Phoenix Affirmations
As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to the way of Love. We work
to express our love, as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self. This includes the following
affirmations:
First Affirmation: We walk fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide
humanity
We affirm that we walk fully in the path of Jesus,, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide
humanity . You’ll notice that this affirmation comes out of an introductory statement that states, “as people who are
joyfully and unapologetically Christian.”
Joyful. Unapologetic. Walking fully in the path of Jesus. Is it not true that for many progressive Christians these words or
phrases are precisely why we find the Christian faith glum; and why we are not only apologetic, but also half-heartedly
walking somewhere in the vicinity of the path of someone called Jesus? Isn’t it the strong armed defense of an intolerant
Jesus and an exclusive God part of what makes us wear the label Christian lightly, if at all?
…
Isn’t it true that it is easier to distance ourselves from a spiritual tradition because of what we don’t believe than it is to
embrace a heartfelt, even serous yet inclusive faith? Isn’t it tempting when we see the church or people of faith misuse
or abuse Jesus, the Bible, religious language, and symbols to jettison any heartfelt examination of how we want to hold
the faith? And while it isn’t a requirement that anyone be or remain a Christian, these affirmations try to remind us
there still is a powerful and necessary role for thoughtful, serious, committed, progressive Christians. They remind us
that it serves no one to not be bold in our openness, articulate in our nuanced faith, and above all loving in the name of
Jesus.
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But more importantly, given that John places these words towards the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, on the eve of his
arrest and crucifixion; we know that the “way” he refers to is not a set of beliefs, but a way of life that does not shy away
from pain, even death.
Jesus is not saying, “Believe these 10 things and you will have eternal life” but “follow me to the cross and you will know
life. My way is a way of death — which leads to life. Death which leads to resurrection.”
So the real question isn’t, “is Jesus the one true way?” but rather “can we embrace a faith that suggests that death leads
to life; that resurrection is possible even if death – in all kinds of ways – is quite real?”
And to be honest, many if not most religions espouse the necessity or reality of death leading to life. Borg tells the story
of a Hindu preaching a sermon at a Christian seminary once saying, “Jesus IS the only way – and that way – of dying to
an old way and being born into a new way – is known in ALL RELIGIONS of the world. The “way” of Jesus IS a universal
way, even to those who don’t know Jesus.
So while Jesus pointed to a universal truth, he did not point to an exclusive claim. Do you hear the difference – universal
but not exclusive? What we celebrate is that this same profound truth comes to us through the language and symbol of
many traditions. The beauty of an unapologetic Christian faith is that we are not afraid to give credit to Zen Buddhism or
Islam or any other way of thinking in helping us become better, more grounded Christians. We’re not afraid to adopt or
adapt practices from other traditions in our effort to live more authentic and loving lives….
Affirmation #2: Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are new, and that we, and all people, are loved
beyond our wildest imagination—for eternity.
Tammy Martens (June 20, 2010)
It is understood that Samaritans were looked upon unfavorably and were seen as outcasts; Jews were forbidden to
associate with them so this encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well was seen as scandalous. Because of
this animosity that existed between these two groups, this woman most likely inherited a belief system that contributed
to her lost self; her inability to know of God’s gift. The religious and ethnic racism and hatred that Samaritans felt and
lived with each day was part of the pool of dead water they had to drink from. And we know that drinking from this
water leads to the diminishment of one’s soul.
From working in ministry for many years, I have heard lots of stories from people who have from a very young age
inherited a religious belief system that has made them feel shameful, devalued and not quite right. They have carried
this pain well into adulthood and at their deepest selves have struggled to be free—to be able to live into their full
selves. Like the woman at the well, there are many of us who are deeply suspicious of this gift from God.
Perhaps there were other issues going on in this woman’s life that was part of the pool of dead water she was drinking
from. Jesus alludes to the personal life of the woman and that she has been in multiple relationships—how Jesus knew
this we do not know. But simply Jesus’ knowledge of the woman’s past life caused her to move deeper into a
conversation with Jesus. His knowledge of her created an experience of intimacy that touched her soul.
