What does a love-centered theology even mean?

In the summer of 2024, Unitarian Universalists adopted a statement of our faith. In true UU fashion, it is in our bylaws. Article 2 specifically. And it names "love" as the center of our theology. Or for those who don't love the god-ness of the word "theology," then we could say Article 2 envisions "love" as the starting place as our ethical practice.

We're gonna spend the next many years figuring out what that means. At least I hope so.

I know I struggle a bit with how we can keep the beautiful and potentially powerful notion of a theology centered in love from turning into something vapid, something like a theology of lowest common denominators.

A theology or ethic of responsibility might be part of the answer. The Article 2 language speaks of a "spiritual discipline of love." Of accountability. That disciplined love has to be more than a fuzzy sense of love for all people, or even a deeply felt mourning for the oppressive suffering many people live with. It has to be a love that does something.

A spiritual discipline of love, a theology of responsibility, has to call us to see the whole of each person’s humanity. See the suffering, yes, but don’t define people by it. Don’t romanticize or patronize. See the harms people cause, the harm we cause, but don’t retreat into self-flagellation or defensiveness or defeatism.

A spiritually disciplined love is lived through a theology that holds enough faith to trust that we all can face our deeply flawed and imperfect humanity, our shortcomings, our inevitable screw-ups, and still see each other’s inherent worthiness. This is what it means to be Universalist: To refuse to flinch away from our human limitations and flaws; to remember that we each also have a human capacity to do good, speak truth, create beauty.

And a spiritually disciplined love calls us to do something that tries to do good, to speak truth even – especially – when it is frightening or uncomfortable, to draw out and to take in the beauty in the world and in each other. To try, knowing we will not always succeed. Knowing sometimes, we might make things worse. And then, to try again. And again.