My (tentative) beliefs

I know as ‘postmoderns’ we’re supposed to distrust creeds and statements of faith, but sometimes it becomes necessary to try to articulate, if only tentatively and imperfectly, what one believes – just in case anyone should ask. This is a personal statement of faith and is certainly not intended to represent the beliefs of the whole emerging church community. It is not exhaustive and will probably get revised from time to time.

(The image is William Blake’s ‘The Ancient of Days’.)

1. I believe in a God who is creator of all things; I believe that we have been created with a capacity to know this God. This belief is not rationally grounded: I cannot account for it or prove it; it is simply present in my mind, like an obsession, and cannot be deconstructed or expunged. ‘Whither shall I flee from your presence?’

2. I believe that humanity is flawed – and that in some sense this is our fault. However we account for it, we are inescapably subject to alienation, suffering and death and we are inescapably perpetrators of harm to ourselves, to others, and to our environment. The instability of our knowledge of God is further symptomatic of this ‘fallen’ condition. At the same time, however, I would not want to diminish humanity’s capacity to achieve both ordinary and extraordinary ‘goodness’ (ethical, relational, intellectual, aesthetic, technological, and so on) quite apart from any particular knowledge of God.

3. As a believer in Jesus the Messiah I have made myself part of Israel’s disjointed story. Israel believed that as a nation it had a unique relationship with the God of the whole earth, whom it called YHWH. God ‘chose’ this people for two fundamental reasons: i) to be the place where both the identity and reality of God were experienced and preserved; ii) to make that identity and reality manifest to all nations – for the sake of the glory of God and for the blessing of all people. I am impressed with the idea that this people is to be a kingdom of priests for the world. The boundaries and purpose of this relationship were inscribed in the various ‘covenants’ that Israel made with YHWH.

4. In the end Israel failed to live up to its calling to embody and manifest the reality of God in the world. The concrete result of this failure was national disaster at various points in its history, most notably in the form of the exile to Babylon. Jesus’ message to the people was a warning of a final and catastrophic ‘judgment’ that would overtake the nation. The Roman war of AD 66-70 and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple were the fulfilment of this core prophecy.

5. Who was Jesus? He was the one who would save Israel from this catastrophe, not in the end by averting destruction but by providing a way through it so that a renewed people would emerge on the other side of the fires of judgment.

6. He died for the ‘sins’ of a recalcitrant nation, but the realignment of the people around Jesus himself – as king, son, word, temple, high priest – meant that the door was now open for Gentiles to become part of the people of God. Indirectly, therefore, this was a death for the whole world.

7. The resurrection was the vindication of the one who suffered out of obedience to God. Existentially it was a sign that death would not have the final word; eschatologically it was a sign that the enemies of God – Rome was at the forefront of people’s minds – would not overcome the church: the kingdom was taken from the ‘fourth beast’ and given to the Son of man.

(Something needs to be said at this point about the Christ who is worshipped in the church, but I’m not sure at the moment how to articulate that belief.)

8. ‘Salvation’ in the New Testament, therefore, functions on three levels. i) For Israel salvation meant the historical continuation of the ‘people of God’ as a community reconfigured around Jesus. ii) For Gentiles who came to believe in Jesus salvation consisted in their reconciliation to God, in their incorporation into the covenant community, and in their participation in the blessings (principally the Spirit) of the age to come. iii) For those who suffered ‘for the sake of Christ’ during the crisis that marked the end of the age, salvation acquired a more ‘mythical’ dimension: the assurance that death would not finally separate them from the love of God, the promise of resurrection with Christ and a share in his kingdom during the coming ages.

9. To be part of the restored people of God still means both to be blessed and to be a blessing: on the one hand, to experience and respond to the reality of God in a corporate context, as church, as a people defined by baptism and the gift of the Spirit of God; on the other, to be advocates and practitioners of the idea of God in the world, to be agents of righteousness, to be priests and prophets, to ‘declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Pet.2:9).

10. I believe that there will be a final defeat of evil. There will be a resurrection of the dead; the dead will be ‘judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done’ (Rev.20:12); death will be destroyed; anyone who’s name is not written in the book of life will likewise be destroyed. There will be a new heaven and a new earth.