The text raises questions for us today. Do we take drinks from dead water? Have we bought into a belief system that has
devalued us and has caused us to feel diminished? What behaviors are we engaged in that cause us to lose our
connection with our soul, with God? What are we afraid of finding out about ourselves? What destructive patterns of
behavior do we keep repeating in order to avoid admitting that we need help? What is the quality of our marriages and
committed relationships like? Are the relationships we are in life-giving? Do we struggle to forgive ourselves for not
being perfect? What is the dead water that we are drinking from?
…
“If you know the gift of God you would ask for living water.”
Do we need a drink from the living water? What is this living water that Jesus is talking about? In the story, the response
of the woman to Jesus is palpable. Despite the fact that she did not know about the gift that comes from God, she was
very thirsty to receive it. In that moment with Jesus, and I’m guessing it was a moment where she felt fully accepted and
not judged, this woman finds something for which she did not realize she was searching. She encounters someone who
meets her at a level of her being; a place where no one else has met her before. And once she is met—she feels found.
She discovers that she is loved beyond her wildest imagination—for eternity and this awakens her to herself, to God,
and to the world around her.
And do you notice what happens when she is found? I love the little detail that is given to us. John’s gospel says, “Then
the woman left her water jar and went back into the city.” She left her water jar! She completely forgot her original
reason for coming to the well. She leaves behind what brought her to this moment so that she can tell others in the
village about her encounter. And because of her testimony, a whole community finds themselves and finds God—finds
the love that lasts an eternity—a love that redirects them and makes them whole. Glory be.
In his article “Anything Can Happen at a Well” Barry Robinson shares “Jesus puts people in touch with the experience of
a love that embraces them at a level deeper than thought and action. When that happens, they find something that was
lost in them suddenly found. And when that is our experience the exterior dimensions of our lives get changed too. The
need for all the old suspicions, all the old rivalries, and all the old fears just doesn’t matter anymore. People have come
into their souls again which is a place where not only each one of us individually but all of us collectively need to be.”
Affirmation #3: We celebrate the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation,
including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and nonhuman.
Winton Boyd ( June 27, 2010)
For too long Christians of all stripes have focused so much on the particularity of the Christian faith that we have entirely
neglected the universality of it. A progressive Christian faith holds a creative tension between many sources of
inspiration. In the world of faith that shaped me, the primary source of inspiration was the Bible and maybe nature as it
pointed back to the Scriptures. In the liberal world I came to inhabit as an adult, the bible was thrown out while nature,
secular, and religious philosophers, and people steeped in the ways of the mind took precedence.
In the progressive church today, we hold on to the ancient while we embrace the poets of today, we celebrate Jesus
while we listen with eager ears to the voice of Buddha, Jewish mystics and atheist commentators – to name a few. In
addition, we cherish wisdom from all corners of humanity while also remembering that the non human world speaks to
us of God. It comes out in relationships with animals, and profound experiences with rocks, the ocean, the stars, and the
Wind.
…
An author and friend who I admire deeply has written about his own struggle with Christian language. Reflecting on a
30-year journey and his changed relationship with Christianity, he writes,
“My squeamishness(about the Christian faith today) has little to do with any fundamental change in my beliefs. I still
understand myself as a Christian and many traditional Christian understandings still shape my life. But…I find it hard to
name my beliefs using traditional Christian language because that vocabulary has been taken hostage by theological
terrorists and tortured beyond recognition…I would be lost in the dark without the light Christianity sheds on my life, the
light I find in truths like incarnation, grace, sacrament, forgiveness, blessing and the paradoxical dance of death and
resurrection. But when Christians claim that their light is the only light and that anyone who does not share their
understanding of it is doomed to eternal damnation, things get very dark for me. I want to run screaming out into the so
called secular world, which is I believe, better named the ‘wide wild world of God’ – where I can recover my God given
mind.
“Out there, I catch sight once again of the truth, goodness, and beauty that disappear when pious Christians slam the
door on their musty, windowless, lifeless room. Next to a Christian eclipsed by theological arrogance, an honest atheist
shines like the sun. Next to a church profaned by its exclusion of ‘otherness’ a city of true diversity is a cathedral.”
(Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox)
I suspect his words ring true for the experience many of us have had. The quickest way to uncover that in ourselves is to
gauge our reaction when we hear some traditional concepts come out of the mouths of those we find exclusionary –
wonderful, useful, powerful words like ‘evangelism, salvation, grace, discipleship, and others. Words that in the context
of their biblical use are NOT exclusionary, not weapons towards those who believe differently. But we live in our time
and it our place and we know how these words have been co-opted.
The same writer I just quoted, Parker Palmer, coined another very useful phrase – “standing in the tragic gap” – living
between reality and possibility, between what is and what could and should be…If we are willing to actively “hang in
there” with (others) holding unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being –
we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality.” (Promise of Paradox)
Maybe as progressive Christians, this is what we do – hold the space and live in the tension for an ever more creative
understanding of faith. We bring our whole lives to bear on the universal truth of faith and the particular path called
Christianity. Living as agnostics, as Zen Buddhist Christians, as Gardener Christians, as Christians in progress, lovers of
culture and lovers of faith, as people of faith in a world torn apart by faith – we stand as witnesses to both reality and
possibility. We hold space for ourselves and others who need space to make sense of the craziness of their lives; who
need and long for the experience of grace (even if they don’t call it that); who find in our love incarnation – a concept
hard to explain but easy to know when we see it; and who will benefit from our collective willingness to point to a light
in the darkness.
Affirmation #4: We listen for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through studying the
ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to God’s present activity in the world.
Ken Pennings (July 4, 2010)
We listen for the Still-Speaking God through prayer, the study of the Scriptures and what is going on in the world.
I can’t help but wonder if I just lost some of you in that last statement. Might you be thinking, “I’m all about tuning into
God’s frequency, but I’m not necessarily doing it through prayer and Scripture study.”
And if that describes you, I affirm you. I’m right there with you.
For God is so much greater than any of our traditional approaches to prayer. God is so much greater than any of our
traditional approaches to Bible study.
Our focus must always be on “Tuning in to God’s Frequency” however we do that, and not so much on the particular
means we may choose to do it.
…
During the season of Lent and Easter, some of us shared publicly on Sunday morning a God-moment in our lives. I heard
how some of us were able to tune in to God’s frequency through sunlit kitchens painted yellow, through pigeons
ascending into the sky like the prayers of the pilgrims at a mosque, and through wrestling to a decision to spend time
with a dying parent rather than participate in a mission trip to El Salvador.
How do we tune in to God’s frequency? Certainly by prayer, meditation, and study of the Scripture, but also by an
infinite number of other practices.
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God is not a traffic cop – “You want to drive this way, but (blow whistle) you must drive that way.”
God is not a Game Show Host (Buzzer) “You chose Door Number One. You should have chosen Door Number Two.”
God is not a Genie I’ve freed from a bottle granting me three wishes.
God is not a supernatural entity who rides into time and space to rescue the distressed, or to rearrange the affairs of
humans.
So what or whom is God? I don’t know. I really don’t know. And that is absolutely fine with me. God is Divine Mystery.
God is Unknowable, Unfathomable, Undefinable. I’ve let God out of my box of fundamentalist religion, and, as a result,
have experienced God as LOVE which transcends any words or ideas found in any one book, in any one religion, in
anyone’s creed or theological doctrine, or in anyone’s mind or understanding.
In the language of Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, “I experience God as Life, and I worship this God by living fully. I
experience God as Love, and I worship this God by loving wastefully. I experience God as Being, and I worship this God
by having the courage to be all that I can be.” (A New Christianity for a New World, pg. 73).
As a progressive Christian, my prayers are much different than they once were. I don’t pray what I want from God’s
hand. Through prayer, I become mindful of the “All is well” of the universe. I enter into the Mystery of being loved by all
that IS. Prayer that is resting in what IS truly helps us tune in to God’s frequency.
May we take a few moments of silent prayer to become mindful of the “All is well” of the universe.
Affirmation #5: We express our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.
Winton Boyd (July 11, 2010)
Scott Russell Sanders, in his memoir, A Private History of Awe, writes, “on a spring day in 1950, when I was big enough to
run about on my own two legs yet small enough to ride in my father’s arms, he carried me onto the porch of a
farmhouse in Tennessee and held me against his chest, while thunder roared and lightening flared and rain sizzled
around us. (I felt) the tingle of power that surges through bone and rain and everything.
