Trinitarian-Universalist-Progressive-Christian

My statement of reconstructed faith as a Trinitarian-Universalist-Progressive-Christian:

I’m completely queer-affirming. I do not believe being gay/bi/lesbian/transgender etc is a sin. I affirm that God created queer people in the image of God, the way they are.

I affirm women in leadership, women in ministry, women speaking in churches, women’s right to vote, women’s rights to make choices about their own bodies; women’s right to tell every man to wear a condemn and to prosecute men who refuse to take responsibility for safe sex; I believe women who say they were raped, sexually assaulted, sexually harassed, and sexually traumatized, I affirm women’s rights to explore their own masculine energies as well as feminine energies, to come out as gay or bi or gender non-conforming and gender non-binary.

I affirm the equal worth and value of all people across the gender spectrum and sexual identities. I am gender-egalitarian and long for all genders to have equal access to opportunities for study and work and sport and financial support and non-discriminatory medical care etc.

I affirm parental rights to be stay-at-home parents, parental rights to work, access to parental leave, parental rights to adapt and change during different phases of life.

I am at least as much pro-choice as I am pro-life. I think these terms have been hijacked because the people who claim to be pro-life and anti-abortion tend to be pro-murder of other kinds like war, capital punishment, and pro-gun ownership, carrying and use. I have more moral problems with war, capital punishment and guns than I do with abortion or euthanasia. I know many women who have had abortions and I couldn’t fault one of them for their reasoning. I can only enter into their stories and show love and compassion for the difficult decisions they have had to make.

I don’t take the Bible literally. I cherry pick as much as the next person. I affirm where the Bible teaches that God is love (1 John 4:8), love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8), mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13), God will never leave or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5 & Romans 8:39), God was in Christ reconciling the world to Godself (2 Corinthians 5:19) (and God doesn’t fail), our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29), fire refines (Malachai 3:2) everyone will be salted with fire (Mark 9:49) ie. everyone goes through hell and comes out the other side, God is making everything new (Revelation 21:5).

I reject a picture of God that is violent, that kills women and children, a God that floods the earth to drown and punish people, I caveat these things with God disciplining those he loves (Hebrews 12:6), and God flooding the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God (Habakkuk 2:14).

I personally affirm the Trinity, but I don’t believe you have to be Trinitarian to use the label “Christian.” Nor do I believe you have to have a specific set of beliefs about Jesus / Christ to call yourself “Christian” or “Trinitarian.” Being a Christian means following the way of the Christ as best as we can understand this as the way of love. Love for neighbor, self, enemy, other and God. Trinitarian-universal love.
Traditionally the Trinity refers to Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three persons, one Godhead. How I understand the Trinity: when I think of Christ, I am actually thinking of the entire human race. God united with humanity. God becoming human so that whatever happens to God, happens to the entire human race. So when God makes a covenant with the second Adam ie. Christ (Romans 5)—God is on both sides of that covenant, making the covenant as God and embodying it in human flesh—and God justifies/reconciles all of humanity universally to Godself: God doesn’t fail. Grace increases all the more! God is in Christ, in humanity, reconciling the world to Godself. Every human being is within the Trinity.

I reject Hell as eternal conscious torment or eternal separation from God. The only Hell I can conceive of is the refiner’s fire of godly love, burning the dross of our lives away, reconciling us to love for self, love for all people and love for God (again, trinitarian-universal love).