Faith & Formation
Hope is remaining oriented toward life when clarity is absent.
Faith, for me, has not been a straight line or a settled possession. It ignited once—but has formed slowly since, shaped through practice and doubt, loss and return.
There was a season of unlearning—what many now call deconstruction. It was disorienting and costly, marked by questioning, rejection, and the unraveling of voices that had once claimed authority. I felt lost, though even then I sensed that something deeper was being held.
In this current season, I immersed myself again—entering seminary, returning to Scripture, and re-centering on Jesus within the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. What emerged was not a new faith, but a re-integrated one: grounded again in who God truly is, and in the infinite, unconditional love that has always been at the center.
Perhaps I was lost.
Or perhaps I was never lost at all—only finding what had been there all along.
Here, hope is not optimism or escape.
It is the choice to remain oriented toward life, meaning, and goodness—
even when outcomes remain unresolved.
What follows is not instruction, but witness.
Hope is not a conclusion.
Faith is not a possession.
Formation is ongoing.
Exploring Faith & Hope
My Story
For those who want to understand how this posture of hope and faith was formed, I’ve written more personally about my own journey—where faith began, where it fractured, and how it continues to change.
This is not a testimony of arrival, but of formation over time.
Core Beliefs
These are the convictions I return to when ideas are tested by life.
They are not exhaustive, nor fixed in stone—but they are settled enough to stand on. Formed through faith, experience, and the long work of learning to love well, they orient how I understand God, people, power, and the world we share.
A Jesus-Centered Way Beyond Empire
What does a Jesus-centered life actually look like?
And what does it mean to say Jesus-centered in a world shaped by power, domination, and control?
For me, centering on Jesus has meant learning to see him not as a symbol enlisted by empire, but as a life and way that stands apart from it.
Jesus does not offer an escape from the world, nor a strategy for winning it.
He reveals a different way of being human—marked by humility, enemy-love, non-coercive power, truth-telling, and costly faithfulness.
To follow Jesus, in this sense, is not primarily to defend a belief system, but to be formed into a certain kind of person—one oriented toward life, reconciliation, and faithful presence.
This way has not resolved every question.
But it has given me a center that holds.
He reveals a different way of being human.
Faith, Relearning to Trust
This section sits where faith has been strained, fractured, and slowly reworked.
Some inherited beliefs—about human worth, suffering, judgment, and love—did not simply fail to sustain faith; they distorted it. Naming those distortions became necessary, not to abandon faith, but to allow it to heal.
Some things are clearer now.
Others remain in process.
What is emerging is not certainty, but a faith that can breathe again.
A New Tradition I can Hold onto
Sometimes described as Neo-Anabaptist, this tradition has become a formative way for me—not a destination, but a stepping stone shaping how faith is lived.
Neo-Anabaptism: A New Tradition?
The Meta-Narrative driven by images
It was a formative season.
I entered carrying spiritual injury I did not yet have language for. Learning to see the larger story became part of the healing.
Through deeper engagement with Scripture as a coherent narrative—and shaped by Neo-Anabaptist traditions—I encountered not just a different story, but a way of discerning the ones I had inherited.
I learned that context matters. That doctrines, experiences, and convictions belong within a broader arc—and must be questioned when they distort it.
Learning to process faith this way did not cost me my faith.
It saved it.
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