The search for communion with this power has run like a bright thread through all of my days…I wish to follow that
bright thread, from my earliest inklings to my latest intuitions of the force that animates nature and mind. In the world’s
religions, the animating power may be called God, Logos, Allah, Brahma, Ch’I, Tao, Creator, Holy Ghost, Great Spirit,
Universal Mind, Manitou, Wkan-tanka or a host of other names. In physics, it may simply be called energy… Every such
name, I believe, is only a finger pointing toward the prime reality, which eludes all description. “(p.3)
Our lives, he suggests, or the journey of faith, is a continual effort to stay attuned to such “openings” – openings into the
power, the hope, the animation, and the wonder of that force, that love. The potential of a faith community is that
together we can discover and share these inklings, learn to trust them, share them, and respond to them.
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What I appreciate about this affirmation is that lifts up worship not just as a noun – not just as an event or a happening
or a gathering of a church community on a Sunday morning – but also as a verb. As a noun, worship is a weekly event, a
weekly gathering, an opportunity for music and prayer, sharing of community, preaching or listening to preaching.
Why worship is important
1.
Weekly worship involves community
I have reflected recently with other colleagues that most of us under appreciate the power of a loving
congregation in a child or teenager’s life – whether that young person be well adjusted, struggling, gay or
lesbian, from a stable or broken home. I know this because I know how difficult it is to erase the damage of a
judgmental community or a community that has rejected a young person. Just as it is difficult to erase the
negative effects of a bad community experience, it is almost impossible to calculate the power of an affirming,
loving, and awe introducing community – AND a community that has a purpose greater than itself.
2. An authentic worshipping community doesn’t pretend it owns the market on awe; rather it seeks to bring the
natural world and its power to amaze and overwhelm us into the sanctuary; and it seeks to affirm that the
sanctuary – the sacred space of the Holy One – exists all around us.
3. Exposure to the spiritual practice of worship gives us the tools to find awe, and to “lose ourselves” in our daily
lives of school, work, relationships and facing various challenges. The more we experience and appreciate awe in
a community of other worshippers, the more readily we can sense the possibility of what Sanders called
“openings” in the everyday, the mundane.
Affirmation #6: We celebrate the Christian faith by engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as
creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability,
nationality, or economic class.
Winton Boyd (July 18, 2010)
By itself, however, it is only a stated ideal. While our stated ideal may be broader than some – if it is not a lived practice
anyway – we aren’t really much different than anyone else. While we give thanks for a tradition that DOES value this
ideal, what we’re really want is to do more than just say these words. By stating this affirmation, we celebrate a
tradition that pushes us, cajoles us, challenges us, and encourages us – to actually live out this idea. We celebrate a
tradition that takes quite seriously a value found in the old and new Testaments and in the early church itself, but that is
often lost or forgotten in the history of the church.
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And I think this represents one of the most important qualities of our faith – the willingness to ask honest and open
questions about how we are living. Are we living into this affirmation? If not, why not? Do we have an internal hierarchy
of people – in our life, in our community, in our world? Do we live in any way that challenges the social and religious
discrimination and exclusion around us? Are we active in embracing all people, or passive? These questions themselves
are a form of confession.
How might we take small steps in the direction of fully embracing all people? How can we support each other? Where
are our biases? How realistic are our expectations of others? How do the issues of class, education, race, and gender
play a role in the way we move in the world? What would it really feel like to welcome those who are different from us
more fully? Honestly asking these questions and honestly looking for ways to live into this affirmation suggest we take
our faith seriously, that it IS more than window dressing.
The honest and open questions we ask ourselves we also ask as a congregation. How welcoming is our welcome to those
not like us? Is our welcome engaging? Heartfelt? If we are a mostly white, mostly educated, mostly middle class group of
people – how does our faith push us beyond those confines – here in church or in the rest of our daily lives? How willing
are we to compromise on some of that which we hold dear – theology, music, ways of befriending – in order to welcome
someone else? … Of course these aren’t easy questions, and of course they aren’t meant to be shaming – but in the
progressive church we celebrate that these questions are asked. The Christian faith – as it is lived in our personal lives
and it is lived corporately in this congregation – pushes those questions because the ideals we proclaim are worth
pushing for.
