Section I – Preamble

We hold the below to be our best understanding of the reality of God, God’s relation to creation, actions within history, and our relation to both the rest of creation and to God. We draw upon the following for our formulations: the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures, the wisdom of our fore-parents, the best thinkers of our day, and our communal experience. We recognize that this statement is contextual and need not be universal and may even be wrong. If so, we welcome and humbly scrutinize any criticism as we pursue God and God’s will. This statement of faith will consist of statements which are commented upon in the footnotes.

Section II – The Nature and Relation of God.

We believe in one God who is love[1] and therefore internally and externally communal.[2]

And that this God transcends gender but relates in culturally engendered ways.[3] This God relates to itself and others

1. through the person of the Father, Almighty, judge, and maker of heaven and earth,
2. and through the Logos, [4] the only begotten Son, fully incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth,[5]
3. and through the Paraclete,[6] the Holy Mother,[7] which dwells within the members of Christ’s body and guides them through the Bible.[8]

Section III – Creation

We believe in the material and spiritual creation of all that is by God.[9]

And that there is a plan, purpose, and order to creation and that this plan, purpose, and order were disrupted by sin, rendering the whole of creation alienated from God, introducing chaos, decay, and death.[10]

Section IV – Humanity

We believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with the image of God and charged by God to care for creation in God’s stead.[11]

And that we sinned and continue to sin against God, creation, and one another, marring Shalom and separating ourselves from God, creation, one another, and from spiritual life.

And that humanity was created not to live alone, but as flourishing members of a community.[12]

And that those who accept the grace of God are crafted into the Body of Christ, made citizens of the Kingdom of God, and receive spiritual life anew.[13]

Section V – Scripture

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon.[14]

And we consider it to be human compositions[15] which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Ti 3:16 NRS)[16]

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. [17] This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters.[18] In that way, it is subjective.[19] It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.[20]

Section VI – Redemption

In line with sections III and IV, we loudly proclaim a cosmic no! to the present state of ourselves and the universe. Accordingly, we believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is the means through which he will redeem all of creation.[21] This is happening in part now, but will only be finished at the Parousia. We look to the past for the pristine state, to the original Shalom as that which will be restored.[22] Yet, we also look forward to when heaven and earth will be created anew and heaven will descend upon earth.[23]

And that his begun with the victory of the Resurrection, continues through the present time, and will only be completed at the Parousia. Empowered by the Paraclete, we are agents of the reclamation of both sinful creatures and sin-smashed creation, as image bearers, until Christ finishes the work at the end of this age.

[1] “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1Jo 4:8 NRS)

[2] As love, God must have an object and subject of his loving and since it is dependent upon nothing, there must be plurality within the Godhead. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 195)

[3] God has no sex, save for the humanity of Jesus. God does relate to us in ways that are culturally gendered. He contains both genders, “for male and female he created them, (Gen 1:27 NET)” and so we speak of God as genderful, rather than genderless. God the Father relates to us as in traditionally constructed masculine ways. He creates us, protects us, rebukes us, and loves us. God the Son is sexually male, but genderly neutral. He carries both masculine and feminine attributes as commonly seen in cultures. He is Lord, but also Wonderful Counselor. It is noteworthy that Jesus was sometimes depicted with feminine features in Antique and Late Antique art precisely because of his traditionally feminine traits. (Jensen 2000, 124-128) The Paraclete relates to us as a mother, less as Lord, ruler, and protector, but more as a comforter, and intimate guide. See note 7 for my drawing from Christian traditions on this matter. Furthermore, to emphasize the relational aspect of the trinity, I will use he and she to refer to actions as persons and it to describe unified actions. This is more to underscore the relational nature of the members of the Trinity than anything else.

