Statement of Faith
Rev. Douglas B. Olds
October 2017
From hearing
the Revelation of Israel's Messiah in Scripture, and
Within the
heart's experiences of the Holy Spirit, and
Through a
Vision of God:
I came to
believe in the Creator--the gracious, forgiving, and loving outpouring of God's
existence toward me, an unworthy sinner.
I trust in the steadfast love of the one
God, the essence of overflowing, self-giving, covenant love. The Creator is everywhere
God chooses to be, sustaining each moment from an eternal vantage of love and
justice.
I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the
source of wisdom and the light of the world, who begins the renewal of Creation
by revealing God's justice from trust. He is alive now and in union with us,
reconciling us from alienation to the image of God in others. Christ brings
healing knowledge of God's justice through his ministry and prayers for me in
my human weakness. His body tortured and broken by the Cross transforms it from
a technology of human will toward destruction and evasion of responsibility
into a symbol of affirmation of life. The Cross of Jesus seals me in God’s love
and the trustworthiness of life, and allows us to take hope in the victory of justice
tempered by mercy.
I believe in the militant Holy Spirit who
acts in history to deconstruct empire. I read the Reformed Confessions in
community for developing fresh perspectives from scripture that rise to
challenges and opportunities of contemporary ministries of reconciliation. I struggle towards saintliness: virtue, works
of love and justice for reconciliation of broken communities through obedience
to my Spirit-guided conscience. Through the sacrament of Eucharist I celebrate
and renew this union within Christ's trusting community for service to
wholeness in others. I join in the faith
of my denomination that my children’s baptisms are justified in the
Commandments as we learn the ways of neighborhood peace that deflects human
wrath.
I believe in the universal people of God
called forth by Spirit to create peaceful and just communities. We are to equip
each other to carry forth not only the announcement but also authentic acts of
reconciliation and embodiment of Christ’s justice and material response to a
neighbor in need. The Church witnesses to Christ-led consciences and healing
power through word, prayer, and deed, in thankfulness for all that we have
received and resolving to be grateful for all that we will receive.
God reveals meaning to a community of
spiritual yearning through God's Word.
God freely meets whom God chooses in compassion but will not negate the
Creation intended toward freedom. I
exist in Christ for salvation, therapeutic service, acceptance of cause and
effect in the Rule of God, and to join the tradition that makes meaning of the
reports of the Cross, the received teachings of Jesus, and post-death encounter
with a man Jesus. Salvation comes from forgiveness of sins that allows us to
become our true selves: to know God’s will toward humanity that opens our
hearts toward love of neighbor and the continued glorification of God.
- There are two distinct ways of looking at our fellow human: full of original sin, or made in the image of God.
- There are two distinct ways of perceiving nature: irrevocably fallen from pristine grace, or restorable by the efforts of the godly.
- There are two distinct ways of working for the Kingdom of God: by hastening God's intervening arrival through continued degradation and impoverishment, or by working humanely toward its realization by our own actions.
- There are two distinct ways at evaluating the Gospel: by the number who have avoided damnation by simply accepting the Lord alone, or by accepting that our Lord tasks believers to work for the realization of God's purposes on Earth, which includes justice in all things.
- There are two distinct ways of anticipating heaven: that's when real life begins and this earthly existence is only an intermediate testing grounds, or that earthly life is the real life and that our heavenly destiny depends on what we do in this life.
- There are two distinct ways at discerning the end times: that the Sermon on the Mount is negated by the Book of Revelation's sword-bearing Lamb, or that the Sermon on the Mount is addressed to all believers for all ages.
I stand for the second principle in each distinction.
