In full belief I say the Apostles’ Creed, understanding it as follows:

God – the Source of all –  is constant love – and does not compel us to follow him.

God is therefore also freedom, for we cannot help loving the one who made us, who knows us and who sets us free to choose, without abandoning us.

This God understands the source of our waywardness – the fact that we are enveloped by his creation, know that we are not the creators of our own being, and so are always doubtful of our own value . Needing to be assured of our own value we therefore suffer chronically from status anxiety.

This is the root cause of all the evil we inflict on ourselves and one another – beginning with the mistake of thinking that until others have acknowledged our value we have none.

And so God sent us Jesus, who was so sure of his Father’s love that he could overcome the world – the verdict of all those who shunned, shamed and killed him – and die without condemning them.

In this forgiveness is the assurance of God’s undying love for us also.

There is  no other secure foundation for our self-respect when faced with the deepest crisis.

On this rock I stand, assured:

• that the worst trials of this life are but a training for the next;
• that I, and all of us, have an eternal destiny  – and that we must therefore be joyful, whatever comes;
• that this eternal childhood is the Good News I must share.

Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and 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 into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall 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 life everlasting. Amen.

God is Constant Love

That there can be such a thing as constant, and therefore unconditional, love is so often contradicted by experience that we tend to project  inconstancy even onto the source of all that is.  That this source can not tolerate evil is also given so much credence in the Bible that the latter abounds with accounts of God’s violence.  Yet the same text insists on God’s constancy in caring for his people.  I hold to the view that the violence we experience is not willed by God, and that he gives us the grace to endure even that, without responding with more violence.  Slowly he is drawing all of us into his own eternal peace.

God does not compel us to follow him

Somehow the purest love forbids all compulsion or coercion, especially in matters of belief, and it seems to be deep within us to abhor any constraint on our freedom – to be able to love only that which sets us free.  And that is what the Trinity are constantly offering us – the freedom to love as they do.

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