UU Fellowship of Athens Georgia

President's Report- David Jarrett
March, 2003

Passionate Beliefs and Diversity

As I write this in mid February, we seem to be headed irrevocably into war with Iraq. The best guess is that the bombs will start falling during the first week of March near the time of the new moon. To some of us, this seems like a just crusade against an evil madman dictator who threatens the peace of the Middle East region (if not the whole world) with his support of terrorism and refusal to get rid of his chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. For others, the war seems motivated by our greedy desire to control Iraq's oil and the need of our leaders to satisfy their own egos. Many fear that the war will serve as an excuse for more terrorist attacks against us and cause more of the world to harden their negative views of the United States. Others simply feel that the death and destruction caused by war cannot be justified. Still others are confused and uncertain which viewpoints are most valid.

We need to acknowledge and respect the level of passion with which different members of our community hold these varying beliefs. Our Principles call for a free and open search for truth, not for an abandonment of our beliefs. There are many issues about which different members of our Fellowship hold strong but contrasting viewpoints. How we deal with each other when our opinions differ is perhaps even more important than the Beliefs themselves.

The fact that we hold to Principles rather than a creed does not diminish the intensity of our beliefs and opinions. Respecting the inherent worth and dignity of each other means acknowledging our diversity. At the same time, there is nothing in those principles that suggests that we should not decide what is right and true and hold strongly to what we have come to believe. We can love one another and yet profoundly disagree on many things. Yet our passion for our core values makes us stronger and better people.

All religions call on people to abandon our baser passions of greed, envy, anger and fear. All ask us to strengthen our nobler passions of love, compassion and courage. Different religions may differ on the reasons to make these moves, but all can inspire us to be more human, more holy, more divine. Our paths may differ but our goals are remarkably similar.

As UUs, we need to love all humankind even when they seem to see the world so differently than we do. Within our community, it is right for us to strongly, articulately and passionately espouse the beliefs and opinions that, (hopefully), we have arrived at though our long and intense individual struggles with the search for truth. At the same time, we need to honor those of us who have arrived at different conclusions. In many ways, the UU approach to dealing with what is right and true is more difficult than that of faiths that tell their members what to believe. It is far easier to exclude and reject people whose beliefs clash with one's own than to love and honor them. In the struggle to balance our passionate pursuit of what we hold to be true and right with our acceptance of human diversity we become nobler and better people.

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