A different kind of doctrinal statement
Always UNDER “CONSTRUCTION.”
Life is WRESTLING. Aren’t you?
Last Updated: March 11, 2026
“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”
— Saint Gregory Of Nyssa
“Doctrinal statements” should be personal, honest statements of exploration and wonder, not man-made lists from institutions that become more important than the Bible, faith, truth, and love. People shouldn’t be punished for thinking and challenging assumptions, especially if they’re wrestling with God.
A Preface
For most of my life, I’ve wrestled with rigid doctrinal statements, lists of propositions that served as gatekeepers to “true” faith. Faith was about agreeing to a little more than a handful of predefined postulates (a lot more than”faith in Christ alone”) that propped up an entire system. When I planted a church almost 10 years ago, I presented a statement that, though sincere, was constrained by expectations I wasn’t able to admit.
Today, I attempt to share where I stand authentically, acknowledging I still have a lot to learn, not as a test of admission, but as a personal map of a lifelong quest—a work in progress meant to invite others into a broader conversation about truth, love, and the divine narrative.
Definitions like “faith,” “sin,” and “biblical worldview” have fundamentally shifted from what the Bible actually was and still is: leaving empty edifices of theologies many are confused with and struggling to authentically live out. It’s not our fault: we’ve been experiencing generations of doctrinal entropy. Today, modern human knowledge, science, and archaeology have been blasting out hard biblical facts everywhere to help anyone actually and simply understand the Bible plainly. Once seen, it’s like scales came off, and it can’t be unseen. We live, perhaps, in a time of a Great Awakening…even if there will be birth pains.
Our modern, globalized, and nihilistic world has turned into a breeding cage for Ego. We all – every tribe, ethnicity, language, religion, and nation – understand this, even if we can’t admit our part in it yet. My vision is for a future where our children no longer live in our shadows, and we no longer need kings.
Discipleship: A Way of Life
Discipleship is far more than agreeing to ideas, practicing a skill, evangelism, or adhering to a static set of rules—it’s a living, evolving journey of embodying a better narrative. Discipleship is about, in many ways, adopting a new way of life (i.e., worldview) and doing the work to conform to that instead of the typical mindsets out there.
Christian Discipleship then has some specifics and ways about it. Proper definitions are more about guiding the subjective chaos of the human experience than it is dictating black-and-white, reductionistic, and disingenuous mandates upon others when we don’t figure our crap out.
Disciplines then become about the subjective conscious holon learning to live in a particular way of being, not doing. Of course, behavior, relationships, family, work, society, and a whole lot of things are a part of it because it’s from the internal frame of the subjective human being. It’s getting uncomfortably serious about Christianity being about a “personal relationship with Jesus.“
AA gets discipleship more with its sponsors, service, the unity of collective conscience, and the adoption of life-long, spiritual, and all-encompassing principles that allow a community of people to exist and speak the same language.
Every one of us is a subjective conscious holon, an individual yet integral part of the divine tapestry. True discipleship calls us to walk in vulnerability and empathy, to confront our own brokenness, and to rise above the old narratives that no longer serve us. It is about living out love and truth in every encounter and decision, fostering a life that is marked by honest self-reflection and continuous growth. This way of life invites us to reexamine our beliefs, to shed the weight of outdated dogmas, and to engage deeply with the present reality—transforming our existence into a dynamic testament of faith that is as personal as it is interconnected with the larger divine story.
On Heresy: A Call to Honest Inquiry
There is a very real and obvious fact about “heresy”: It’s defined by the loudest majority. Heresy is that which willfully leads people away from Truth and Love. Jesus taught that God’s people kill their own prophets ( Thessalonians 2:15) and called them “heretics” too. When Christians attack, or even kill, in the name of doctrine and God, it is heresy. When we use God as a cover, a way to hide in a group and feel secure, it’s taking His name in vain. When we fail to love our neighbor, we fail to abide in Christ and to love God. When Christians reject reality and obscure the evident teachings of Scripture that directly contend with American Evangelicalism, it is heresy. For a Christian, to be unloving is the primal heresy.
We’ve flipped our understanding of the word “faith” and, as such, have gotten really confused about what heresy is. What has happened, instead, especially in the last few hundred years, is that the word “heresy” is used as propaganda and scares Christians away from topics and subjects that Christian leaders are uncomfortable with. This is happening. According to most Evangelical pastors, this page’s content is heresy and comes from a heretical, recovering pastor. I contend that the gospel that’s out there isn’t the true, biblical Gospel. Who is the heretic?
Heresy isn’t defined solely by doctrinal deviation—it’s the danger of clinging to beliefs so tightly that we shut down genuine love and inquiry, becoming egoic and stuck. This is how heresy becomes orthodoxy. When we hold any claim as absolute and beyond question, we risk silencing the vibrant, messy dialogue that true discipleship demands. We also neglect Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would “guide [us] into all the truth” (John 16:13). Heresy, then, is less about error and more about the refusal to reexamine what we claim to hold certain. It’s a caution against turning personal, transformative insights into rigid dogma that stifles growth and connection.
