Before naming what I believe, I need to give credit where it is due.
In the fall of 2024, I joined the School of Everyday Mission (SEM), a seminary program offered by Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. The first year of the program focused on what was called the Meta-Narrative—the broad theological story shaping Woodland Hills, the teaching of Greg Boyd, and a tradition I came to understand as Neo-Anabaptism.
I entered SEM in a season of deep spiritual turmoil. I knew far more clearly what I needed to release from my Christian faith than what I could still affirm. At the time, it felt as though only one thing remained intact: Jesus’ love.
Over the course of that first year, something unexpected happened. Through study, dialogue, prayer, and careful formation, I began to reconstruct my faith—slowly, and from the ground up—starting again with Jesus and the shape of his love.
I credit SEM with helping to save my faith in God. More than that, it helped reorient my life. I find myself now able to love God, myself, my neighbor, and creation more freely and fully than at any other point in my life.
For that, I am deeply grateful.
What follows are the convictions that have emerged from my faith story. They are not conclusions reached in abstraction, nor positions adopted to win arguments. They have been formed slowly—through love and loss, trust and doubt, deconstruction and re-formation.
I hold these beliefs with conviction, but not with coercion. I expect them to continue to deepen, and in some cases to change, as formation continues.
At the Center
At the heart of my faith is a simple and demanding claim:
God is love.
Not merely loving, but love itself. This love is infinite, unconditional, and most fully revealed in the life, teaching, crucifixion death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus of Nazareth is, for me, the clearest revelation of who God is and what God is like. Any understanding of God that contradicts the self-giving, enemy-loving, nonviolent love of Jesus must be questioned.
I understand my faith as Jesus-centered.
God, Humanity, and the World
I believe God is the Creator of all that exists and desires not mere obedience, but trust—and the flourishing of all people, communities, and creation.
Humanity is created in the image of God and, along with other created beings and powers, has been given genuine freedom. Within that freedom, a force Scripture names as evil has emerged. This evil is real and active, distorting life and relationships, drawing creation away from God’s intent, and binding us in ways we do not always recognize. The condition of humanity—and of the world itself—can therefore be described as one of bondage and brokenness, marked by suffering and in need of healing.
As human beings, we remain oriented toward God, yet we are also vulnerable to deception. We find ourselves participating—often unknowingly and unwillingly—in patterns and systems that diminish life. Sin, in this sense, is not simply individual moral failure, but shared participation in a world bent by distortion, bondage, and death.
In this sense, coming to trust God and being restored to right relationship is rescue and healing—what many faith traditions mean by being saved. We are saved to our true humanity as God intended, not from hell.
Evil is real. Suffering is real. But neither originates in God’s character nor reflects God’s desire for creation.
God is not the author of evil. God is opposed to it and is actively at work against it.
Jesus
I affirm the historic Christian confession that Jesus is the incarnation of God—fully human and fully divine.
I believe:
- Jesus lived among us, revealing God through compassion, healing, and truth-telling.
- Jesus was crucified by earthly powers—political and religious—and freely gave himself in love.
- Jesus was bodily resurrected, not as escape from the world, but as the beginning of its restoration.
- Jesus is Messiah—not only for Israel, but for the world.
- Jesus promises to return, bringing the work of renewal to completion.
At the center of Jesus’ life and death is self-giving love—love that absorbs violence rather than inflicting it, and overcomes evil not by force, but by faithfulness.
The Trinity
I understand God as Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit—an eternal relationship of love.
Rather than a philosophical puzzle, the Trinity names the reality that love is at the very heart of God’s being. God is relational before creation, not solitary or domineering.
Scripture
I receive Scripture as a living, formative story—not a weapon, not a rulebook, and not a flat text.
The Bible tells a unified story that leads to Jesus. It must be read attentively, historically, and communally, with special care given to its Jewish roots and the long arc of its narrative.
I do not believe every biblical text equally reflects God’s character. Jesus is the lens through which Scripture is ultimately discerned.
The Way of Faith
I understand Christianity not primarily as a system of beliefs, but as a way of life.
This way calls us to:
- love God and neighbor
- love enemies
- seek restorative justice
- stand with the vulnerable
- care for creation
- resist violence and domination
- live with humility, courage, and hope
Faith is not measured by certainty, but by fidelity—by how we live in response to love.
Holding These Beliefs
I hold these beliefs seriously, but not rigidly.
They are not offered as instructions to follow or boundaries to enforce. They are offered as a witness to what has formed me, and to the God I have come to trust.
For those who wish to explore how these convictions continue to be examined, questioned, and worked out over time, I’ve written further reflections on faith and formation.
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