Dan Harp calls for an intriguing method for doing UU theology:
If we started doing descriptive theology of Unitarian Universalism, it might get pretty interesting. It might be fun looking at UU sermons, UU pamphlets, UU songs, and so on. […]
Maybe theology should consist of a mixture of scholarship, diary, and journalism. Maybe we’d be surprised if we started doing Unitarian Universalist theology that way — maybe we’d find out that we really do have a theology that has little to do with the "seven principles" and more to do with the way we lead our lives.
But where to start? Just thinking of hymns, what five or ten hymns would you recommend we start with? What two or three hymns that aren’t in the hymnal would you throw in?
On the subject of descriptive theology: I reported on former Meadville Lombard history professor Dean Grodzins’ comments at last year’s General Assembly:
Description would tell us only what we do in common, of course, not what we should be doing, if such a thing is possible to find or know. We could make lists of favorite hymns and see how that parses things. I’ll think about it.