To begin with, we believe in Jesus. We think the essential issue of the Christian faith is simply Jesus' own question, "But who do you say that I am?" We believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We feel we share a spiritual kinship with all who believe in Him, whatever their views on other subjects. We also believe that when we come to encounter Him and trust in Him and love Him, He begins to create new life in us, and over time, He Himself changes our views on matters which He considers important.
We also believe that the Christian Scriptures -- the gospels about Jesus, and the rest of the Old and New Testaments - are revelation from God, and that they are unequivocally true and reliable. We think they give us all we need to know concerning God and concerning what God wants us to do and to be.
We hold to the historic confessions of the Christian faith which date back to the first centuries after Jesus' life on earth. We also hold to the Westminster Confession and to the Shorter and Larger Catechisms that came out of the Westminster Convention in the 17th century in England. At that time, the government convened those considered the finest spiritual minds and hearts of the reformed churches in the kingdom to formulate a statement of faith to which all believers could agree. The product of several years' work was this confession and catechisms. Ironically, they were not adopted by the English church, but they did become the doctrinal standard of the Church of Scotland. They also became the doctrinal standard for most of the Presbyterian churches in North America until the late 1960's. We still hold to them. Copies of these documents are available for you.
A representative selection of our beliefs, taken from the Shorter Catechism, is included below. The Shorter Catechism, intended by the Westminster representatives, as they said, "for children and those with reduced capacities," is perhaps the best thing they produced.
From the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
- Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
- The Word of God, which is contained in the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.
- The Scriptures principally teach us what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.
- God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
- There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
- Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
- The only redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal son of God, became man, and so was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.
- Justification is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of, the sons of God.
- Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
- The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.
- At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfect blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity.