So, the UUA abolishing the 7 principles / 8 principles was racist as fuck
(Part of the problem, a fuckton of UUs have literally no idea about this change)
Like, to the extent that I might start "formally" identifying as a Universalist instead of as Unitarian Universalist, or something, as a sufficiently permanent fucking protest against the unbelievably fucking racist replacement of the principles literally A SINGLE YEAR after Black UUs and UUs of color FINALLY got anti-racism added to the fucking principles
There are LITERALLY ONLY SEVEN FORMAL TENETS OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM, PERIOD, AND THE SECOND AN ANTI-RACIST PRINCIPLE WAS ADDED, THEY THREW OUT THE SYSTEM OF THE PRINCIPLES ENTIRELY, SOMETHING THAT AFAIK WAS LITERALLY NEVER PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED
Formally this is called "the article 2 changes" or something along those lines, rather than "that time we threw out and replaced the literal defining* principles of our religion literally one year after we got an anti-racism principle, because oh the number eight is too awkward and our principles are too wordy to make easy Sunday school lessons"
*Edited to clarify that these were not actually the founding principles of Unitarian Universalism (I spoke a bit too soon) which was formally founded in 1960 from a merger of the Unitarian and Universalist churches. Instead, the seven principles are from but the first (and until 2024, ONLY) revision of them, from 1984. Those were the defining principles of UUism for the part 40 years, in a religion that has only been around for 15 years longer than that. And we just tossed them out entirely, and the whole framework of the principles with them, because god forbid we say "racism bad" in the foundation of a religion focused on humanist principles, equity, and social justice
Here's a thought, maybe teaching the entirety of the core/founding principles of your religion to seven year olds doesn't fucking need to be easy. Maybe it shouldn't be, even!!!
Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't structure and word the core principles of our literal fucking religion around what makes a catchy fucking acronym.
(Context: the new system is known/abbreviated as JETPIG, which, I do not believe anyone who says you can get an acronym like that without some fucking trying.)
Anyway, these changes went through about a year ago, in summer 2024, and way too many UUs don't even know about it, much less talk about that, contrary to the party line on the explanation, that was absolutely super fucking racist
Previously my position has been "those assholes DO NOT GET to take the name of my faith away from me" but seeing the near-complete lack of serious criticism, debate, or even knowledge of the change in the year-plus since it happened has honestly been super disheartening
And UUs wonder why Unitarian Universalists are 88% white (per Pew Research, 2024)
Couldn't possibly be that a Lot of well-intended white people still have a giant fucking racism problem
