FEAST Mission Statement

Wed, 13 May 2009 12:16:53 -0700

As members of FEAST, the United Campus Christian Ministry at UC Santa Cruz, we promise one another as followers of Christ to pursue the formation of an open-minded and inclusive community of faith, creating safer spaces grounded in mutual love, respect, and acceptance, where questions and questioning are not only welcome but seen as essential to our continual spiritual growth, and our individual spiritual journeys are respected and supported with honest conversation and dialogue.

In order to live faithfully the teaching of Jesus to love one another, we dedicate ourselves to seeking reconciliation between all God’s children, protecting and restoring God’s good creation, serving our local and global communities, pursuing justice and peace wherever there is injustice and strife, and sharing with the world Jesus’ subversive message of hope.

This statement of mission is the product of numerous intentional conversations and has been revised significantly since its first draft. As a community based in conversation and change, we expect this mission statement to undergo further revisions as we continue to discuss our goals and our hopes for FEAST.

A Narrative of Hope

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:40:51 -0800

As the One who creates us
in the image of goodness-
icons of love,
stewards of the earth,
and builders of community-

God is working in our world.

In Jesus of Nazareth,
who, being anointed by God,
came to proclaim good news to the poor,
freedom for the captive,
sanctuary for the marginalized,
liberation for all the oppressed,
and through his life, death, and resurrection

God is working in our world.

In the Holy Spirit,
who, by the grace of God,
bears us, sustains us, and comforts us
empowering us to be the body of Christ,
a people of courage,
seekers of justice and peace,
subverting the systems of power
and resisting individualism and privilege
with hope, faith, and love-

God is working in our world.

And so:
We welcome all to the table,
breaking bread with each other,
enacting God’s vision of a world
where everyone has enough.
And so:
We stand in solidarity with people
of every ethnicity, gender, creed, orientation, and identity,
raising our voices together,
calling out for justice for all.

All this we do
because we believe
with all our hearts
that we belong,
in life and in death,
in body and in spirit,
in faith and in doubt,

to God,

and God is working in our world.

This affirmation of hope represents values and beliefs important to many members of FEAST but is not meant to be a comprehensive or exhaustive understanding of what our students believe. We welcome disagreement with any or all of the aspects of this affirmation. What is your statement of faith? Let us know, and we’ll add it to our “Faith Talk” page!

Statement on Open Communion

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 20:04:32 -0700

As an inclusive community of faith, we seek to model ourselves after Jesus, who ate with all people, regardless of their situation in life, their social standing, or how they were perceived by others (Matthew 9:10-13). In this way, we celebrate communion with each other, remembering Jesus’ love for the world, and invite all people to come, without conditions or prerequisites.

As an ecumenical Christian organization, we have many diverse and different ways of understanding what communion means. Some of the ways we find meaning in communion include:

• as a meal of commemoration, remembering the love God revealed for us in Jesus’ life and teachings;
• as a table of presence, where Christ's body and blood are found in the bread and the cup;
• as a celebration of the earth and all the gifts we receive from creation;
• as an enactment of God’s vision of a world where all have enough and no-one is left out;
• as a protest of all the places in our culture and society where people are excluded;
• as an outward sign of God’s grace, forgiveness, and compassion;
• as a symbol of the Body of Christ found in the community of followers, believers, and seekers;
• as a reminder of the brokenness of our world, revealed through the breaking of the bread, and the healing God promises us, found in the pouring of the cup.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but displays the diversity of understanding found within FEAST and beyond. However, most of us agree on the following principles:

• Communion is a place to serve and be served.
• The invitation to the table is extended not by us but by the Spirit, and thus all people who feel called to are welcome to participate.
• In serving communion, we are in reliving the story of Jesus, and recontextualizing the story for our own time.
• All who wish to be fed should be served; all who wish to abstain will be respected.

And so in FEAST, if you are looking for a place to be fed and nourished, we welcome you to the table, where no-one is excluded or turned away.