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In a recent radio interview(Speaking of Faith), Mennonite peacemaker John Paul Lederach, Professor of International
Peacebuilding at Notre Dame, and a man of faith who has spent 30 years working on local, national and international
conflicts around the world, said the single most important way to bring conflicted factions together is to bring two or
more improbable sets of people together. More than ideas or more than agreements, the willingness of former enemies
to see in one another possibility, and in so doing to see the shortsightedness of their own hardened position, brings
about conflict transformation.
In its best form, the church challenges us to look for other voices, value other experiences, walk in other people’s shoes.
At its best, the church – rooted in relationships – helps us see our blind spots about how we live, what we value and
where we are afraid. Without acknowledging our blind spots, we’ll never live into this affirmation.
Over the years, it has become more and more clear to me that the most effective way to help us all with blind spots is to
create an atmosphere of trust, safety, grace and honesty. There are plenty of preachers or Christians who are all too
willing to point out others’ blind spots. While the true church of Jesus Christ may involve honest confrontation, it is
always done in the spirit of humility, in the arena of affirming our corporate desire to walk in the ways of God known
and to be made known to us.
Affirmation #7: We celebrate the Christian faith by standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the
denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others.
Winton Boyd (July 25)
As with many of these affirmations, the challenge may be less about understanding and more about living; less about
conviction and more about consistency; less about convincing and more about returning to our core.
Recently, Bobby McFerrin, vocal artist, recorded an album called Vocabularies – involving almost 150 tracks with over 50
artists. In an interview he noted that even though the title of the album is titled “vocabularies” – it is really about
rhythm and sound, not words. A song without words allows everyone to bring their own story to it.
What if we understood the theme and reality of justice in the bible and in the life of faith as that central rhythm to
which we bring our own story? What if understood God’s hope for justice as the central beat around which not only our
personal faith revolves, but the rhythm to which we constantly return. What if we understood our life’s purpose to
proclaim that hope, to proclaim that no matter how far from God’s justice we are right now – “yonder come day. Day is
a breaking. Yonder come day…yes my lord.
…
Together, that journey is much more rich than by ourselves. Sometimes, however, we do stand alone. The challenge of
our faith may be that we often lose the beat, we get out of step with the heartbeat of God’s justice. But how do we
keep the beat ?
In keeping rhythm – we watch or lean on our neighbor –we may focus intently on our part –and over time we are able
to listen amidst all the other rhythms to find our beat, the right beat. We are able to discern the heartbeat of the song.
How do we return? Re-learn? Recalibrate our own lives back in line with God’s hope for justice?
For many of us music is a great way to pray. But there are so many expressions of prayer. Silent prayer, walking prayer,
prayer with candles. For many of us, it is daily effort to reconnect with the rhythm of the land, its long history of
revealing God’s wholeness. Wendell Berry would walk his farm every Sunday morning for the same reason. So many of
us return through putting our hands in the dirt. For some, it is through service – those to opportunities not only to give
but to reconnect with the essential truth of our lives and the life of God in the world. Standing on Russet Road while
working on the Habitat house reminds us that the need for a place to call home is part of God’s justice. Standing at the
crypt of Oscar Romero lifts up how violence – time and again – stunts the pursuit of God’s justice. Jim Wallis of
Sojourners once said that he lived among the poor as a spiritual discipline – a visual reminder on a daily basis that the
arc of God’s justice is long and wide. For some, the beat is heard in Community – just as we often need others to hold
our part in the song, so we often need others to help us return to our values and our desire to follow the ancient beat of
justice.
Affirmation #8: Christian love of neighbors includes: Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings
while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies.
Ken Pennings (August 1, 2010)
I was particularly drawn to this affirmation, and I asked Winton if I might preach on this one, because it is for me the
greatest test of my own Christianity.
Many of us don’t have the luxury of associating only with people we like and who like us. Many of us live and work with
people who consider us their enemies, who do their best to make our lives a living hell (present company excluded, of
course).
With such people, can we, as progressive Christians, continue to walk humbly with God and acknowledge our own
shortcomings? Can we seek to understand and call forth the best in even our enemies?
