The problem with a typical definition of faith as something we think is true but can’t prove is the implicit assumption that there exists anything that could be proven true in a more objective way than a statement of faith. Consistency and coherence within a given set of expectations and rules is all anyone can hope for, whether it’s a statement of faith, a claim of science, an historical recollection, or anything else. Faith is the assumption upon which knowledge or doubt is possible. Faith is the desert in which we name the stakes we think we’ve found.

Truth and Love aren’t separate. Relationship is the context in which truth is possible and love is the bond that makes relationship real. Emotional connection is the means by which actual humans enter relationship and the shaping through which truth comes to be capable of meaning anything in particular.

Shame is I am not enough. With Jesus, there is always more than enough.

The bible contains no answers. The bible reshapes our questions in the light of God’s nature and mission, which enables us to experience the answers in the embodied practice of faith.

There is no right or wrong in relationship – only things that build relationship up and things that tear it down. Theology is like this aspect of relationship – you can argue till you’re blue in the face over whether one detail is right or the other, but at the end of the day you’re simply pointing toward God or you’re not. What it means to point toward God may change over time just as what it means to compromise and support one another in relationship changes over time. That doesn’t mean God ‘changes’ per se, just that what was right about theology in the first place wasn’t the words used as much as it was the relationship empowered.

I don’t reject biblical inerrancy. I reject the epistemological assumptions that are required to create the world in which inerrancy means anything.

We should not be too concerned over whether or not our actions are changing the world because our calling is to be faithful to a God who is.

Faith is not a thing to have but a life to live; a person to become; a change to experience; a lens through which to see.