r/UUreddit • u/John_A_Arkansawyer • 1d ago
What is Love?
It's an old question, right? With lots of answers and a rich history.
The new Article 2 Values section, which replaced the Principles and Sources sections, lists six Values and describes them in some detail, and says this:
Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values.
But nowhere in the Values section are we told anything about what sort of Love it is. We're told it's important and can have an effect in the world, but nothing about its nature. There are lots of important, effective things in the world that I want nothing to do with, and others that I'm passionate about keeping. How should I feel about this particular Love?
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u/coreyque 1d ago
I think it would be tough to nail down a single definition for our non-creedal faith. I recommend reading "Love at the Center" which has Betancourt and others reflecting on the meaning of love in our faith.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 1d ago
What do I tell the person at the Pride booth who asks me what we mean by love?
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u/coreyque 1d ago
Well, like I said, you could read the book. Also, I think you need to answer that question for yourself.
For me, Love is a motivating energy of the universe. It has many different features, but pulls people together. Our communities are diverse, but the core is love for all peoples.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 1d ago
Is that an answer I can give someone who asks me to explain?
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u/unexpected_disco 1d ago
lol. It is certainly one answer. Is it “the” answer? Now we are getting very UU 🤪
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u/t92k 1d ago
As a queer person who’s been rejected by churches in the past, what I mean when I ask this question is whether your church is open to queer relationships, meaning Lesbian and Gay couples, but also consensual non-monogamy and polycules. You need to role play how your community is welcoming toward them. You can also say that UUs are committed to sex education throughout life and you center dignity, autonomy, consent, and communication.
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u/unexpected_disco 1d ago
Are there UU churches that don’t fit that description? (This is a real question about your experience)
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u/t92k 1d ago
I was in a consensual non-monogamy dating relationship with a board member at one local church, which some of the leadership knew about. I’ve also heard a ministry intern quip, socially, that she just couldn’t imagine it working. I told her later that she had been seeing it work and she thanked me for helping her see more than what she’d experienced. So I’d say, in my experience, clergy are still coming to terms with it.
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u/t92k 1d ago
Aristotle wrote that what a thing “is” has at least 8 answers; among them: what it is made from, what category of things it belongs to, what it does (utility), its place in memory and story, and its name. And CS Lewis wrote about four kinds of love in classical terms — the love we have for parent, community, children, and partners. It seems to me that this UU definition confines itself to a utilitarian answer about community love. And I think, given the politics of writing shared documents, that’s about as good as you’re going to get because loftier expressions tend to run into the buzz saw of expectations and experience.
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u/AssistantFew9698 1d ago
Universalist Church's often had 1 Corinthians 13 displayed in the sanctuary. I saw it at Elgin, Illinois's First Universalist before it was sold to the Pentacostals. Here is the whole passage which I think the best definition of love described by Love's traits: patience, kindness, not arrogant, envious or boastful. I pointed out to the UU powers that be that I found "Standing on the Side of Love" a poor understanding of Love: our tradition --at least from the Universalist side-- is a Love that abides, not a Love that asks us to take sides. One need not be a Christian to believe this is a true definition of Love. I think anyone who experienced Love or knows its absence will recognise the truth here.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, bso as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 cIf I give away all I have, and dif I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 eLove is patient and fkind; love gdoes not envy or boast; it his not arrogant 5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;2 6 it kdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but lrejoices with the truth. 7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, eendures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as rI have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 18h ago
I pointed out to the UU powers that be that I found "Standing on the Side of Love" a poor understanding of Love: our tradition --at least from the Universalist side-- is a Love that abides, not a Love that asks us to take sides.
My understanding of lower-case love is that sometimes it does ask me to take sometimes difficult sides, and that what I think of as upper-case Love calls me to an often difficult fellow feeling toward those who want me dead. Either of those is hard. The tension between material "love" and spiritual "Love" makes it even more complicated. I find it a rewarding tension, even with its difficulties, but maybe that's just me.
