Love at the Center - Unitarian Universalist Theologies

“Given everything our world faces today, having faith in love is no small thing.” —Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt
Unitarian Universalists as a progressive religious community hold a humbling expectation to periodically re-evaluate the freely chosen covenant that holds us together. While this work impacts the bylaws that define our governance structures, it also gives life to the values we express in common cause. We do this work to live into the Unitarian Universalism of the future.
In response to the Article II Study Commission and the final adopted language of Article II outlining our shared values, it is clear that the value most describe as central to their faith, to their living, and to the mission of their congregations is love itself. We are a people guided by, and centered in, our engagement with all that love requires.
Our pressing task now is to ask ourselves and each other how this understanding calls us forward, individually and collectively. We may agree that love is central, but what does that mean to us and what does it require of us? It is in that spirit that we asked more than two dozen leaders in our movement the question of what it means to put love at the center of our faith.
In these pages, you’ll find personal testimony to love’s power, reminders of the centrality of love throughout the long histories of Universalism and Unitarianism, and theologies of love drawn from many different expressions of Unitarian Universalism—from the natural world to the justice rally, to a loved one’s deathbed, to the quiet moment before a worship service begins. May Love at the Center serve as an invitation to deepen your own understanding and practices of love.

List of contents

Preface by Rev. Sofía Betancourt

1. The Theology of Love Was Never a Monologue by Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd

2. Something Wild, Something New, Something Beautiful by Rev. Juniper Meadows

3. We Call These Things Love by Rev. Adam Robersmith

4. Reflections of a Japanese-Descent UU on Cultural Contexts of “Love” by Rev. Shige Sakurai

5. Beloved Community Is Love at the Center by Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

6. Hospice and Hors D’oeuvres by Rev. Nathan Detering

7. Digging Graves by Rev. Sam Teitel

8. Leaning into Interconnectedness by Rev. Sierra-Marie Gerfao

9. The Prophet of Love Near You by Rev. Natalie Fenimore

10. Behind the Shade by Glen Thomas Rideout

11. Love Makes a Family by Liz James

12. The Transformative Power of Love by Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti

13. There Is a Love Holding Us by Rev. Sheri Prud’homme

14. Unitarian Universalism—One Holy Love for All by Connie Goodbread

15. Love Is Abolition Is Earth Justice by Rev. Karen Van Fossan

16. Love and Risk by Robert C. Spirko

17. When Love Is Criminalized by Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen

18. From Longing to Fully Living by Rev. Mykal O. Slack

19. Love and Power at the Center by Rev. Mary Katherine Morn

20. Love, a Work in Process by Rev. Bill Sinkford

21. On Love by Rev. Marco Belletini

22. Love Is the Heart of This Church by Dan McKanan

23. Liberating Love by Rev. Fredric Muir

24. Finding Love in the Streets by Rev. Jason Lydon

25. Death and Glory, Love and Evil by Rev. Ashley Horan

26. Love Is a Circle in Time by Rev. Rebecca Ann Parker

27. Love: Our Spiritual Need and Calling by Rev. Jade C. Angelica

28. Love Is God by Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

29. Beloved by Rev. Victoria Safford

For Further Reading

About the Contributors

About the author

Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt is the tenth president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. She was elected in June 2023. Rev. Dr. Betancourt’s twenty-year ministry has included serving as a parish minister, seminary professor, scholar and environmental ethicist, and public theologian.

Product details

• Assisted by: Sofía Betancourt (Editor)
• Publisher: Skinner House Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.03.2025
• EAN: 9781558969414
• ISBN: 978-1-55896-941-4
• No. of pages: 224
• Dimensions: 150 mm x 226 mm x 23 mm
• Weight: 386 g
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Miscellaneous