Theology

My theology is thoroughly both Unitarian and Universalist, by which I mean: I believe that we all come from the same source, and that we are all headed to the same place. And, because of those two truths, we are called to build justice and create love here on earth. And that we live in a world too broken and too beautiful to make meaning of it all by ourselves, so we must do the work of living in this world and taking care of one another together. 

Another way that I might describe my theology would be through the lens of religious humanism. What that means to me is that I believe that we are part of something greater than ourselves, and greater than the sum of its parts. I sometimes use the word “God” to describe that spirit, and I lean into the experience of awe, wonder, and mystery, while also being solidly grounded in reason and science. And, the more I learn about the universe, and the more I learn about questions that science has not yet answered, the more awe and wonder I experience.

In addition to finding personal meaning in a “spirit of love and mystery that some people call God” (as the children’s Spirit Play curriculum calls it), I am also oriented toward a more classical definition of humanism: one that places human experience as central to our own authority and meaning-making, and one that places human needs and human community as central to how we construct our ethics and practical theology.

My theology is very focused on the here-and-now, and I am far more interested in how our beliefs impact how we live than whether or the word "God" resonates for us (though I do care about how our personal histories and experiences shape our relationship to different religious words) or what we believe happens after we die. I believe theology asks so many important questions of us, like: What is the nature of humanity? Are we born with innate goodness, or innate evil? What does it mean to steward the earth? How are we to think about people who have less power or fewer resources than we do? What does Love call us to do? These are all deeply theological questions, and these are the kinds of questions I most enjoy engaging to explore with others.