Reflection

Democracy & Interdependence

13 years before Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker defined democracy in an 1850 speech on abolition as “a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.” A hundred years later, drawing on that same theological and political legacy, the Commission on Merger presented a proposed set of bylaws to the first General Assembly of the newly-formed Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. In the now-famous Article II of those bylaws, then called “Purposes and Objectives,” those original writers included:  

To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships.

What is striking about this “purpose” is that it inextricably links a particular system of being in community (the democratic method) with a fundamental belief about human nature (the inherent worth and dignity of all humans). In essence, it’s an if-then statement: if we believe that all humans are born whole and loved rather than sinful and depraved, then we must create institutions and societies in which every person is equally empowered to determine, as a part of the collective, what is best for the people. If the people are born with the twin blessings of agency and conscience, then they must be trusted to govern themselves. Democracy can be exercised in lots of different ways, from national elections to public protest to small-group processes. But whatever the scale or method, true democracy depends on every person – every community – having a say in decisions that will impact them.  

Humans are radically interdependent with each other, and with the earth and all living things: this is another core belief of our faith. So when oppressive systems like capitalism, white supremacy, cisheterosexism, ableism, and anthropocentrism conspire to allow a small group of people to disproportionately make decisions in their own interest, the outcome is almost always the exploitation, abuse, and control of other beings and the earth. In other words, we trust that the more all the people get to decide what is done to all the people, the more likely that we will err on the side of mutual care, support, and freedom for all the people. (And, as we face the human-made climate crisis, we must also expand the notion of inherent rights to include the needs and interests of non-human creatures and the earth).  

This week, as we hold these spiritual-political themes of democracy and interdependence side by side, we invite and your communities to reflect on these questions:

• How can we support a practice of democracy that acknowledges the radical interdependence of humans with one another, and the earth? 

• In what ways have our current “democratic” systems failed to truly be an expression of all the people, by all the people, for all the people? What are the impacts of decision making that fails to account for our interdependence? 

If interdependence is the inescapable reality of our relationships to one another and to the earth, then true democracy is both a spiritual and political practice of honoring that interconnectedness. The natural, faithful response to the blessing of being endowed with both freedom and dignity is for each of us to find our people in community, to continue building ever-expanding relationships of mutuality and trust, and to collectively and courageously take up the work of fighting for a world in which all of us are free and flourishing. 

May we undertake that work with dedication, humility, and joy. 

In faith and solidarity,