[4] “In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was beside the God and God was the Logos.” Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (Joh 1:1 NA27)

[5] "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…” (Joh 1:14a YLT)

[6] Just as we take Logos from the Greek in John 1:1, we take Paraclete from it as well later on in John. We are reminded most often of John 14, which is as near as you can get to a Trinitarian statement: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.” (Joh 14:16 NLT)

[7] I follow both Origen of Alexandria and early Syriac Christians which sometimes described or approvingly quoted works which described the Paraclete as the Divine Mother. (Rogers 2009, 119)

[8] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 64-68)

[9] In [the] beginning God created heaven and earth. “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen 1:1 VUO)

[10] Where there was Shalom, there is now decay, death, violence. The climax of Genesis’ opening creation poem ends with God creating rest on the 7^th day. This rest can be seen as all of history bundled up in this day (see Hebrews 4 for the Future Rest) or as the completion and establishment of harmony in creation and with God, the pristine state which sin marred in the next few chapters of Genesis, the return to which history aspires. (Wirzba 2006, chap. 1-2)

[11] “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27 NET) As image bearers, we rule and cultivate creation in God’s place. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 199) See Gen 1:28 and 2:15 for a scriptural basis.

[12] We were not created as individuals plucked from the void and twisting in the wind. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 203). Instead, we are social animals, who construct, find meaning, and live in community. By community, I refer to Toennies’ idea of Gemeinshaft instead of Gesellshaft. Gemeinshaft refers to “relationships encompassing human beings as full personalities rather than single aspects or roles of human beings,” to which Gesellshaft refers. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 211) This is a by-product of living within God’s design, not an end in and of itself.

[13] Called out of the rebelling masses of humanity are those who respond to the call of God to accept the gift of grace which is offered by Jesus and made possible through his work on the cross, which is the apex of history. Those that respond to the seed of faith are grafted into the body of Christ which is his bride. This body extends temporally from the past, through the present, and into the future, and geographically throughout the whole world. For the seed metaphor, see Luke 8:11-15; for the basis of grace and the cross, see John 3:16 and Col 2:14.

[14] We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

[15] We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts.

[16] We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

[17] As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage.(Grenz and Franke 2001, 75)

[18]Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete. The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 81)

[19] Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

[20] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 272)

[21] “[A]nd through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20 NLT)

[22] See Hebrews 4, especially Hebrews 4:9: ‘So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” (Heb 4:9 NRS)

[23] Consider “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:1-2 NLT) This will fulfill Jesus’ prayer to God that “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10 NLT)

we are children who have been given much. You have blessed us with an abundance of all things: food to fill our stomachs, every kind of entertainment to distract and occupy our minds, and every opportunity to adorn our bodies with things

stuff

the trappings of our culture that we think make us beautiful.

Father,

you teach us that the day will come when we are stripped bare of everything we hold dear, everything that we tell ourselves defines who we are, all the things we tell ourselves make us beautiful. And on that day, all you will see are those things that truly define who we are, those things that truly matter because they are the things that matter to you. And you will determine if, in fact, we are truly beautiful.

Father,

may you find on that day children who care really and truly for our brothers and sisters, your beloved creatures crafted so lovingly in your own image. May you find that we were never guilty of stealing from them those things they need to express that image fully.

Teach us to strip ourselves of the finer things of our culture that we may clothe ourselves with the finer things of your kingdom culture. Give us eyes that see the beauty that your eye beholds, that we may learn how to become beautiful in your eyes.

I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.

Rather than assuming our standard in pouring of innocence and naiveté into the phrase “like a child,” perhaps we are better served with assuming a Roman view of children, of powerlessness over others into this phrase.

Also consider Luke 22:25-27

Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’  But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.

Here again we see the same theme – the relinquishment of dominance as a command of Jesus to his followers, to the members of the Kingdom of God.

If we do not relinquish culturally inherited claims of dominance over others and see them as true equals then ours is not the Kingdom of God.

Seeing people as the imago deis involves the complete removal of claims of dominance and superiority.  This must be applied in terms of race and gender.  It is a command to give up our claims of dominance over others.

By my reading of Calvin’s Institutes, he would not say that there is a specific gene, like modern science would understand "genetic," that contains sin. Rather Calvin points to Romans 8:20 and says that humanity is part of the creation (ἡ κτίσις ) that was subjected to futility. He also understands original sin not to be sin itself but rather it is the corruption (cf Romans 8:21 ESV "bondage to corruption") of the imagio dei that all humans have. Thus we who are in the image of Adam bear that corrupted image as well (Notice the parallel of "futility" [ματαιότητι] in 8:20 and "bondage to corruption" [τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς] in Romans 8:21), being part of the created order. Thus it was Adam’s sin that corrupted humanity’s being the image of God and it is God’s curse that confines all of creation under that corruption. Therefore the corruption of sin rules over all of the creation, including human beings and their wills–which is precisely what (that is the human will) Calvin argues to be what makes humans the bearers of the image of God. The creation is enslaved or in bondage (Gk. δουλείας) to the corruption that is removed when the bodies of the sons of God are redeemed. I think "genetic" is too much of a caricature of the Reformed view of OS, at least from Calvin’s point of view expounded in The Institutes that is.

How do we, as Christians, conceptualize the Other?

How should we treat these people, both to their face and within our communities while they are not present? They think that they know how to best relate to that which is “wholly Other” – whether it be God, gods, the numinous, whatever you want to call it(s). We think we know how to as well. What do we do with such an impasse? Shall we let loose upon them the canon and be done with it? Do we assume all roads generate the same journey?

A good friend of mine and fellow author here at Theology for the Masses, JR Madill, navigated these very issues a few weeks ago in a talk on Christianity and Pluralism. Now, I don’t want to give away what he had to say, but I do want to say that I found his reply to be quite good and worthy of your consideration.

“⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. … ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.” – John the Elder (1 John 4)

What does it mean to say that God is Love? For much of our history, Christian theology has spoken of God’s central attribute as existence or glory or something of the like. But John is claiming something all-together different. John tells us that “God is love”, and another writing from that same community defines Love as Sacrifice: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). But what then does it mean to say that God is Sacrifice? To sacrifice is to give up that which we value. Giving up that which is not dear to us is hardly sacrifice; rather, to sacrifice is in a very real way to give of ourselves, to give that which comprises our identity. So imagine a God who is defined not by self-glorification or –gratification, but by self-emptying, self-sacrifice. Imagine a God existing in three persons who are engaged in an eternal dance of joyful, selfless giving. This sort of God finds glory not in self-aggrandizement, but rather in selfless giving. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the glory. It is this sort of God who, out of the overflow of joy and sacrifice, the overflow of Love, creates a world filled with being who, like himself, have a will that they can willfully sacrifice (for one cannot be selfless if one has no Self to give).

But here, of course, is the steep cost of Love. Beings created in the Imago Dei, the Image of God, can choose to sacrifice, or they can choose not to sacrifice. We can choose to give of ourselves or we can choose to preserve our Selves, to fight and to battle until we have created a space in which only We exist. This is the essence of Sin: that we would choose to preserve I at the expense of the Other, rather than to give I in service, in sacrifice to the Other. This tendency to think first of ourselves, to work for self-preservation, has been at work in us since the beginning, and we are nothing if not creatures of habit.

This Self, this Sin has infected us all since the beginning. We Self-full beings see the beauty of creation through the lens of Self; we tend to ask only “how can this serve my needs?” Rather than work with God to cultivate his Garden, we have chosen instead to do as we please, and in doing so, we serve to unmake that which God called good (Genesis 6). In choosing not to serve God even as God gives himself to us, we have become captives in our own minds, unable to see or care for anything beyond that which is good for I. We have lost what it means to abandon our Selves, to live for something other than I, and so have been cut off from God, unable to enter into his Garden of giving, of true Life anymore.

