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Editor’s Note (June 13, 2025): An earlier version of this story misidentified Rev. Kate Walker in a photo caption.
What is Unitarian Universalist theology in 2025? How do UUs collectively view our faith, and how much theological common ground can we share in a creedless religion?
These were a few of the big questions discussed at the inaugural Spark Theological Convocation. About eighty UUs, including Unitarian Universalist Association leaders, ministers, religious educators, and laypeople gathered from April 3–5 at the UU Congregation of Fairfax, Virginia.
Through panel discussions, keynote addresses, worship services, and breakout groups, the convocation’s central goal was “to share in collective acts of ideation and discernment and to help shape our shared UU theology for the years to come,” according to its website.
Many attendees acknowledged the richness of Unitarian Universalism’s theological heritage, from Universalists such as Hosea Ballou to the Transcendentalists in the Unitarian tradition, and how their work can ground UUs in future theological developments. Others spoke positively about the recently adopted UU Shared Values with love at the center.
“A love ethic is at the center of our liberal Christian inheritance,” said UUA President Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, as she described a throughline from Unitarian Universalism’s past to the present.
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UU Theological Identity: Perspectives from Two Leaders
In response to the question, “Is Unitarian Universalism the right theology for now and the future?”, two theologians gave separate keynote addresses.
In her keynote Rev. Cheryl M. Walker, who has ministered at UU congregations in Germantown, Wilmington, and New York City, said “Unitarian Universalism is not a theology. Unitarian Universalism is a religion with many theologies.”
The faith can empower people to put their beliefs into action and make positive change, added Walker, who served as cochair of the Article II Study Commission, part of the process that led to adoption of the new Shared Values.
“Being a UU can fill your being with awe and wonder and inspiration to save this world and save yourself,” Walker said.
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker speaking at the Spark Convocation alongside Rev. Cheryl M. Walker.
In her keynote, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker, former president of Starr King School for the Ministry, said the harmful actions of the current Trump administration are “attacking our religious values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Parker encouraged UUs to form “communities of resistance,” in the face of “cruel, authoritarian policies that are causing tremendous harm so fast that it’s nearly overwhelming.”
Emphasizing that theology is important not just to who UUs were historically but who we are today, Parker noted the faith’s extensive “tradition of counter-theologies that are correctives to harmful religions.” Universal salvation, for example, was a counter-theology to doctrines of hell and eternal damnation.
Before joining together in 1961, the Unitarian and Universalist denominations each had distinct theological viewpoints. Some of their underlying commitments, like a broadly optimistic view of human nature, are present in modern Unitarian Universalism. But the theologies of early Unitarianism and Universalism, while honored and cherished within the faith, may be less central to Unitarian Universalism as it is practiced today. (In 2025, it would be unlikely that a visitor at a UU congregation would encounter a sermon parsing the finer points of substitutionary atonement or the existence of purgatory.)
The nature of UU theology today is more open, and very much up for debate.
In a group discussion led by Rev. Leslie Takahashi, president of the UU Ministers Association board of trustees, some participants said they think UUs have difficulty articulating their beliefs. Others said that such conversations rarely come up in their congregations, due to either fear of offending those who believe differently or unfamiliarity with theological topics.
It felt “renewing” to be at Spark and take part in those group discussions, Takahashi later told UU World.
“My biggest takeaway is probably that people are very eager to talk about our beliefs, our values, and our theologies, and we’re very inexperienced in doing it,” she said.
New Horizons for UU Theology?
After the convocation, Walker said that knowing personal theologies is “grounding” and prepares UUs to work for social justice.
“You know why you’re doing the work of resistance because there is a core belief that you hold that says, ‘I have to. I can’t hold that belief and not do something,’” she said.
In her experience, Walker said, she’s met many UUs who “were very good at telling you what they didn’t believe but weren’t particularly good at telling you what they did.”
“It’s harder,” she said. “It’s ten times harder.”
A worship service at the Spark Convocation led by Rev. Verdis LeVar Robinson.
Walker said she hopes Spark attendees will bring those conversations to their congregations, as there is a need for UU leaders to initiate this kind of work in their communities.
“We give everybody this incredible amount of freedom and then we don’t help them know what to do with it. And then you’re lost at sea,” she said.
Rev. David A. Miller, senior minister of the Fairfax congregation, said he hoped that the Spark convocation would do as its name suggests and prompt theological conversations that benefit others beyond the event. As Miller put it in Spark’s opening worship service: “May this convocation not simply inspire us, but embolden us to move forward together, rooted in our shared values, and unwavering in our commitment to a faith that does not merely reflect on the world, but transform it.”
It is not yet certain if there will be future version of the Spark conference, but Miller expressed his hope that a “curriculum” of some kind might be developed based on the discussions at the event.
Betancourt said it was “very exciting” to witness what happened at Spark. She said she feels a sense of optimism about the state of theological conversations in Unitarian Universalism, and she’s has observed a “shift” toward openness, curiosity, and trust.
“I feel like there used to be this fear twenty years ago in Unitarian Universalism, that if we weren’t experts on everyone else’s religious tradition, we couldn’t legitimately participate in the conversation,” Betancourt said. “And over time, so many of us have helped shift that mindset to one that is an invitation to be experts in our lived experience of Unitarian Universalism, and to communicate about that in the world.”
She added, “I felt a deep love for our tradition in the room, real openness and creativity, and some real profound respect for our inherited theological history.”