I believe ...

Somewhere toward the end of Ordinary Time I started rising at two or two-thirty in the morning. At the time it was very good for reasons I don’t need to repeat. The new habit lasted through Stoppage Time in Cleveland and was good then also. It’s still holding, though I might rather reclaim my years long enjoyment of waking promptly at four o’clock for coffee upstairs with Linda. But it’s +Time and I’m not the one with the whistle. As I start blogging It’s two-thirty-two and I’m downstairs by myself and no longer with coffee but a cup of decaffeinated tea steeping. Nevertheless, Life Is Good.

Currently I am reading a book by a seminary professor and theologian who requires his students to figure out their values and their way of life, what it is that they therefore truly believe, and to sort those beliefs into a statement of their personal theology. Doing personal theology is common in EfM but I am having a new go at it based on his model. My initial predawn effort is immature and amateurish, but who cares, I’ll blog it anyway.

What do I believe ...

About God?

About Jesus?

About the Creeds?

About the Church?

About Salvation?

About Theology?

I am a Christian who believes that God is whoever or whatever God says God is, in and as God’s Word. Thus, when Moses asks “Who are you” God retorts (Exodus 3), eyeh asher eyeh, “I am that I am.” More freely translated it’s “I am whoever or whatever I say I am whenever I say so,” which expresses the divine nature more than it gives a title or proper name. God is whoever or whatever God says God is from time to time depending on God only. And does the divine nature change over ages and in eternity? I don’t know, God knows, but I believe that God speaks to every situation as God chooses.

And so if God is whoever or whatever God says God is, God is also whoever or whatever led Israel out of Egypt; God is whoever or whatever Jesus called Abba, Father, Daddy, Papa; God is whoever or whatever came present in the tomb Easter morning and said “get up, Son.”

I am a Christian who believes in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, the Christ, whose earthly mission was to show and tell us what is important to God and how human life is to be lived. Thus Jesus corrects the certitude of the religious down through the ages.

I am a Christian who believes that the heart and soul of Christianity is not in Creeds, not in what I profess to believe about Jesus Christ; but rather in what I do, how I live because of what I believe. The Creeds are crucial benchmarks that define orthodox faith so that orthodoxy holds and does not stray into diverse heresies. But the creeds are not unassailable sacred cows, they are human documents subject to study discussion challenge question and debate just as the Bible itself is subjected to study discussion challenge question and debate. Of the two main creeds of Christian orthodoxy, I believe that in settling the Nicene Creed the early bishops in the General Councils made theological assertions about Jesus that are beyond human knowing. I believe the Baptismal Covenant, which contains the Apostles Creed and Personal Vows, is more appropriate for liturgical use, to keep Christians constantly mindful that belief has obligations, consequences. As the Letter of James scoffs, “even the demons believe.” Belief from which action does not flow is not salvific but is meaningless and worthless. I believe that the liturgical creed should reinforce “believing therefore doing.”

I am a Christian who believes that the Church is the body of belief and the assembly of believers. I reject the popular notion that “I can worship God as easily on the golf course as in church,” because the framework and body of the Church are essential to the perpetuity of the Gospel, which without the Church could die in a generation. Proclamation, Hearing, and Celebration in assembly keep the Gospel alive in human life.

I am a Christian who believes that salvation is achieved here and now by learning, through the worship, teachings and gifts of the Church, how to live the life of Christ, and doing my utmost to live so, though I constantly fall short. The life of Christ is the Way of the Cross, a way of love and sacrifice; to walk in that Way is to step into the kingdom of God (or as Matthew has it, the kingdom of Heaven). As for securing and guaranteeing eternal salvation, I do not believe that I can save myself by claiming a belief system, but that eternity, whatever it may be, is in the hands of God alone, and that God’s power to save is not determined by doctrine or dogma but by God alone.

I am a Christian who believes that theology should be a fun amateur sport for everyone. Theology is for ordinary people to enjoy figuring out what they personally believe and how it affects their lives and how it compares/contrasts to the life and teachings of Jesus. Professionalized by academes and made intimidating for laypeople, theology is not meant to be abstruse, intellectually baffling propositions argued among professors with their heads in the clouds, and laid on ordinary people as what they are supposed to believe. Theology is for everyone. Theology for amateurs is a prime focus of Sewanee’s program of theological education by extension called EfM, Education for Ministry. I cannot commend EfM highly enough for the inquisitive and curious Christian.

Enough of my nonsense for the early Sabbath darkness.

Praise God this morning by putting on your right shoe first.

TW+

Thanks for the sunset, RevRay.