…
Here’s the reality: others may make an enemy out of us, but there’s no need for us to make an enemy out of them.
As soon as I wrote that last statement on my computer, my mind jumped to a colleague of mine whose adult daughter
was brutally murdered. Her murderer was apprehended, tried and convicted. She has met the man in prison and has
met his mother. She empathizes deeply with the man’s mother because both of them have lost their children. My friend
now travels all over the world telling the story of how she practices love, mercy and forgiveness for this inmate, and
others like him. Despite the evil he perpetrated, she chooses not to make an enemy of him. In my mind, she embodies
the sermon Jesus preached better than anyone I know.
I doubt the crowd listening to Jesus on the mountain side was really able to embrace his teaching any more than we can
embrace the idea of loving someone who might have murdered our own son or daughter.
I’m sure Jesus perceived this. So what does he do?
He leads them down the mountain to the plain, to the city of Capernaum, where he embodies the very sermon he
preached. It’s their practicum. He demonstrates for them exactly what he means when he said, “Love your enemies”
and “Judge not that you be not judged.”
On the plain, Jesus and the crowd following him encounter all kinds of people in all kinds of life-situations – a Roman
soldier, a tax collector, a religious leader, and a number of sick people. Jesus loves and heals them all.
…
Bewildering, isn’t it, that God is in the very people we fear, distrust, and find fault with? Look in their eyes. Whom do we
see? We see God.
And THIS is the way Jesus turns a crowd into a community. One after another, Jesus sees God in each and every person.
In the realm of God, in the Jesus community, all are brothers and sisters; there are no outsiders; and the community
includes even the enemy.
All kinds of people are in what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community.” –Jews and Gentiles, privileged and
unprivileged, healthy and sick, soldiers and civilians, sinners and saints – this is God’s community.
The Dali Lama said: “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.”
Mother Teresa stated, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Mohandas Gandhi mused, “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with
people.”
Affirmation #9: Christian love of neighbors includes preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak
prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State
Winton Boyd (August 8, 2010)
In the text from Luke, Jesus makes it clear that while people of faith need to have a devotion to God, we are also part of
a nation state that requires something of us. In his setting, the Jews were a minority religious community within the
larger Roman empire, which added other complications. Nonetheless, Jesus was – as the song Tammy and Deb sang said
– “attuned to what the ancients exposed, proclaimed and wrote” – and he often defied the power of the state by
“rendering to God the things that were God’s.”
…
The first reality in all of these dynamics is to recognize that there aren’t hard and fast rules for knowing how to honor
the state, or what it looks like to speak and act prophetically against it. As a creative, evolving, community that seeks to
be attuned to situations and issues of our day; we realize that different situations summon us in multiple ways.
Context matters…Some Christians have celebrated the role of the prophetic church speaking out against the state’s
oppression, injustice, neglect (War on Poverty, Vietnam). At other times, those same Christians, have cringed as other
religious views seem to have taken over the mindset of those in power (Moral Majority or Religious Right).
Our personal and national history matter… Did we come of age politically during WW2, during the ‘question authority’
period in the 70’s, or in the wake of Obama’s election?
Our various identities matter…We all have at least four identities as we make our way through the world and as we
think and act on these issues.
We are people of faith, Christian or otherwise
We are members of a family or clan
We are citizens of a nation
We are citizens of the world
How do these identities support one another, clash with one another? When and how do these identities demand
loyalty, time, and compromise?
A few examples:
I had the good fortune of hosting Benson Kishoyian, Kenyan pastor, within two weeks of 9/11. What we shared were
identities as Christians and Global citizens. He did not share my identity as an American and found many of our
expressions of loyalty and patriotism confusing. I did not share his experience of family or clan and found his sense of
responsibility to them unusual and quite at odds with my experience as an individual within a family.
I see people all the time with are forced to balance their identities as Christians or Global citizens with their identity as a
member of a family or clan. There is a reason family gatherings can be hard, as all of the ways we express these
identities can easily clash. My sense of patriotism and faithfulness can conflict with another’s sense. My global
citizenship can rub up against another’s sense of family obligation.