Thanks be to God that he did not leave us in this sorry state! Rather, he gave once more of himself, emptying himself of his divine nature and taking the form of a slave. He came to We who could tolerate no Other and he refused to be one with us. Rather, he offered us a different way to live, a way that did not demand the preservation of the Self, but rather offers the Self in acts of Love, of Sacrifice. We could not tolerate his Otherness, his difference, and yet still he gave himself to Us, and let us have our way with him. We did what any Self does when it feels threatened. We lashed out and destroyed that which threatens. He knew this, and yet he still gave. He gave and gave, until it killed him.

And only then was the power of Love revealed. For we were made to see that in the end, all of our attempts to preserve I will only end in destruction, for we were not created to take. We were created to give, in imitation of the Self who gave himSelf for us.

“A careless leper too comfortable in his own world to notice the older wounds have new infections with new intentions.
Darkness settled in behind me, tapped me on the shoulder singing shivers to my spine from the corners of my mind,
“I’ve been wanting to remind you of everything you’ve left behind and wouldn’t you, shouldn’t you remember me?
Should you forget, I haven’t yet.”

She’s there when I’m alone and she always seems to know the stories that’ll take me back to where my comforts sleep.
A caress with velvet paws that hide her sharpened claws along the walls that time has built high searching for the blemishes.
And i know she’s breathing murder, that it is folly to endure her. But there is sweetness in her whisper,
“When you’ve had enough, I’ll be waiting. Wouldn’t you, shouldn’t you remember me?
Should you forget, I haven’t yet.’”– Stavesacre, “The Two Heavens”

History, they say, repeats itself. And so it does.

“In the beginning was the Word…”

John’s gospel opens with a very deliberate echo of the Genesis story. While John waxes eloquently on this word as the power behind creation (and the ironic twist that the creation doesn’t recoginze his creator), we are quite stunned when we come to 1.14 and learn that the creator becomes part of his own creation in the person of Jesus.

For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, John retells the story of creation, indeed the story of new creation, as he guides us through Jesus’ ministry. While the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) describe Jesus’ awe-inspiring works, as miracles, John takes a different tact and describes them as signs. Signs of what? Signs of who Jesus is. In the synoptics, miracles are performed on behalf of the penitent; a request for healing is met with compassion, and the life of that person is changed. In John, Jesus performs signs for his own benefit; what he does reveals (“apocalypses,” if you will) who he is.

These signs commence in John 2 with the wedding at Cana (Southern Baptists’ least favorite Jesus story). John inform us that this is the first sign; he intends for us to pay attention and count. The second comes with the healing of a nobleman’s son in ch. 4. Third, we have the healing at the pool of Bethesda (ch. 5). Fourth and fifth are the feeding of the five thousand and the healing of the man born blind (ch. 6 and 9. respectively; interestingly enough, John has each of these set within the context of the Passover). Sixth is the raising of Lazarus in ch. 11.

Anyone who knows anything about numbers anxiously awaits the seventh sign. It never seems to come. Why should we expect it, though? From the outset, John has purposefully linked Jesus to creation. His telling of Jesus and his kingdom is set within that context. Just as creation was brought forth over seven days, so will Jesus and his kingdom be revealed through seven signs.

Pilate presents Jesus to the people: “Behold! the man!” (19.5). Hauntingly poetics words, if we take the time to think about it, especially since Jesus, in ch, 18, was twice called “this MAN.” On the sixth day, man, as the ultimate expression of God’s creative power, was created for the purpose of bearing the image of God. We are all too familiar with the story of his (and our) failure to live up the the task.

But now, again on the sixth day (oddly enough), we behold the seventh sign as the man is set before the world: the image of God the king (v. 14). And here is when the image of God is most recognizable: when it wears the crown of thorns, when it willingly takes the shame and sorrow of the world as its own. This is what it means to bear the image of God. Do we recognize it when we see it?

And just as Adam died, so did Jesus. And sure enough, in the darkness of a cave, Jesus rested from all his work on the Sabbath day.

And on the first day of the week, the word of God, Jesus, comes forth from his rest and works the power of his new creation. The old story is made new.

Interesting discussion on euthanasia is developing there. I welcome our readers to add their thoughts.