What We Believe

Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Rel­igious Ani­mal. He is the only animal that has the True Reli­gion — seve­ral of them. He is the only ani­mal that loves his neigh­bor as him­self, and cuts his throat if his theo­logy isn't straight. He has made a grave­yard of the globe in try­ing his honest best to smooth his bro­ther's path to hap­piness and heaven.

—Mark Twain: Letters from the Earth

Christianity is one of the great paths up the moun­tain of light at the sum­mit of which sits God Him­self. It is one of the paths, but only one, and if we have a num­ber of peo­ple all round the base of the moun­tain, the short­est path to the top for each man is the path which opens be­fore him. It would be fool­ish to have the idea that we must go and drag a man all round the base of the mount­ain in order to make him walk up our parti­cular path.

—Charles W. Leadbeater: The Inner Side of Christ­ian Festivals, 1920

Our faith calls us to walk a path every day of our lives, a way of discovery. We do not keep to this path because it gives us a set of propositions that we may adhere to, or a set of rules by which to live, but rather because on the way we are drawn ever deeper into truth, and faced every moment and every day with the sheer reality of things. If we persevere in the Way, we evolve a certain understanding of the world, and of what makes it tick; we begin to understand how to live. We become whole, a person with a “heart;” which is to say, a person in whom body, mind, and spirit are one. Integrated. A person of “integrity.” Or, to express it in more traditional terms: righteous. Godly (god–like), a person in whom the righteousness of God is revealed.

When we depart from this path, we begin to know suffering. The sheer distractedness of our life begins to teach us how sin, and death, and suffering came into the world with the sin of Eden, and persists still, even to this day. Our perceptions of things, and even of ourselves, become distorted, at the very core, and we cease to have a human heart. We dis–integrate. We are, as Luther tried to remind us, radically (at the radix, root), if not substantially, separated from the very ground of our being. We are uprooted — or, at the very least, “unrooted.” Or, as the Orthodox would say: the image of God in us persists (reason, freedom, choice), but the moral likeness of God has been effaced.

Someone walks with us. As we continue in the Way, the more certain we become of that unseen presence that shares the path with us. Even more, we come to understand more and more that not only does Someone share this path with us, but that it was this Someone who called us, from the beginning, this Someone to whom our faith responded — and responds every day, as we are called every day.

We do not set foot upon the path in any particular spot, or in any particular way: when and where one is, will do. And whoever one is, will do. (“Just as I am, and waiting not…” — Traditional hymn.) “For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ [Isaiah 49:8] Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” [2 Corinthians 6:2– 3]

—Bishop Elijah: A Divine and Healing Path, 2000

What we call the Creed was once called the Symbolon, the symbol of our faith. It was created by our elders meeting in Nicea (325 AD) and tweaked by another meeting in Constantinople (381 AD). The Symbolon comes from a catholic (universal) view, before the church was rocked with splits. It was a tapestry of local customs, but there was no Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Armenian Church. This Creed speaks to us as fundamental to all of Christianity.

No member of the Old Catholic Church is forced to believe anything, but here is the gist...

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

What's more, this creator made things you can't even imagine (heaven and the invisible). When the Creed was written, this was a radical departure from the Greek, Roman and Egyptian religions which held that multiple gods and goddesses created Earth to bring order to a universe that already existed. They used mankind to bring order to the chaos. The upstart Christians said it was one supreme being who made everything out of nothing (ex nihilo).

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made;

We have God the Father and God the Son, but we say that these aren't separate gods. That had plenty of smart people scratching their heads, and many of them came up with explanations that competed with each other. Some said Jesus wasn't really a God-figure until His public ministry started. Others said Jesus was half person and half God.

...who (Jesus) for us, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man;

...he (Jesus) was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;

...from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead;

...whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.

In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.