Statement of Faith

I believe in one personal, pre-existent, all-powerful God who created the universe and all that is found therein. This Creator God possess certain attributes indicative of personhood, among others, love, creativity, initiative, morality, need for companionship, decision making and rationality. I believe God wishes to be in relationship with His creation. I believe in additional (spiritual) dimensions beyond the physical universe, a reality which contains energies and beings which can affect our physical dimension either toward or away from God's love. I believe that the spiritual states of Heaven and Hell exist.

I believe that human beings were created fully formed--at some historical point--by God to be in relationship with Himself and to be of service to one another. Soon thereafter, humans made a decision to rebel from their spiritual nature and have ever since leaned morally toward selfishness and error, taking an apparent "short cut" to power and wholeness. Selfishness and error (rejection of God's will, truth and life) inevitably leads to physical and spiritual death. I believe human beings are endowed with radical free will, rationality and incalculable value. I believe that the general nature of humanity is unchanging, though individuals, cultures and societies are free to rise above the average or sink below at various times and places. I believe humans posses an eternal soul which will live on after physical death. I believe that there are two general classes to which humans can belong, the selfish, carnal, error-filled, temporal Kingdom of this World and the truth-seeking, eternally-minded, selfless Kingdom of Heaven. Though, we are told that the fruit of a person's life exposes which Kingdom they may belong to, our limited sensibilities prevents us from pursuing judgment too strongly in most cases. (We can only seek the truth as best we can and promote life, love and God's will where we can.) The existence after death is decided by the choices made during physical life.

I believe that, due to these conditions in the human race, God found it necessary to provide an avenue for salvation; that avenue is Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus was more than an example of a (the) spiritual life but rather the bridge between human selfishness and the wholeness of God. He was the perfect example of what it means to be fully human and fully divine. His life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection came to pass in order to bring the Kingdom of God into the world. In essence, God sent Jesus to the world to demonstrate the truth and offer himself up as an invitation to depart from the Kingdom of Self and this World. I believe that, because of this free invitation to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and humanity's ability to make decisions, no human being, regardless of how depraved or evil, is excluded from entering a true relationship with God as long as they choose to freely enter; there are no hopeless cases.

I believe that final truth exists and through the God-given faculties of reason, wonder and reverence, despite our imperfections and the difficulties implied in the search, we humans can approach truth. Subjectivity is only the beginning of truth, not the end. I believe that the good life is an examined life.