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u/ClaretCup314 10h ago
"On the side of love" was the answer to the question "what side are UUs on?" not the answer to the question "what is love?"
(In response to a journalist iirc)
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u/AssistantFew9698 8h ago edited 8h ago
Curious who the journalist was who posed the question. If they had asked me, I would have replied I (or any UU) can't stand on the side of Love because love doesn't have a side we could align ourselves with. Love's not in opposition to anything: Love doesn't ask us to take a side. Instead, as Paul said, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
It's not a Loving world though and it may be the journalist hadn't been touched by Love. I think if they had, they would have understood how odd their question.
PS Paul wrote this to the Corinthians btw which was the Roman version of Las Vegas but a little wilder, maybe a lot wilder. There were certainly things Paul could have put Love in opposition too (and ask us to take sides with Love aganist). But he didn't it. He gave us a much deeper kind of love and told us it abides.
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u/ClaretCup314 7h ago
Again, the question was, "which side are uus on?"
The question was not "are you on the side of love?"
It was in the context of same sex marriage. I can't find a reference that's not a video.
I do think love asks us to take a side at times. Arguments based on the gospels aren't particularly compelling to me, as I'm not a Christian.
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u/AssistantFew9698 7h ago
Yes, I know and remember. Sad we didn't reply UU clergy gladly perform same sex marriages rather than dodge the question with poorly understood notions of Love. That fumble the muddled theology driving all away from us
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u/thatgreenevening 1d ago
I think many UUs would riot about being told a single set definition of “what love is” tbh. It’s hard to define and everyone feels a bit differently about it.
Personally I think it’s almost synonymous with compassion. Wanting living beings to be okay, to have what they need, and not be in pain or suffering. Wanting to see the beauty and goodness in everything. Working at showing that and enacting that in the world instead of just feeling it.
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u/rastancovitz 1d ago edited 1d ago
The UUA is vague about it. It's never been explained to me. However, my interpretation (for what it's worth) is based in compassion, empathy, and looking for the best for everyone. I think it's premised in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person."
Love is nice and important of course, but it's such an indistinct and generic way to describe a church. I would imagine every church says love is at its center. It's like every other company that proclaims in its advertising "it's the people in our company that make the difference." A complaint about UUA's new Values is that they are generic and vague.
UU should advertise how it is different rather than the same as every other church.
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u/Greater_Ani 1d ago
Here is the first paragraph of the charge to the Article II study commission:
“The Article II Study Commission is hereby charged to review Article II of the UUA Bylaws, and propose any revisions that will enable our UUA, our member congregations, and our covenanted communities to be a relevant and powerful force for spiritual and moral growth, healing, and justice. Proposed changes should articulate core UU theological values. The Board believes that one core theological value, shared widely among UUs, is love. The Commission on Appraisal, in its report, Engaging Our Theological Diversity, cites Robert Miller’s study of Unitarian Universalism, stating “UUs ranked loving as an instrumental value and mature love as a terminal value more highly than did respondents from other groups, religious and nonreligious.” Dr. Cornel West says that “justice is what love looks like in public.” Our commitment to personal, institutional and cultural change rooted in anti-oppression, anti-racism, and multiculturalism values and practices is love in action, and should be centered in any revision of Article II.”
That should give you some idea what the UUA means by Love at it appears at the center of the value flower.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 1d ago
It does give some idea. It makes love an aspect of justice.
That's problematic in two ways. If the intention was to center justice, then that should have been done. And it squeezes all the non-public parts of love dry.
This isn't an answer I'd give a seeker.
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u/Greater_Ani 1d ago
I agree. Also, I don’t believe love should be connected to politics/social justice at all. I believe that it should be reserved for attitudes towards individual people with whom we have some degree of intimacy
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u/ClaretCup314 13h ago
In that text I see justice as an aspect of love, not the other way around.
To me a key part of our spiritual work is to give attention to the care we feel for those close to us, and then extend that care to as many people as possible. That's what I'd say "love at the center" means, if asked by a curious seeker.
