United Methodists share a common heritage with all Christians. According to our foundational statement of beliefs in The Book of Discipline, we share the following basic affirmations in common with all Christian communities:
Trinity:
We describe God in three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are commonly used to refer to the threefold nature of God. Sometimes we use other terms, such as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
God:
God creates. In the beginning God created the universe and the creation is ongoing. From the whirling galaxies, to subatomic particles, to the unfathomable wonders of our own minds and bodies, we marvel at God’s creative wisdom.
God sustains. God continues to be active in creation, holding all in “the everlasting arms”. God loves all creation. In particular, God loves humankind created in the divine image. This love is like that of a parent. We’ve followed Jesus in speaking of God as “our Father,” while at times it seems that God nurtures us in a motherly way as well. God is redeeming all creation.
• We believe in one God, who created the world and all that is in it.
• We believe that God is sovereign; that is, God is the ruler of the universe.
• We believe that God is loving. We can experience God’s love and grace.
Jesus:
We believe in Jesus as Savior, as the one through whom God has freed us of our sin and has given us the gift of whole life, eternal life and salvation. We speak of this gift as the atonement, our “at-oneness” or reconciliation with God. We believe that in ways we cannot fully explain God has done this through the mystery of Jesus’ self-giving sacrifice on the cross and His victory over sin and death in the Resurrection.
• We believe that Jesus was human. He lived as a man and died when He was crucified.
• We believe that Jesus is divine. He is the Son of God.
• We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that the risen Christ lives today. (Christ and Messiah mean the same thing, God’s anointed.)
• We believe that Jesus is our Savior. In Christ we receive abundant life and forgiveness of sins.
• We believe that Jesus is our Lord and that we are called to pattern our lives after His.
Holy Spirit:
After Jesus’ Resurrection, He told his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 18). A few weeks later, on the day of Pentecost, this came to pass: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2,4). As the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters attest, from that time on, the early Christians were vividly aware of God’s Spirit leading the new church.
Today we continue to experience God’s breath, God’s Spirit, as one of our creeds puts it, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, God present with us for guidance, for comfort and for strength.” The Spirit’s touch is intensely personal.
Faith:
Faith is the basic orientation and commitment of our whole being – a matter of heart and soul. Christian faith is grounding our lives in the living God as revealed especially in Jesus Christ. It’s both a gift we receive within the Christian community and a choice we make. It’s trusting in God and relying on God as the source and destiny of our lives. Faith is believing in God. Faith is following Jesus, answering the call to be His disciples in the world. Faith is hoping for God’s future, leaning into the kingdom that God has promised. Faith-as-belief is active; it is trusting, believing, following, hoping.
Theology:
Theology or doctrine is more a matter of the faithful intellect. It’s thinking together in the community of believers about faith and discipleship. It’s reflecting on the gospel. It’s examining the various beliefs we hold as a church. All of us, young and old, lay and clergy, need to work at this theological task so that our beliefs will actually guide our day-by-day actions and so that we can communicate our belief to an unbelieving world.
Scripture:
In thinking about our faith, we put primary reliance on the Bible. It’s the unique testimony of God’s self-disclosure in the life of Israel; in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; and in the Spirit’s work in the early church. It’s our sacred canon and, thus, the source of our Christian witness and authoritative measure of the truth in our beliefs. We study the Bible within the believing community and in our personal devotions. We interpret individual texts in light of their place in the Bible as a whole. We use aids prepared by scholars. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we try to discern both the original intention of the text and its meaning for our own faith and life.
Tradition:
Between the New Testament age and our own era stand countless witnesses on whom we rely in our relationship to God through Christ. Through their words in creed, hymn, discourse, and prayer, through their music and art, through their courageous deeds, we discover Christian insight by which our study of the Bible is enlightened. This living tradition comes from many ages and many cultures.
Experience:
A third source and criterion of our theology is our experience. By experience we mean especially the “new life in Christ,” which is ours as a gift of God’s grace; such personal assurance gives us new eyes to see the living truth in Scripture. But we mean also the broader experience of all the life we live, it joys, its hurts, its yearnings. So we interpret the Bible in light of our cumulative experiences. We interpret our life’s experience in light of the biblical message. We do so not only for our experience individually but also for the experience of the whole human family. Read more from the Book of Discipline.
Reason:
Finally, our own careful use of reason, though not exactly a direct source of Christian belief, is a necessary tool. We use our reason in reading and interpreting the Scripture. We use it in relating the Scripture and tradition to our experience and in organizing our theological witness in a way that’s internally coherent. We use our reason in relating our beliefs to the full range of human knowledge and in expressing our faith to others in clear and appealing ways. Read more from the Book of Discipline.
Social Creed of the United Methodist Church:
We believe in God, Creator of the world; and in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of creation. We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom we acknowledge God’s gifts, and we repent of our sin in misusing these gifts to idolatrous ends.
We affirm the natural world as God’s handiwork and dedicate ourselves to its preservation, enhancement and faithful use by humankind.
We joyfully receive for ourselves and others the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage, and the family.
We commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress.
We dedicate ourselves to peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom for all people of the world.
We believe in the present and final triumph of God’s Word in human affairs and gladly accept our commission to manifest the life of the gospel in the world. Amen.