I thought it would be useful to explain what I understand (or think I do) which underlies my UU 102 effort, so:

• Regardless of the intentions of those concerned, the 1961 merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists produced the possibility of a new religion. We are living out that possibility right now. The future is unwritten.
• By deferring rather than engaging theological differences, a giant empty space was left where a religion usually has a theology. While we have continuities both organic and artificial with the past, that negative space defined us.
• That space was left empty, open, and inviting just as massive change occurred in the world. Change sought empty space and filled it with practice. While ideas and theories were present, it was peoples’ actions that mattered most.
• We now face the task, should we decide to accept it, to find or build a theology out of and among our current practices. We have the sources and the norms to do so, and enough practice to make respectable first runs at saying what it all means.

So I am looking among people’s practices and holding up the items which seem to me to face our common future. While it may not be necessary to have some common theology, I believe it is both possible and desirable to have one.