The Faith I Share
I share a faith rooted in the ancient story of Scripture and centered in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus*. Across centuries, Christians have expressed this faith through many confessions and affirmations, such as the Nicene Creed. I receive the wisdom of that tradition while grounding my faith more deeply in the larger biblical story in which that tradition is rooted: Creator God* who calls creation good, Jesus Christ who reveals the heart of God, and the Holy Spirit* who gives life and empowers God's people to participate in the work of love, justice, mercy, compassion, and restoration.
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For me, faith is more than what we say about God. Scripture continually joins belief with embodiment: the way we love, how we treat our neighbors and enemies, how we use power, how we handle wealth, whom we welcome, and whether our lives participate in God's healing of the world. Jesus announced and embodied God's way of life, a way that confronts the hierarchy and control so often exercised in the name of coercive power. It is a way marked by service rather than control, welcome rather than exclusion, generosity rather than accumulation, and justice, mercy, and love rather than domination.​​
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Across generations, followers of Jesus have carried this story through countless communities, cultures, languages, and traditions. It is not a private confession. It is a story held across time and place, telling of a God who has been at work reconciling all things through Christ (Col. 1:19–20). Yet the history of Christianity also bears witness to the ways this faith has been entangled with empire, wealth, fear, and exclusion. Scripture itself warns us about the destructive power of the love of money, naming it as a root of many kinds of harm (1 Tim. 6:10). These are not merely wounds of the past. They remain with us whenever the name of God is used to protect power, privilege, or wealth rather than to serve the flourishing of God's creation.
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For this reason, I want my faith to be continually measured against the story and way of Jesus, not simply against the systems humans have built around his name. This faith calls me back with courage to what has the power to bridge our differences and awaken a shared vision of God's reconciling love. It invites us to hold fast to the living hope we find in Jesus, a hope that reaches beyond every boundary human systems have drawn, beyond every theology shaped to serve the powerful rather than the flourishing of all, and beyond every line drawn to decide who belongs and who does not.
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Belonging was never empire's to give, nor any human system's to withhold. It has always belonged to God.
Just as God's creation flourishes in radiant diversity, with every culture, language, and people bearing the image of God (Gen. 1:27), so Scripture tells a story of all things being reconciled and brought toward wholeness in Christ. It is a vision of every nation, tribe, people, and tongue standing together before God (Rev. 7:9), not erased into sameness, but gathered in the fullness of their God-given dignity.
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This is the story I have found home within. The biblical faith I seek to live, a faith centered in Jesus and expressed through love of God, love of neighbor, justice, mercy, reconciliation, and the flourishing of creation.
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Wherever you find yourself in your own story, I hope you find home there too.
I believe in one God*,
Creator of heaven and earth,
the Source of life,
of all that is, seen and unseen,
who calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
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​I believe in Jesus the Christ*,
God's only beloved Son,
true God from true God,
one in being with the Father,
our companion and Redeemer.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit's power,
born of the Virgin Mary,
whose courageous yes
welcomed God's life into the world.
Emmanuel, God with us and among us,
in solidarity with the weary and the forgotten.
For us and for our salvation.
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​He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
beneath the violence of empire and authoritarian power
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into the depths of death and sorrow,
yet on the third day, he rose again...
a sign that love cannot be overcome or interrupted.
He ascended into the mystery of heaven,
where He lives in communion with God
and intercedes for us still,
restoring justice and mercy among the living and the dead.
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I believe in the Holy Spirit*, the giver of life,
worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son,
God's breath still moving through creation,
forming one holy catholic* and sacred family of faith.
In the Spirit,
we are joined with all who have gone before us...
the communion of saints,
the gift of forgiveness,
the promise of resurrection,
and the life of the world that has no end.
Amen.
God
God, the One who holds all things together, is both strength and tenderness, mystery and communion. The Source of all life, God creates and sustains heaven and earth through boundless love (Genesis 1:1-2; Colossians 1:16-17). "God" is a title, not a name; in Hebrew it is Elohim, a category of being, the way "human" names a category rather than a person. Scripture also gives God a personal name, Yahweh, revealed in relationship rather than declared from a distance. Names carry the weight of a relationship, and Yahweh's self-revelation to Israel in their story of bondage and deliverance, and through Israel to the nations, unfolds most clearly in the exodus: the God who hears the cry of the oppressed and moves toward their liberation (Exodus 3:7-8). Yahweh means "I am" or "I will be," a name bound to covenant faithfulness rather than to distant power. Scripture reveals this God as Father and Mother, a Presence who comforts as a mother comforts her child (Isaiah 66:13) and who shepherds with steadfast care (Psalm 23:1-4). Divine Love shapes us in wisdom and compassion, calling us to live in harmony with creation and with one another (Micah 6:8; Matthew 5:9).
Made in the Image of God
To be made in the image of God is to carry both a reflection of Divine Love and an assignment. In the ancient world, a ruler who could not be personally present in every territory would place an image of himself there, so his people would recognize his rule and presence even in his absence. Genesis takes that familiar picture and turns it toward every human being: God places humanity in creation as living representatives of God's own reign, entrusted to embody God's character and extend God's care over the world (Genesis 1:26-28). This is not a passive resemblance. It is a vocation, a shared rule entrusted to us, to tend and guard the world, cultivating its flourishing while protecting it from harm, an act of worship rather than domination. Every human being bears God's image as part of the humanity God has created and called good. Yet we are also invited to grow into the vocation that image-bearing carries: to create, cultivate, discern, care, and participate in God's life-giving work. As we learn to live according to God's wisdom, these capacities become expressions of the image we already bear, bringing life and flourishing to the world around us (Proverbs 8:1–36; Psalm 8:4–8). This image-bearing humanity is wonderfully particular: peoples and cultures, languages and histories, bodies and communities all participate in the fullness of the humanity God has created. No single expression of humanity can exhaust the breadth of God's creative goodness (Genesis 1:27). In Scripture, Wisdom (Sophia) calls with a woman's voice, guiding and sustaining life (Proverbs 8:1-3, 22-31), and Jesus himself speaks in maternal imagery, longing to gather his people "as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings" (Luke 13:34). When that vocation broke and humanity's image-bearing grew distorted, God bound himself to humanity in the incarnation, becoming the human we were made to be, so that through Christ we are restored to the humans we were made to be (Philippians 2:5-8; Hosea 11:3-4; Psalm 103:13).
