in German Universities. The liberal Congregationalists were open to new findings that their scripture had been compiled and edited from earlier stories, myths, legends into the collection we now call the Bible. They began to understand the "politics" that had motivated the editors, and became interested in the meaning behind the text. In the process these New England liberal congretationalists came to identify with the European Unitarians who had found no evidence of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament, and began to construct a view of Jesus as part of the tradition of Hebrew prophets.
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and other prophets had dared to speak critical words to the wealthy and powerful rulers of ancient Judea, they had called for justice for the oppressed. Unitarian social reformers have been inspired by the biblical prophets. We hallow the names of Joseph Tuckerman, Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, Theodore Parker, Susan B. Anthony, and many others who followed in this tradition.
Unitarian Universalists came to understand that the Bible-was a collection of writings of human beings wrestling with moral, religious, and justice issues. They came to undertand that the text was written with in a particular historial context. As a collection of ancient writings they began to understand that they could not regard the Bible-as an infallible guide or the exclusive source of truth.
As Alice Blair Wesley writes "not that it should be discarded for that reason! Rather, it should be treasured for what it is. We believe that we should read the Bible as we read other books (or the newspaper)-with imagination and a critical eye."
She goes on to say "we also respect the sacred literature of other religions. Contemporary works of science, art, and social commentary are valued as well. We hold, in the words of an old liberal formulation, that "revelation is not sealed." Unitarian Universalists aspire to truth as wide as the world-we look to find truth anywhere, universally."
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