What do Unitarian Universalists believe about salvation?
The English word salvation derives from the Latin salus, meaning health. UUs are as concerned with salvation, in the sense of spiritual health or wholeness, as any other religious people.
However, in many Western churches, salvation has come to be associated with a very specific set of beliefs or a spiritual transformation of a very limited type. Most UUs do not cleave to those associations.
Among UUs, instead of hearing of salvation, you'll hear our yearning for, and our experience of, personal growth, increased wisdom, strength of character, and gifts of insight, understanding, inner and outer peace, courage, patience, and compassion. The ways in which these things come to, change, and heal us are many and various. We seek those ways and celebrate them in our worship, both public and private.
As the Rev. Dr. Jack Mendelsohn has written, "For us, salvation is not an otherworldly journey, flown on wings of dogma. It is ethical striving and moral growth…"
