With a strong focus on preparing to grow, I’m working on a book I knew had to be written sooner or later. Later is here now. This one is tentatively titled Radix Fidem: A Covenant of Faith. There’s nothing new in it for regular readers. The narrative is specifically aimed at folks who haven’t encountered it before. Nonetheless I will serialize it here for your inspection. Feel free to comment; I may not use your advice, but it’s still valuable to hear from a different perspective.
This will be published at my account on Smashwords, and I hope to prepare a format for paper printing. I can’t afford to print a bunch of copies myself, but we can make it easier for someone with the right equipment to do so.
The first installment follows….
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Foreword
This is our covenant, the basis for working together in a community of faith. Granted, I am the sole author of the words in this book, but there is a growing community of people who have embraced it. As will be clarified later in this book, this covenant is not a matter of orthodoxy. It’s more a question of how we can agree to work together based on common assumptions. Nobody is setting forth a statement that this is how God works with everyone, but it’s how He works with us.
So it’s not a question of reading this and swearing allegiance to the ideas. Rather, it’s a question of whether you can say: “I can live with this.” If you can understand what’s written here, then you can form a good estimate of what to expect from the leadership. You’ll understand nobody is required to swallow everything, only promise not to interfere as our common efforts grow out of these ideas. Indeed, we rather hope you won’t try to join unless these ideas speak to your heart as the right way to do religion.
This is a huge leap away from the mainstream Western approach to Christianity. I’m not going to tell you that what’s written here reflects a precise adherence to the ancient Hebrew approach from the Bible, but is our best approximation of what that approach demands of us today in our current context. We don’t pretend we are somehow reviving the ancient Hebrew ways, but we do hope to take our cues from their ways, letting them inform our choices.
What we have found is a treasury of peace with God. There is simply no way we can be silent about this and keep it to ourselves; there’s more than enough to share.
A note of caution: This author is an American, called of God to witness to an American audience. Nothing excludes others from using this message and embracing this covenant. However, the frame of reference is the United States of America, so the reader is cautioned to be aware of the limited context. If you aren’t immersed in American social culture and religion, some of this will require adjustments to fit into a non-American context. I’m not touting America as God’s favorite; quite the contrary. This message includes a harsh judgment against the particular sins of America.
A covenant, even at least a contractual approach, seems miles ahead of the current American way of getting things done, i.e., force via legislation or anonymous social convention.