Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a little book in 1940 laying out her commitment to a thoughtful, committed, and diverse American community. “It seems to me we have to take account of just what our condition is, how much Democracy we have, and how much we want to have,” she wrote. “At a time when the whole world is in turmoil and thousands of people are homeless and hungry, it behooves all of us to reconsider our political and religious beliefs in an effort to clarify in our minds the standards by which we live.”

Our own faith movement, the Unitarian Universalist Association, is currently engaged in studying and then drafting a statement of conscience on The Corruption of Our Democracy, with democracy being not merely a means but an end in itself, an ethical ideal, a moral and spiritual way of relating to one another, both within our congregations and society at large.