It may be unusual for a religious body to include a commitment to a political method in its defining principles. Neither the word democracy, nor for that matter the word conscience, appeared in earlier purpose statements of the American Unitarian Association or the Universalist Church of America, the two national bodies that consolidated to form the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. Nevertheless, commitments to both individual liberty of conscience and to democratic principles were implicit in both traditions and became more explicit at the time of the merger. Again, it may seem surprising to find a stated commitment to democratic method or process among the core purposes of a religious organization, but perhaps less so if one remembers that Unitarian Universalism is on based two religions born in the New World in the formative years of the American Republic, both religions formed by Enlightenment ideas. Democracy, to put another way, is more than a mechanism of governance. Let's explore.