We are using the UUA’s Soul Matters resources this year. January’s theme is Practicing Resistance. The following excerpt from an article in the UU World magazine was shared by Alison Page. The author of the quote, Takiyah Amin, was responding to the question:
“Do you have to be an activist to be a Unitarian Universalist?”
“I don’t like this question because, of course, on the face of it, the answer is no. You don’t need to be an activist in the quotidian sense of participating in protests or demonstrations to bring about social and political change. But that’s not the end of the answer. The truth of the matter is that Unitarian Universalism, as a faith and philosophy, calls us to work toward building a sustainable, equitable context for all of us to live and thrive, and there is no getting around that. If you embrace and believe in our Principles—dignity, justice, equity, and compassion—you can’t sit idly by in the absence of those ideals in our society. We are supposed to uphold, as a matter of principle, the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. How does anyone propose we get there if we don’t take action to make it happen?
This isn’t about calling yourself an activist or an organizer or anything else—it is about being a person who lives out their principles in their home, at the job, in their congregation, and anywhere else their life might take them.
I am frankly tired of hearing fellow UUs say, “I am not an activist” or “I didn’t come to this faith to be an activist” because it misses the point. This faith requires something of us in return for being our ideological home, and that requires that we get up, get out, and build the world we dream about. I don’t care what anyone calls themselves, but if you aren’t called to act in, on, and through our Principles, maybe you shouldn’t call yourself a Unitarian Universalist.
Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin (she/her) is a dance scholar, educator, academic success strategist, former Religious Education Assistant at the congregation in Blacksburg, VA, a graduate of the UUA’s Multicultural Leadership School, and a past facilitator for the Thrive Young Adult/Grow Racial Justice program.