I believe Christ lived and died and rose again. I believe that Christ offered himself as the wholly adequate and complete sacrifice for us – that we might be forgiven our sins. I believe that all who accept the sacrifice of Christ share in the gift of grace bought with his blood on our behalf.
I believe Christ lived a sinless life as a model for how we should live our lives. I believe that Christ is the one true head of the universal catholic church. I believe that his life is chronicled in the God inspired words of the Bible and that we should strive prayerfully to live by the examples and lessons contained therein.
I believe in the sacrament of baptism. In baptism we participate in Jesus’ death and resurrection as we die to our sins and are resurrected in the body of Christ. Baptism is the sign of our marriage to Christ – a symbol of our covenant with God for the grace bought with the blood of his son. This marriage is consummated by the Holy Spirit in our lives and need never be renewed.
I believe in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This meal serves as a reminder of the sacrifice Christ made for us and serves as a common bond between Christians of all ages. I believe as often as we eat and drink of the bread and the wine at the Lord’s table we are honoring his command to remember Christ, his teachings and his sacrifice. In doing this we become better neighbors and better Christians.
I believe the Christian church should strive to open its doors to all, without restriction, who accept Christ as their Lord and savior. I believe we have a Christ-given obligation to share the good news of the Bible with all who will listen. I believe we are called to love all regardless of their circumstance, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political affiliation. In loving and caring for all, we model the life Christ modeled for us.
Very importantly, I believe God’s grace and love transcend the words we choose to represent God. I believe we do a disservice to God and our faith when we allow these concerns, whatever the nature, to separate us from our Christian brothers and sisters. I strongly concur with the words of Saint Augustine as written and extended by Hoffmann von Fallersleben:
In necessariis unitas, In dubiis libertas, In omnibus autem caritas.
In the essentials unity, in doubtful things liberty but in all things love.
Yet I say: not only in all things, But before all things…
1 comment:
This is a slightly different twist but the same basic message in parable form.
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. Finally God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down Satan and Jesus sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mail. They sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job.
About ten minutes before their time was up, lightning flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured, and, of course, the electricity went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.
Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally flickered back on, and each of them rebooted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming "It's gone! It's all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!"
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became very irate: "Wait! He must have cheated. How did he do that?"
God shrugged and said, "Jesus Saves
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