Unitarian Universalist Prayer and Invocation

Unitarian Universalism formed in 1961 through the merger of American Unitarianism and Universalism, two historically distinct liberal Christian denominations that had each already moved, before their merger, toward increasingly noncreedal positions rejecting required doctrinal statements in favor of individual conscience and ongoing spiritual search, a founding principle that directly shapes why Unitarian Universalist congregations today draw on many different religious and secular sources for worship and prayer, including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, humanism and others, rather than following any single required theology or prayer tradition. This explicit institutional commitment to noncreedal pluralism, formalized in the denomination's own stated Principles and Sources, means Unitarian Universalist prayer practice genuinely varies from congregation to congregation and even from individual to individual within a single congregation, ranging from theistic prayer addressed to God, through non-theistic meditation or reflection, to invocations drawing on entirely secular or humanist language.

Unitarianism historically emphasized the oneness of God against Trinitarian doctrine, while Universalism emphasized the eventual salvation of all souls against doctrines of eternal damnation, two originally distinct theological arguments whose shared trajectory toward broader religious tolerance ultimately made their nineteenth and twentieth century convergence and eventual merger a natural institutional development.

The Unitarian Universalist Association publishes its own hymnal and worship resources, including Singing the Living Tradition, that deliberately gather material from many different religious and secular sources side by side, reflecting the denomination's pluralist approach in publishing practice rather than only in stated principle, and individual congregations and worship leaders draw on these resources, alongside considerable locally composed and adapted material, in ways that vary considerably by congregation, minister and specific service.

Because this genuine institutional commitment to sourcing prayer and worship material from many different traditions, rather than developing one shared Unitarian Universalist liturgy of its own, is itself the denomination's defining theological stance on the matter, this entry treats describing that pluralist structure, rather than selecting any single prayer as representative, as the accurate and appropriate way to represent Unitarian Universalist practice, consistent with the denomination's own explicit refusal to prescribe a single required form of address or belief for its members. Individual Unitarian Universalist ministers and worship leaders often compose their own original prayers and readings tailored to a specific congregation or occasion, a practice of local composition the denomination actively encourages as consistent with its broader emphasis on individual spiritual authority and ongoing communal search for meaning rather than reliance on any single fixed text.