I had the overwhelming assignment at the end of this semester of articulating everything I have come to believe theologically in the form of a creed, and then in footnotes explain those beliefs further and where they came from.

This idea was actually part of the reason for starting this blog. I wanted a venue, a mouthpiece for what I was coming to believe theologically. Now that the Credo has been written, I’m going to post it on here. So here’s my statement of belief:

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I believe in one God, who is Love and always acts in love, and in love created all that exists.

I believe in the Father God, who chose the people Israel through whom to bless the entire world , who acted in loving justice and compassion in the Exodus, who guided Israel in prophetic and purging love in the Exile, and who loves the marginalized and oppressed, and who would be the God of all people, all nations, and all creation.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the perfect embodiment of the character of God, who entered into human history as a physical man for the sake of all humanity. He inaugurated the kingdom of God by preaching and embodying that kingdom, and ultimately signaled the end of the present age by his atoning death and victorious bodily resurrection.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the entity of love emanating between the father and son, extended to us as the power of God in the present of age, continually filling the earth with the divine presence with our participation.

I believe in the Church, the body of Christ universal and historical, who in community begin to live out the ethic of the kingdom of God in faithful witness to the current age, through formative worship engaged primarily in the sacraments of eucharist and baptism.

I believe in the canonical scriptures as divinely influenced literature, containing a variety of poetry, allegory, narrative, history and exposition, pointing us to the character and actions of this God in relation to us, always interpreted through the character shown us in Christ.

I believe that creation is in a fallen state as a result of sin, due to our free-will, characterized by broken relationship between us and God, between each other, and between us and creation; and those institutions of power that God created to serve humanity have fallen to the point of enslaving humanity, and that such evil is more than the sum of its parts.

I believe that eventually the kingdom will be fully realized in a restored and renewed earth, in which all humanity now will participate in perfect harmony with God, each other, and all creation.

I believe in an eventual judgment, in which the individual is fully unmasked and unveiled before God, and that the destiny of the individual will be decided by God in perfect justice, in accordance with God’s character of love.

I believe that salvation is the individual decision to become a citizen of the kingdom of God, that sanctification is the ongoing refinement toward the image of God, and that a Christian ethic is that which intentionally reflects the loving, risking, peaceful character of God, who makes all of these events possible.

Amen