Karam Fellowship exists to cultivate theology for the life of the world.
What does that mean?
Our Faith and Mission
Karam Fellowship strives to root all its thinking and practice in Christ, God’s incarnate word. We discern Christ by the testimony of the Bible, God’s written word, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit binds us to Christ, and in Christ to one another, and he illuminates the testimony of the Bible as we study it in community. In Christ and through the Bible we rediscover, and learn to understand anew, ourselves and the entire world Christ made. In Christ, by the Spirit and with one another, we are summoned in all areas of life to God’s mission: to bear the divine image renewed in Christ, bear witness to God’s holy love in this dark and suffering world, and bear fruit for God’s glory. Our magnificent redemption from sin and despair into this life of flourishing in the Lord’s holy love is accomplished for us and in us according to the plan of the Father, who in pure and free grace sent his “two hands,” the Son and Spirit, to triumph over our sin and reclaim us to the holy love of God. This holy love we now offer to the world, and strive to put into effect in the world.
Celebration of Harmony
In our faith and mission we rejoice to be, and strive to remain, in organic continuity with the thought and practice of historic Christianity, and more particularly its classically Protestant expressions. We celebrate our harmony with the classic creeds and statements of the Athanasian tradition, and with the contemporary summary of their doctrine found in the confession of the World Evangelical Alliance; with the theology of God’s grace triumphing over sin entirely and exclusively through Christ’s death and resurrection that runs in unbroken succession from Ambrose and Augustine through Anselm and Aquinas to Luther, Calvin and Wesley; and with the gospel-grounded call to ecclesial identity and missional life that shines as brightly in the Epistle to Diognetus as it does in the Lausanne Covenant.
Who Is God?
We believe in one immanent and transcendent God, eternally existent in three equally divine persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – living forever in a communion of holy love. This divine communion is the original source and right end of everything that exists; God made all things to enjoy and glorify the holy love that he is. To partake of the holy love of the divine communion through worshipful reception and response, in all our work and in all our rest, is the only ultimate happiness and the only ultimate hope of humanity – and, through the stewardship of image-bearing humanity, of the whole created universe as well. The holy love of God is utterly unlike, and stands militantly against, the wickedness and injustice of the world as we now know it under the power of evil. From the beginning, God has been working out a plan to save and cleanse the world he made, restoring sinful humanity and the world they steward to communion with himself.
What Has God Said?
We believe the books of the Bible, as originally given by the inspiration of God in the writings of their human authors, are the only written word of God, without error in all they affirm, divinely inspired and entirely trustworthy, sufficient for salvation and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and life. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible repairs the sin in the hearts of God’s people, giving us the power to accept and understand its testimony as we read it together in a culturally and intellectually inclusive community of love and holiness. Far from diminishing our diversity, the authority of the Bible over the Christian community is a rebuke to our prideful desire for a homogenizing dominion; it summons us to listen to those who are different with respect, charity and hospitality, discovering what we have to learn from all the people God brings into our lives.
What Has God Done?
We believe that after humanity fell ruinously and hopelessly into the power of sin, the Father sent his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to reclaim us into the divine communion of holy love for which we were made. In the Father’s good time, Jesus was born of a virgin, very God and very man – God of God, light of light, manifest in human flesh. Like us, he was tempted by Satan, but he triumphed over evil where we failed, living a perfect life that in all respects displayed the holy love of God to the world, and bore witness against evil and injustice. To make atonement for our sin, he died vicariously in our place to satisfy the justice of the Father, make us children of God and defeat the reign of evil. He then rose again from the dead in a physical body of glory and power, and ascended to heaven, where all authority has been given to him as our supreme prophet, priest and king. At Pentecost he poured out his Spirit to dwell in his people, giving us new hearts, forming us into the people of God and sending us out on a new mission to bring his holy love to all the nations of the world.
What Is God Doing?
We believe that Christ has poured out the Holy Spirit in a new and dramatic way upon the world he made, sending the gospel out to all nations. The Spirit regenerates and indwells all who believe in and follow Christ and repent from their sin, uniting them to Christ, and to one another in Christ as a trans-national, trans-cultural people of God. By union with Christ in the Spirit we receive – freely, completely and immediately – forgiveness of sin and adoption as children of God, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. As God’s children we are enabled by the Spirit, individually and as the people of God, to struggle against sin and stand against injustice, living a life of good works that progressively becomes characterized by the holy love of God, without which no one will see the Lord. As the temple of the Holy Spirit we enjoy, and offer to all, communion with God’s holy love, the mission of God in the world, and the sure hope of Christ’s return in glory.
What Will God Do?
We believe that Jesus will personally return to the world he made, in power and glory, at a time known only to God, to bring to completion God’s plan to save and cleanse the world. At that time all evil powers will be thrown down forever, and the world will be permanently purged of wickedness, injustice, disease, suffering and death. All the dead will be bodily raised. Those not in communion with God’s holy love in Christ will encounter God as a pure and righteous judge who loves them, but who will not acquiesce in their sin, and will not delay forever his intention to save and cleanse his world; they will thus be lost. Those in communion with Christ will enter into the unsurpassed joy of knowing God to the full, and commence an eternal cosmic reign of delight, peace and power. The nations of the world will all be healed, will walk by God’s light, and bring in all their glories to be laid at Christ’s feet.
What Are We Called to Do?
Looking back to Christ’s perfect life and his accomplished victory in the cross and the empty tomb, and forward to his return in glory, we believe that we are called, individually and together, to God’s mission in all areas of life: to bear the divine image renewed in Christ, bear witness to God’s holy love in this dark and suffering world, and bear fruit for God’s glory. By a life of good works done in holy love by the power of the Spirit, we live as the body of Christ, serving as his hands and feet, bringing his holy love to the world as prophets who speak God’s truth against evil and injustice, priests commissioned to invite all people into reconciliation and healing through Christ, and kings and queens who have been entrusted with personal and social forms of stewardship responsibility. As Christ’s body we can neither isolate ourselves and withdraw from the nations and cultures of the world (for then we would abandon the love of God and the call to missional living) nor complacently conform to the world’s evil and unjust ways (for then we would abandon the holiness of God and the call to ecclesial living) nor seek to subdue the world to ourselves by brute force (for then we would abandon both the love and the holiness of God). Instead, we strive to be good neighbors, participating in the lives of our nations in ways that make the holy love of God visible as we proclaim the good news; serve the good of our neighbors and of all creation in our daily work; stand – with love, but with firmness – against all forms of evil and injustice; organize particular efforts of many kinds to cultivate all that is good; and remember with special care the poor and the marginalized.