Statement of Belief
The ancient church father St. Augustine offers a helpful statement on any church’s shared beliefs, “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In everything, love.”
The idea bound up in these few words is that there exist essential teachings within Scripture that the church must be united on if the people are to experience the life of God in the family of God.
Additionally, the church has divided over the years time and time again over smaller disputes, for which there should be liberty within the church family to come as far as each member is able, honoring the continual process of belief that we each experience over a lifetime of walking with Jesus. The essentials are the anchors that hold us. The non-essentials are vital, extremely important, but the most loving, dignifying way to hold these teachings in the Christian Church is by liberty.
Finally, in everything, we are a family bound together by love. Right belief, expressed pridefully, is not love. Wrong belief, permitted freely, is also not love. Right belief, championed by love, is what Jesus embodied. We, the Body of Christ, should be a living expression of the same.
The Essentials
We hold to the historic teachings of Christian orthodoxy as articulated in the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. We also subscribe to recent summaries of Christian doctrine as formulated in the Lausanne Covenant & Cape Town Commitment.
The Apostles’ Creed
The Apostles’ Creed is the foundational creed of Christian churches. It has received this title because of its great antiquity; most of the creed dates from the early 2nd century. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Though many churches and flavors of Christianity throughout the ages have different interpretations of the Bible, and embrace various doctrinal nuances, the essence of what the Scriptures teach is found in the words of the Apostles’ Creed.
Therefore, we have fellowship with other members of the Body of Christ who profess their faith as follows:
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Amen.
The Nicene Creed
Similarly, the Nicene Creed was developed in the 3rd Century as a foundational statement of belief for early Christian churches across the Greco-Roman world:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
FAQs
The two most frequent theological questions posed to the Pastors and Elders of our church tend to revolve around these two topics. Therefore, we are stating a shared theology on both—not because there is a biblical emphasis on either that matches the topics covered thus far, but simply out of pastoral response to the questions being asked both within our church and broader culture.
Women in Leadership
The question of how men and women relate and engage in church leadership offices (particularly pastor and elder) has been a subject of significant debate at various points in church history. There are many considerations within the broader subject of men and women in leadership that are dealt with in the Bible. Here we have included a summary of things we see taught across the arc of Scripture that directly bear on our church’s position and practice.
We believe that women and men are created equal in the image of God.
We believe that full equality between women and men does not mean women and men are completely the same. There is goodness and beauty uniquely represented in each gender that profoundly reflects and glorifies God.
We believe God gives leadership in the church on the basis of grace, calling, spiritual gifts, obedience, and character.
We believe both women and men can and should lead, preach, pastor, and minister within the church. We believe women and men doing this together will result in a more robust ministry of love and grace than one gender can sustain alone.
We believe women and men can and should serve in pastoral leadership in the local church.
Eden Church believes that men and women are equally gifted and qualified to lead and serve as co-laborers in the church. We do not simply permit, but expressly value, the presence of both men and women in these various facets of church leadership, including the role of elder.
We recognize this topic comes with multiple millennia of debate and theological nuance, so we find and affirm the following statement by Bridgetown Church as a helpful theological grid of the topic (used with permission).
Sexuality
One of the great difficulties in defining a biblical understanding of sexuality in our modern context is the unseen, inner pain a person often carries behind the question. In recent history, the church has mishandled the topic of sexuality from a variety of angles. The church’s witness has centered on what forms of sexual expression Scripture is against instead of the dignifying, freeing sexual expression Scripture advocates for. Jesus majored in the latter; the church has emphasized the former. More personally, while the church has historically held to an understanding of sexuality distinct from the surrounding culture, the application of that belief in recent history has become alienating to those whose sexual expression does not line up with the church’s. The tragedy of that shift has been that many have been made to feel alienated by the Christian church because of sexual practice and/or sexual orientation.
Because of the complexity presented by recent history, we will succinctly define both our belief and how we express our belief, which carry equal importance.
Belief
We believe in the historically Christian view of marriage and sexual expression; namely, that marriage is a lifelong one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons (male and female) from different families, and that all sexual practice outside of marriage is sin.
How we Express Our Belief
The expression of this belief is often the more important question to people in search of a spiritual home: Will I (or one of my loved ones) be welcomed at Eden Church? And is there a barrier where that welcome is worn out?
Regardless of sexual practice and/or orientation, Eden Church welcomes all to worship with us. Jesus is the head of the church, and Jesus was uncompromising in teaching and calling people to align with his beliefs, a pathway to “life to the full.” (John 10:10) Another group of rabbis, called the Pharisees, were equally convicted of the truth of their beliefs, and held many beliefs in common with Jesus. So why was it that those who felt alienated by the Pharisees also felt so welcome by Jesus? Because of how each expressed common beliefs: the Pharisees did so in pride, as their primary concern was being right, while Jesus did so in love, as His primary concern was compassion for the person and story behind the belief.
The church is called the Body of Christ. We are a communal expression of Jesus’ heart, so both our beliefs and our expression of those beliefs should mirror Jesus. When it comes to sexuality, we carry three important convictions that inform our expression:
Our first responsibility is to be a living display of covenant love and sexuality. The church was not founded to critique the surrounding culture but to form a distinct counterculture where “life to the full” is on display as an invitation to all. However, in many ways (covenant love and sexuality being one obvious example) the church has mirrored the culture more than forming a counterculture. Therefore, our work is not to change anyone else’s mind or critique the world outside of our family, but to live with the sort of fidelity, service, and love within our own singleness and marriage covenants that we become a living witness to the fullest sort of life.
We lead with a heart of love and compassion for people. The doors and the arms of our church family are open to anyone, regardless of belief. No one will ever be excluded from worshiping with us on Sundays for any misalignment of belief.
We must differentiate between agreement (affirmation) and acceptance. One of the truly fascinating aspects of the life of Jesus is that the very people whose lives least aligned with his ethical teachings were most drawn to him. His dinner company and close friends are made up of people out-of-alignment with his teaching (e.g. Jesus teaches that to even look at a woman lustfully is to commit adultery, then is consistently surrounded by prostitutes who profited on lust; Jesus teaches an ethic of radical generosity, then welcomes a tax collector, whose life was defined by greed, into his inner circle of 12 disciples; etc.). In modern cultural rhetoric, agreement (affirmation) and acceptance are often used synonymously: “If you don’t agree/ affirm with my ethical choices (belief), you don’t accept me (expression).” However, in Jesus, we observe the opposite phenomenon: Those who felt most accepted in his presence were those most obviously living in disagreement with his teaching. Therefore, as a church we are committed to becoming a community linked to Jesus in both agreement and acceptance. We are unapologetically aligned with every word of his teaching. Equally, we are uncompromisingly insistent on becoming the sort of community where those out-of-alignment with his beliefs (including sexuality) feel welcome and accepted in our fellowship.