Jesus the Christ
Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, was born in Bethlehem under the shadow of Herod's throne, a ruler so threatened by news of his birth that he sought to destroy him (Matthew 2:16), a pattern of empire fearing what it cannot control that has repeated itself across every generation. As a child, he fled violence and lived as a refugee in Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15), later raised in Nazareth, a village so overlooked that even his own countrymen asked, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 1:46). It was among the humble and dismissed, not the powerful or privileged, that God chose to raise him. As a first-century Jewish man under Roman occupation, he entered the world without civil standing, yet embodied God's liberating presence among the people (Philippians 2:5-8). His title, Christ, is not a surname but an office: Christos, the Greek rendering of the Hebrew mashiach, the Anointed One, marked out for a specific work. In Israel's story, anointing set apart those called to speak God's truth, intercede on behalf of the people, and shepherd them with justice. Jesus embodies all of it at once, not roles held in sequence, but one life that speaks truth, intercedes with mercy, and reigns through service. Through his life, teachings, death, and resurrection, Jesus revealed the heart of God's justice and mercy. His words on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and his proclamation in Nazareth (Luke 4:14-21; Isaiah 61:1-3) invite us to love God wholly, love our neighbors as ourselves, and participate in the renewal of all creation (Deuteronomy 6:4-12; Matthew 22:34-40; Acts 2:42). Where the first humans were entrusted with the vocation of bearing God's image and failed to carry it, Jesus takes up that same calling and fulfills it, becoming the human we were made to be so that, through him, we become the humans we were made to be. In his suffering, Jesus stood with the persecuted and the weary, with the faithful Church of Smyrna and the enduring Church of Philadelphia (Revelation 2:8-11; 3:7-13), showing that even in weakness, Divine strength prevails (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). The risen Christ walks beside us still, the Good Shepherd leading us into truth, healing, and liberation (John 10:14-16; Luke 24:30-32).
Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is God's living, animating presence, the breath and wind of God moving through creation. In Hebrew, ruach, and in Greek, pneuma, carry a rich range of meaning that we tend to separate into four ideas: wind, breath, mind, and spirit. From creation's beginning, God's ruach moves over the waters, bringing life and order, while God's breath sustains every living thing (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30). The Spirit also gives wisdom, understanding, creativity, courage, and strength, empowering people to participate in God's work of cultivating life and flourishing (Exodus 31:1-5; Isaiah 11:2). The Hebrew ruach is grammatically feminine, and Scripture gives us feminine imagery for God's life-giving Wisdom and Spirit. Yet the Spirit cannot be contained by any single image or category. In Jesus, the Spirit brings liberation, healing, and renewal; at Pentecost, the Spirit breathes new life into a diverse people across languages and cultures (Luke 4:18-19; Acts 2:1-4). The Spirit continues to move among us and throughout creation, bringing wisdom, creating communion, restoring what has been broken, and breathing life where there has been death (Ezekiel 37:9-10; Romans 8:11).
The Holy Catholic Church
The Holy Catholic Church, meaning the universal body of Christ, embraces all who believe in Jesus across time, culture, and tradition (Ephesians 4:4-6; Galatians 3:28). The word "catholic" is not found in the Hebrew or Aramaic Scriptures; it comes from the Greek katholikos, meaning "universal" or "of the whole." In the traditional creed, it does not refer to the Roman Catholic denomination, but to the worldwide fellowship of all who follow Christ. The New Testament's own word for church, ekklesia, means those called out and gathered, echoing the Hebrew qahal, the assembly of God's people summoned to hear God's voice and keep covenant together (Deuteronomy 4:10; Acts 7:38). To be church, then, is to be a people called out of isolation and into shared life, shared witness, and shared responsibility for one another. This sacred family of faith holds the beauty of diversity within unity, reflecting the Creator who delights in difference and calls many members into one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). The Church exists not as an institution of power, but as a community of mercy and justice, called to embody God's reconciling love in the world (2 Corinthians 5:18-19; Micah 6:8).
Trinity
God has never been alone. Before the world began, the Father was already loving the Son through the Spirit, an eternal community of self-giving love rather than a solitary power (John 17:24). This is not three gods sharing a name, nor one God wearing three masks, but one Divine life held in relationship, Father, Son, and Spirit, distinct and undivided, giving and receiving love without beginning or end. The word "Trinity" itself does not appear in Scripture; it is the Church's later theological shorthand for what the biblical story shows relationally, long before it names it doctrinally, in the Spirit hovering over creation's waters, the Father's voice at Jesus' baptism, and the Spirit descending on the Son (Genesis 1:2; Matthew 3:16-17). The Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation is the same Spirit who descended at Jesus' baptism, revealing that the Father's love for the Son, and the Spirit's work of blessing and empowering, is not a one-time event but the very rhythm of who God is. To say "God is love" is to say something about God's inmost identity, not just God's actions (1 John 4:8-11). This community of love now reaches outward, drawing us into its fellowship, into the koinonia of grace, love, and communion Paul names in his blessing over the Church (2 Corinthians 13:14). To trust this God is to be welcomed into a relationship that has been overflowing since before the foundation of the world (Galatians 4:4-6).