Affirmation #10: We celebrate the love of God by claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts,
recognizing that faith and science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth.
Winton Boyd (August 22, 2010)
One of the things that jumps out at me in reading this statement is that the topic of doubt is connected with the
question, ‘what is the goal of the religious journey, the spiritual life?’ Is it to answer our questions? Is it to have a
coherent, airtight set of religious beliefs? Is it to learn all the rituals, prayers, or rules of one’s faith? According to this
affirmation, it is rather to ‘claim the sacredness of life’ and to ‘seek truth.’ Questions, doctrine, rituals, prayers, or rules
may serve in the pursuit of truth – and as such they can be useful and helpful. They can open our hearts to the
sacredness of our lives.
…
For too long, it seems, we have been seduced into thinking that faith is about beliefs. The affirmation reminds us that for
progressive Christians, faith is about opening ourselves to the sacredness of life, and the pursuit of authentic, life giving
relationships – with one another and with the Holy One.
Just last week I began driving a new/used car that has a manual transmission. I’ve been thinking a lot about the
difference between manual and automatic cars, or even between different manual cars and how they work. I’ve been
able to teach a few people over the years. One of the patterns I’ve recognized is that often a novice stick shift driver
begins with no confidence, learns a few things and then gains confidence. However, the second time out, or the first
time someone pulls up behind them on a hill, for example – they freeze, seemingly losing all skill and confidence – and
stall time after time. While they have learned how to manage the clutch, the brake and the accelerator – they quickly
begin to doubt what they have learned. Unforeseen mistakes, nervous anxiety, new situations can easily throw their
new found confidence into a tailspin.
What I have come to see, however, is this dip into doubt about their skills is an important part of the learning. It keeps
us humble, it helps us pay attention, it reminds us we aren’t yet an Nascar or Gran Prix driver. While this same trajectory
can happen with automatic cars, there is nothing quite like the lurch, screeching tires and dead engine to quell our
confidence in a nanosecond.
Is this frustrating? Of course. Is it at times embarrassing? Maybe. Can us catch us by surprise? Probably. Does it mean we
aren’t still on a learning curve towards successful driving? Absolutely not, as long as we remember it’s part of the
process. The biggest mistake would be to suggest or expect that someone learning this tricky skill for the first time
would never experience what seems like a setback – even though it’s part of the process.
Somewhere in our collective religious upbringing, we’ve had people or institutions akin to the overbearing driving
instructor who says you have to learn it all today and if you ever stall the car, if you ever forget which pedal to push
when – you are not a real driver.
Somewhere in our collective religious training and exposure, someone has suggested doubt is wrong, that science is at
odds with faith. Whether or not we embrace the idea of a doubtless faith journey in our heads, someone or some
institution has left an abiding impression on our hearts.
What I love about today’s affirmation is that it is now time to LET THAT GO. It’s time to embrace the sacredness of our
lives – suggesting again that to do so does not mean all is directed, ordained, or willed by God, but that there is NO place
in our journey where God – however visible or real God feels at the time – isn’t present.
It is time to let go of the notion that doubt is wrong, and ask what are we learning from our doubt? How is it part of the
learning process, the journey of our heart?
It is time to let go of the entirely silly notion that faith is at odds with science and ask how matters of science or a
scientific approach to life illuminate our sense of the sacred; and how an embrace of the sacred illuminates a scientific
view of life.
Affirmation #11: We celebrate the love of God by acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a
vocation and ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.
Winton Boyd (August 29, 2010)
Many of us may find the notion that God has a specific purpose for us either quaint or outrageous; we simply don’t
experience God as one who manipulates or micromanages life to that level of detail. However, this affirmation isn’t
suggesting that God micromanages a purpose for our lives for our sake alone – focused on our satisfaction, our success,
our glorification. Rather, a life purpose is to “strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.” The failure of this church, or
any church, to help us connect the strengthening and extending of God’s realm of love with ANY life work is a failure of
ermonimagination, courage, and devotion.
…
Take your everyday life and place it before God as an offering…
“I’m entering this classroom God, may my teaching extend your realm. I’m meeting with a client, may my work and my
creativity extend your realm. I’m studying for a test – not just to learn a topic but to build the capacity within myself to
live your love. I just heard my child scamper down the hall, another day of activity, energy, fighting, whining, and love is
starting; may this house and these relationships embody your love.”