Read more thoughts at From Honesty to Heresy: Rethinking What We Hold Certain.
Christian Mysticism Definitions
In building a doctrinal definition that works in real life, they will fall short of the glory of God, and to capture both the timeless and the transient aspects of our human existence. Language changes with time, as does humanity. As soon as we name something, we change. What matters is if we live truthfully, not if we know perfect definitions and agree with them.
But I have some suggestions. Read them on the Christian Mysticism Vocabulary page.
5 Solos: A Reimagined Theological Compass
Drawing inspiration from classic formulations while acknowledging their limitations, here is my personal pivot on the solos—proposing a framework that’s both simple and honest. These are less about proposing “new” Solos than logical and Scriptural challenges to Martin Luther’s original.
To be frank, they still need work, and I don’t know Latin.
- Sola Agape: Love transcends boundaries. To love others, our enemies, and even ourselves is to participate in the very act of loving God. This is not a transactional equation but a radical, all-encompassing commitment to the transformative power of love. It is the only marker and fruit of loving God.
- Sola Scriptura (as Narrative Theology):
Scripture is reimagined not as a static set of rules but as a human narrative that subjectively engages with the present. It demands historical accuracy, honest personal application, self-awareness, and a commitment to acceptance. Engaging with the written Word also means remaining open to and discipled with the ever-active, dynamic Word of God in our lives—liberating us from stagnating assumptions or insecurities. - Solo Veritas:
The main point of Truth is to be true. This is not the same as knowledge or agreement. Each person must choose how to align with Reality—and wrestle with what they will accept as true. “We” may resist that responsibility, but it cannot be avoided. Truth is both subjective and objective: it is the meeting point between our inner life and external reality. Solo Veritas calls us to reliability, honesty, and vulnerability; to practice self-discipline, empathy, and wisdom; and to let our understanding grow as we refine our vision of ourselves and the world. - Sola Christus:
Christ is our only model, moral teacher, and objective. His life calls us to humble submission—dying to our self-centeredness so that we may live fully in truth and love. In His example, we find the way to genuine discipleship, one that transforms us from the inside out. We chose to see the world as He does and engage with others in the same worldview. - Soli Deo Gloria:
Ultimately, all that we are and do is for the glory of God. This perspective recognizes God as the uncaused, sustaining presence beneath all existence, and that we’re not It. It is a call to live with gratitude, detachment, and a deep acceptance of our fate—as we participate in the Kingdom of God here and now.
An Eschatological Vision
The Coming of the Son of Man
I’ve wrestled with eschatologies in the past until I realized Revelation was about the events and times of the first-century church, not about our fixation on making it all about us. Yet, there is still a grand and global vision contained within Scripture.
The coming of the Son of Man is understood as the fulfillment of Christ’s vision for humanity—a process of inner and collective renewal rather than a single cataclysmic event. As the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:28, “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him that put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” This passage teaches that even the Son will ultimately be united with the Father, pointing to a future when the full measure of Christ’s redemptive work is realized in every believer.
In Ephesians 4:13, Paul exhorts believers to mature “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God,” indicating that the expansion of Christ’s kingdom occurs as hearts grow in love and truth—a gradual, transformative process that unfolds over time.
Scripture also reveals a striking narrative of restoration: from the confusion of languages at Babel to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to all languages and nations in Revelation, there is a clear thread of “unbabeling” that points to a world coming back into harmonious order. From before Ezekiel, God has promised He would write His law within us and on our hearts (Ezekiel 36:37), and Paul recognized it happening in his time – perhaps we should too. John the Apostle closed his Revelation with a vision of Heaven and Earth merging after Christ and the Church were finally united when Death and Sin were no more. This is the essence of what we pray for in “Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
Just as Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15) and every person is created in His likeness, the promised renewal is for all of humanity. Jesus already tore down the dividing walls between Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, and male and female 2000 years ago. Hebrews 12:1–3 encourages running our race with endurance by fixing our eyes on Jesus, who endured the cross for the joy set before Him.
The “coming of the Son of Man” is not a distant, isolated event but an ongoing, transformative awakening—a call for every human (“son of man”) to forsake hatred and despair and to embrace a life of bold forgiveness, honest self-examination, and inspired unity, until ultimately “God may be all in all.”
This promise isn’t about physical annihilation but about the resurrection of dry bones on Earth, a realization of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 17:20–21 that “the kingdom of God is in your midst.” The Earth’s future is not one of doom but one in which Heaven and Earth are finally unified. This time is coming, and I believe we’re on the cusp just before it.
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