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9 I believe in God. I believe that the love and power of God, as revealed by Scripture, tradition, and religious experience, are best described as relational, ambiguous, and resilient. God is radically relational with the world. I understand relationality between God and the world as a process of interaction characterized by asymmetrical mutuality. God and the world are bound together in a web of mutuality that gives identity ฀to฀each.฀God,฀the฀first฀person฀of฀the฀Trinity,฀constantly฀forms฀the฀ world in its struggle for existence, meaning, and power. The world, in its responses to God, creates value that both enhances and diminishes the love and power of God. While this interchange is not symmetrical— that is, God’s power and love is the foundation for the love and power of the world—God and humans depend on one another for responses that create identity and value. Human beings are made in the image of God as loving and powerful . God calls humanity to exercise power in loving ways to advance the creative purposes of God. However, the history of human life shows that humans distort the image of God in their hearts and create institutions and ideologies that promote destruction of bodies, persons, and the ecology of the earth. Human sin becomes systemic evil that leads to abuse of power, violence, and the destruction of war and environmental catastrophe. Systemic evil promotes individual sin through apathy, sloth, greed, and other deadly sins. The problem of evil leads to the question of salvation: What cooperative work of God and humans will A Personal Creed 10 Rethinking Faith rescue the world from self-destruction and the loss of meaning, value, and beauty? I believe in Jesus Christ, a divine and human being, who fully embodies the reality of God and humanity and discloses for humans both the character of God and the character of human life in the world. In the Scriptures, we see Jesus as a human being with extraordinary love and sensitivity for the full web of human and natural life. Because his attachment to life was shown in his actions of healing, teaching, and challenges to evil, Jesus was beloved by the people. Because of his truth telling and nonviolent symbolic confrontations of those with dominating power,฀he฀was฀crucified.฀Because฀of฀the฀resilient฀love฀and฀power฀of฀God,฀ Jesus was resurrected and lives today to lure the faithful into communion with God and to reveal the stature of human life that is possible through communion with God. “Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again”—these liturgical words call us to embrace the historical reality and the real presence of Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity. Through Christ, humanity is healed from the ravages of evil and transformed for ministries with others. Jesus Christ revealed that God and humans are relational, ambiguous, and resilient in the midst of evil. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, who provides everyday empowerment for the world. The Spirit strengthens the resilience of human beings in the midst of the complex relationships and the moral ambiguity of daily life. The Holy Spirit redeems human and natural life. I believe the church is called to be the body of Christ, a community of bodies and spirits, of humans and nature, in communion with the Holy Spirit, with the following marks: (1) inclusive love, (2) empowering justice, (3) nonviolent resistance to evil, (4) multiplicity and unity, (5) ambiguity and goodness. Through worship, the sacraments of baptism and communion, and programs of care and prophetic witness, the true church creates a resilient witness of hope for a suffering world. I believe in the eschaton, the telos of God’s love and power, as an image of a harmonious community of peace and prosperity for all human and nonhuman beings, including the material world. The ritual saying, “Christ will come again,” means that all creation groans for the beloved community that God intends. Jesus comes through the Spirit in every moment that the love and power of God are fully disclosed in reality. The hope for Jesus’ coming in the future is a lure toward the harmony and beauty given by God for all creation. ...

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