Such a simple prayer – offering our day to God – helps acknowledges that we are not in control, but rather are blessed
with a mind and heart and relationships that can impact others.
Embrace what God does for you…
In the course of a tense meeting with our boss, a strategy session with an overburdened co-worker, a conference call
with loved ones facing lifestyle decisions, or as we read an email from a young adult child three states away – it is easy
to focus on the challenges, the problems, the hassles, the injustices. The pastoral word from Romans suggests that we
first embrace how we have been gifted and how grace abounds. That slightly altered perspective frees our mind and
heart to see and hear how we are, or are not, extending the grace of God.
Fix your attention on God…you’ll be changed from the inside out.
“We are what we attend to,” one writer said. Romans invites us to fix our attention on God, and to expend a moment,
even a second or two on a prayer for courage, a prayer for clarity – opening our hearts and minds for the wisdom of
Spirit in a given day or situation.
God brings out the best in you…
If we are really going to extend God’s love and grace, it will only happen because we are at our best more often than
not. That, Romans suggests, is a worthy prayer. “May your love bring out the best in me right now.”
Affirmation #12: Christian love of ourselves includes caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the
benefits of prayer, reflection, worship and recreation in addition to work.
Ken Pennings (September 5, 2010)
While a business consultant was vacationing on the coast at Baja, California, he routinely walked to the fishing pier each
morning to enjoy his coffee. He noticed one fisherman and his son come in from the morning’s fishing promptly at 11
o’clock. He would unload a great number of fish, clean up the boat, and take the fish to market. One morning, the
consultant approached the fisherman and said, “I’ve been watching you every morning this week. You’re a really great
fisherman. You obviously know the best places to catch fish and have a wonderful technique for catching them. You
schedule yourself well by launching and returning at the same time each day. But why don’t you go back out to fish in
the afternoon?
The fisherman puzzled, “Why would I want to do that?”
You would make twice as much money, of course.
“Why would I want to do that?”
Well, you could save enough money to buy a second boat, hire another crew, and you would soon be making four times
the money you’re making now.
“Why would I want to do that?”
Eventually you could invest in a whole fleet of boats, buy out other fishing companies, and become an international
corporation and own fishing fleets, canneries, and seafood shops all over the world.
“Why would I want to do that?”
Then you wouldn’t have to work so hard. You could work a half day, spend more time with your wife and children, and
have more time for rest, recreation and leisure.
“Don’t you see,” replied the wise fisherman, “That is exactly what I’m doing now.”
Affirming our Faith – ORUCC 2010
During the summer of 2010, we used these Affirmations (see back side) as the guide for a preaching series. Many of you
indicated how helpful and encouraging these affirmations were as you consider your own Christian faith and walk.
Now we’d like to gather a series of thoughts, stories and reflections from you on these affirmations.
We invite you to respond in writing (a paragraph or two is enough) to one of the following questions. You may focus on
one of the affirmations, or even a word or phrase in the affirmation.
Which affirmation(s) resonate with you and your own walk of life? Which affirmation(s) help articulate
some of your own lived experience of faith? How does your own spiritual life come alive as you ponder one
of these affirmations?
You may use the bottom of this page to write and hand to one of the pastors. We’d love to hear from you!
The Phoenix Affirmations
Heartened by our experience of the transforming presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit in our world,
we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent. We hereby mark an
end to our silence by making the following affirmations:
As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to
the way of Love. We work to express our love, as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving
God, neighbor, and self.
Christian love of God includes:
1.
Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God
may provide humanity;
2.
Listening for God’s Word, which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through
studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to
God’s present activity in the world;
3.
Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s
Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian
and non-Christian, the human and non-human;
4.
Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.
Christian love of neighbor includes:
5.
Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very
image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability,
nationality, or economic class;
6.
Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted,
seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;
7.
Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to
government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;
8.
Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking
to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their
enemies;
Christian love of self includes:
9.
Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all
people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination — for eternity;
10. Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and
science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;
11. Caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the benefits of prayer,
reflection, worship and recreation in addition to work;
12. Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and
ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.