heritage

Conspiracy with change

by Edward L. Schempp

Also in Reflections: Living in exile by Victoria Safford and Elevator speeches

Unitarian Universalism is a fierce belief in the way of freedom and reverence for the sacred dignity of each individual. With Jefferson we “have sworn eternal hostility against every tyranny over the mind.”

Unitarian Universalism is cooperation with a universe that created us. It is a celebration of life. It is being in love with goodness and justice. It is a sense of humor about absolutes.

Unitarian Universalism is faith in people, hope for tomorrow's child, confidence in a continuity that spans all time. It looks not to a perfect heaven, but toward a good earth. It is respectful of the past, but not limited to it. It is trust in growing and conspiracy with change. It is spiritual responsibility for a moral tomorrow.

Edward L. Schempp (1908–2003) wrote these words in the early 1980s; they were printed on postcards by the Unitarian Universalist Association and distributed widely. Schempp was the plaintiff in the 1963 Supreme Court case that declared mandatory Bible reading in public schools unconstitutional. (His son, Ellery Schempp, was the high school student who protested the Bible readings.) Schempp was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, when he died at 95 last year.

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