Progressive Christian Alliance Statement of Faith

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:47:08 -0800

We believe in God,
whose love is the source of all life
and the desire of our lives
whose love was given a human face in Jesus of Nazareth
whose love was crucified by the evil that waits to enslave us all
and whose love, defeating even death,
is our glorious promise of freedom.
Therefore, though we are sometimes fearful and full of doubt,
we trust in that love: and in the name of Jesus Christ,
we commit ourselves, in the service of others,
to seek justice and to live in peace, to care for the earth
and to share the commonwealth of God's goodness,
to live in the freedom of forgiveness
and in the power of the Spirit of love,
and in the company of all the faithful
past, present, and yet to come,
so to be the Church, for the glory of God. Amen.

The Progressive Christian Alliance is a network of churches and individuals that focuses on radical inclusion, open-minded faithfulness, and social justice. This statement of faith expresses the shared values many in the network hold, although PCA, like FEAST, welcomes all beliefs into their fellowship.

The Jesus Creed

Sat, 1 May 2004 16:56:50 -0700

We have confidence in Jesus
Who healed the sick, the blind, and the paralyzed.
And even raised the dead.
He cast out evil powers and
Confronted corrupt leaders.
He cleansed the temple.
He favored the poor.
He turned water into wine,
Walked on water, calmed storms.
He died for the sins of the world,
Rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father,
Sent the Holy Spirit.

We have confidence in Jesus
Who taught in word and example,
Sign and wonder.
He preached parables of the kingdom of God
On hillsides, from boats, in the temple, in homes,
At banquets and parties, along the road, on beaches, in
towns,
By day and by night.
He taught the way of love for God and neighbor,
For stranger and enemy, for outcast and alien.

We have confidence in Jesus,
Who called disciples, led them,
Gave them new names and new purpose
And sent them out to preach good news.
He washed their feet as a servant.
He walked with them, ate with them,
Called them friends,
Rebuked them, encouraged them,
Promised to leave and then return,
And promised to be with them always.
He taught them to pray.
He rose early to pray, stole away to desolate places,
Fasted and faced agonizing temptations,
Wept in a garden,
And prayed, “Not my will but your will be done.”
He rejoiced, he sang, he feasted, he wept.

We have confidence in Jesus, So we follow him, learn his ways, Seek to obey his teaching and live by his example. We walk with him, walk in him, abide in him, As a branch in a vine.
We have not seen him, but we love him. His words are to us words of life eternal, And to know him is to know the true and living God. We do not see him now, but we have confidence in Jesus.
Amen.

This creed was written by well-known emergent church leader Brian McLaren and first shared at the Emergent Convention in Nashville, TN, May 2004.

8 Points of Progressive Christianity

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:05:01 -0800

By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who…
1 Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus,
2 Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us,
3 Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples,
4 Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;
5 Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe,
6 Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes;
7 Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; and
8 Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.

“The 8 Points of Progressive Christianity” comes to us from the Center for Progressive Christianity, a non-profit organization founded in 1994 dedicated to supporting mainline churches in finding a new progressive spiritual voice and foundation. This version of “The 8 Points” was crafted in 2003.

The Barmen Declaration

Tue, 29 May 1934 20:50:00 -0800

In view of the errors of the "German Christians" of the present Reich Church government which are devastating the Church and also therefore breaking up the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14.6). "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved." (John 10:1, 9.)

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation.

"Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30.)

As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords--areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together." (Eph. 4:15,16.)

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant." (Matt. 20:25,26.)

The various offices in the Church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

"Fear God. Honor the emperor." (1 Peter 2:17.)

Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God's commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church's vocation as well.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.

"Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matt. 28:20.) "The word of God is not fettered." (2 Tim. 2:9.)

The Church's commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of th free grace of God to all people in Christ's stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.

The Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of Confessional Churches. It invites all who are able to accept its declaration to be mindful of these theological principles in their decisions in Church politics. It entreats all whom it concerns to return to the unity of faith, love, and hope.
- from The Church’s Confession Under Hitler by Arthur C. Cochrane. Westminster Press. 1962.

