What I believe . . .

I seek to encourage, teach and proclaim a Christian witness that actively embodies in the life of our church a full range of theological perspectives and interpretations of our Holy Scripture. For me, this is our opportunity to make a faithful, strong witness to our culture. Our culture is increasingly fragmented, and often bitterly divided, between republicans and democrats, between rich and poor, between urban and rural, between Anglo-Saxon whites and other races, between sportsmen and gun-control advocates, between hawks and doves, between evangelicals and mainline Christians, between young and old, etc. and etc. Likewise it would be easier, following the example of our culture, for our church to retreat into our own, like-minded, theological caucuses and name our own caucus “the truth” or “our tradition” or “the biblical way.” I believe we now have a higher calling. Our calling fights against all the pressure from our culture to fragment, divide, and retreat into like-mindedness. We have an opportunity to proclaim that we do not need to be like-minded to be united; we do not need to think the same to serve the same Lord, we do not need to compel others to believe as I believe to be together in the same Church; we do not need to hold our convictions so tight that we must name others as wrong. This is the church I am striving to build.