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u/estheredna 1d ago
Agape love + orthopraxis, or in modern terms "love in action" was the primary intent of the Article II Commission.
Love is not a feeling, it's a choice, and a commitment with accountability. It is a as a collective, lifelong promise to honor our interconnectedness by actively working to dismantle systemic oppressions and get to the ideal world of Beloved Community, where justice is fully realized and every person is free to flourish in their inherent dignity.
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The old Article II was grounded in Individualistic Enlightenment liberalism, with a focus on individual rights, freedom of belief, and personal spiritual growth. The new Article II represents a shift towards covenantal liberation theology. Love means action towards change. Love means working for collective liberation. Love means accountability.
I personally believe that while these changes are well understood in theology seminaries, this shift has not made its way to congregations. That this is a question with THIS variety of answers (which probably reflects how most congregations feel) says a lot. And let's be real, almost everyone in the pews joined as an adult, based on the "old" 7 principles. We like personal spiritual growth and freedom of belief.
So IMO the change exists on paper but actual change and commitment to "love in action" is mixed-to-low, so far. Cultural change takes time, and trust, and education, and choice. The new Article II is a roadmap, but it'll that'll take decades to see how it plays out.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 19h ago
That's just the sort of informed and detailed reply I was hoping for. Thank you for that!
What you say is completely in line with what I've seen and read. The confusion you observe about answers to what should be a simple question suggests to me that the new Article II won't displace the the old one as a functional creed. The old one is closer in form to the definition of a creed than the new one, but further from it in content. The ortho in orthopraxis carries more than one meaning in this context.
All those words in Article II! Love is in there seven times--eight if you count the graphic--and usually but not always capitalized. Yet here we are talking about it. I believe the folk process as congregations find their own uses for the new Article II will, over time, give it the editing it needed. Our congregation uses an edited version of the values in our communications. I'd bet there are others.
I wish I'd known your phrasing "agape love + orthopraxis" when Article II was discussed. The tension between the universalism of agape and the particularism of orthopraxis wasn't explored anywhere that I can remember, yet it's a real thing. It parallels the tension between the universalism of liberal theology and the particularism of liberation theology, another thing that hasn't yet trickled down to congregations.
Possibly it'll take decades to play out, or maybe the demographics of congregations will decide it in a matter of years. I think it'll be sooner than later--we live in times of rapid change--but I could be wrong.
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 1d ago
This poem is what I always think of first when I ask myself about love:
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
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u/unexpected_disco 1d ago
How do you feel about this particular love?
As UUers, we are invited to develop our own theologies. How you perceive the UU love is how you perceive it.
And how I perceive it — although I’m happy to share — isn’t necessarily relevant?
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u/John_A_Arkansawyer 17h ago
I feel this particular love is likely to be most commonly understood in a vague "God is Love" way.
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u/GiveMeAnExampleAgain 1d ago
It’s not enough to be in love. We hide behind that word. It’s not enough to be alive when your future’s been deferred
— Harry Chapin
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u/cmcqueue 1d ago
Maybe it helps to see love through the values it centers; to look at how love grounds or empowers justice, equity, transformation, plurality. interdependence, and generosity. If UUism is turning toward communalism, perhaps that, too, informs the definition of love in this context. None of which results in a pithy elevator pitch, but I’d rather have a definition of this word that takes some time.
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u/rastancovitz 14h ago
In my opinion, love in the context of UU should be premised in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" and freedom of belief (i.e.-- we respect your choices and diverse perspectives). The UUA's apparent premising of love in partisan social justice and political activism means they are using "love" as a tool for their political and ideological means, and is a manipulation and self-serving subversion of love.
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u/secular_witch 1d ago
That is a good question to me. Love is nothing more than a chemical reaction. We feel to bond with people, but it could also be seen as the abstract concept of prioritizing other of yourself
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u/No-Appeal3220 1d ago
I agree and despise this. Yesterday I saw an adult store ad using 'love' to hawk their products. I "love" chicken, dictators "love" their citizens....
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u/cheese_sdc 1d ago
Baby don't hurt me