The Barmen Declaration was written in May 1934 by Karl Barth and other members of the Confessing Church of Germany in opposition to the teachings of the Nazi “Protestant Reich Church”, which preached a doctrine of Aryan supremacy. While the language of the declaration may seem exclusivist to many Christians today, the point was not to deny the legitimacy of other faiths but rather to call the Christian church to repentance for its complicity in the Nazi regime’s plans of conquest, domination, and genocide.

Michigan Address-Sojourner Truth

Wed, 8 Jun 1881 19:32:36 -0800

Years ago I found that the religion of Jesus was forgiveness. When I prayed, "Father forgive me as I forgive those who trespass against me," I found that I was against hanging. When a man kills another in cold blood and you hang him, then you murder in cold blood also. When a prisoner is put into jail to be hung, the ministers go to convert him and they pray that God will forgive him. When he is converted, they put a rope around his neck and swing him off, but that is not Jesus' law.

But they tell me that we must abide by the public laws. I won't sanction any law in my heart that upholds murder. I am against it! I am against it! In olden times, it was "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but the Savior taught us better things than these and commanded us to love one another. I talk to a great many people, but none older than myself. I hate to see these younger people, who have every advantage to learn, keep traveling the road of life and filling their minds with nonsense and foolishness. When I was a child and heard about Jesus Christ, I thought he was some big man like Napoleon Bonaparte or George Washington, living off in some part of the country; but as I grew up the truth came to me, and I found out that there was a Jesus who was between me and God...

...the newspapers of my childhood used to have pictures of hell. I bought one once in New York, and there was one whole side covered with such a picture. On one side there was a narrow stair leading to heaven and the rest of the picture was a terrible abyss, with smoke rising up out of it, and numberless human beings swimming around in the flames. Then there was the old Evil One, with a long snout and a tail, stirring the others up with a pitchfork and I gazed upon that picture, I said, "My God, that is hell, sure 'nuff." There are probably persons here who can remember these things. As I got older I found out that there wasn't no such thing as hell, and that the narrow stairs only showed the narrowness of the mind that conceived the picture. I have found out and know that God's brightness and goodness and glory is hot enough to scorch all the sinners in the world.

Sojourner Truth, runaway slave, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist, is particularly famous today for her “Ain’t I Woman” speech. This excerpt from an address on capital punishment given in June of 1881 to the Michigan State Legislature by shows Truth’s remarkable faith, revolutionary and universalistic theology, and a passion for justice born from her religious convictions. Upon deciding to travel the nation to raise support for abolition, Truth told her friends, “The Spirit calls me, and I must go.”

Peace Testimony

Tue, 21 Dec 1660 19:01:43 -0800

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever; and this is our testimony to the whole world.

The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

This testimony from the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was first delivered to King Charles II in 1660 as a declaration of the nonviolence advocated by the Quakers and remains one of the best known testimonies of the Quaker faith. Today, it continues to inspire Christians of all denominations and backgrounds to nonviolent action and peace-making.

God Our Mother- Julian of Norwich

Mon, 25 Mar 1393 00:07:11 -0800

It is a characteristic of God to overcome evil with good.

Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him and this is where His Maternity starts And with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never ceases to surround us.

Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.

And He showed me this truth in all things, but especially in those sweet words when He says: “It is I”.

As if to say, “I am the power and the Goodness of the Father, I am the Wisdom of the Mother, I am the Light and the Grace which is blessed love, I am the Trinity, I am the Unity, I am the supreme Goodness of all kind of things, I am the One who makes you love, I am the One who makes you desire, I am the never-ending fulfillment of all true desires.”

Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is ‘Being’, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through his marvelous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Saviour.

It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates and our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank him reverently and to praise him for having created us and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Ghost, to obtain help and grace.

I then saw with complete certainty that God, before creating us, loved us, and His love never lessened and never will. In this love he accomplished all his works, and in this love he oriented all things to our good and in this love our life is eternal.

With creation we started but the love with which he created us was in Him from the very beginning and in this love is our beginning.

And all this we shall see it in God eternally.

Julian of Norwich was a 14th century English mystic. Her visions of the divine are recorded in “The Revelations of Divine Love”, which depict God and Jesus with both feminine and masculine metaphors and images. She is particularly well known for her hopeful saying, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”