Answer?

 

In one of my first classes in seminary, a key assignment was to write a belief statement. Then three years later before graduation to write a belief statement. The hope was that the belief statements would be different, that one’s theology grew and was further shaped. 

 

I can report that my two belief statements were different, and I too was a different person upon graduating seminary.  The growth came from asking if based on my gained knowledge, my reason, the foundations of my faith tradition and my experience did I still believe what I had been taught as a child. 

 

Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught. Christianity is a life to be lived.

I believe this.

 

I definitely believe that if we answered the question, “Do you believe?” by our living the love and doing the justice and walking humbly --- "a proper sense of self in a universe full of wonders" --- that the world would be as God would have it to be.