We believe in God. But we do not see God as a being actively intervening in our world. We believe that God is, among other things, the Creator force that set the world in motion, and that God calls us, the Creation, towards love. In looking for God in our lives, we believe that the best place to find God is in ourselves and in each other. This can be difficult, because we acknowledge that we are also Fallen in a way – at least into separation from and ignorance of God. But we know that our enemy comes primarily in the form of fear and shame, and that our world today gives us too many ways to hide from ourselves and others, sunk in that alienation. We know that we need healing ways to sustain a mutual recognition that allows us to be freely ourselves, without fear or shame, in the presence of others. And we know how difficult that is.
So we ask, what is the purpose of a religious institution? We have seen evangelical congregations that allow for the emotive expression of our brokenness; mainline churches that do not attend to these emotional needs; myriad forms of self-help that send us off on solo missions of actualization. We want something more. The religious institution should help us learn and practice new ways of knowing – imaginal, unguarded – in a safe space. It should help us heal each other, and selected others, and ourselves. It should be a supportive community, and give us a way to worship God together. It should give us a context to examine Christian and its source religions’ traditions as believers without constraints of orthodoxy. Ultimately, in all this work for ourselves, it should aid in a global transformation to ecological civilization, for we believe our great mission is to sustain a long, rich, and flourishing state of life on this Earth, God’s Creation, entrusted in our hands.
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