What We Believe

The pioneers of The United Methodist Church - the Wesleys, Otterbein and Boehm, and Albright - "understood themselves as standing in the center stream of Christian spirituality and doctrine, loyal heirs of the authentic Christian tradition." They preached a gospel rooted in the biblical message of God's gracious response to a person's need. It was a gospel of God's self-giving love revealed in Jesus Christ. Theirs was, as John Wesley claimed, "the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion...of the whole church in the purest ages."

Four Guidelines

Our United Methodist Discipline states that

As United Methodists, we have an obligation to bear a faithful Christian witness to Jesus Christ, the living reality at the center of the Church's life and witness.

To fulfill this obligation we reflect critically on our biblical and theological inheritance, striving to express faithfully the witness we make in our own time.

Two considerations are central to this endeavor: the sources from which we derive our theological affirmations and the criteria by which we assess the adequacy of our understanding and witness.

Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.

1. Scripture. The Bible is the primary source for what we believe. Our doctrines are grounded in the biblical story of God's self-disclosure - in creation; in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; in the activity of the Holy Spirit; and in the coming of God's promised kingdom. We believe that God's Word and will are revealed to us when Scripture is interpreted in light of its original message, as well as in terms of its meaning for us today.

2. Tradition. Our Christian tradition is rooted in the lives and within the works and testimony of those who have gone before us. Church ritual, creeds, and hymns are all part of our heritage.

3. Christian experience. Gives us new eyes to see the living truth in Scripture. It confirms the biblical message for our present. It illumines our understanding of God and creation, and motivates us to make sensitive moral judgments.
Although profoundly personal Christian experience is also corporate; our theological task is informed by the experience of the Church and by the common experiences of all humanity. In our attempts to understand the biblical message, we recognize that God's gift of liberating love embraces the whole of creation.

4. Reason. We believe all truth comes from God. Our beliefs must take into account scientific knowledge and practical experience, and avoid self-contradiction. We should try to discover the relationship of revelation to reason, faith to science, and grace to nature as we endeavor to develop doctrines that are credible and clear.

United Methodists accept the historic creeds and confessions as cherished testimonies of our Christian past. But we encourage new statements of old truths. Many of the truths we affirm as United Methodists are shared by other Christians.

Our Essential Beliefs

We believe in one God who is infinite in wisdom, power, and love. We affirm our trust in God as the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all things, the One who comes to us as the Holy Spirit. We believe that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ give us a clear, full, and true revelation of God. We believe that God is Spirit. No one has ever seen God, God is love. We believe that God is all merciful, righteous, and just. Through prayer, and in fellowship with God, we grow in our understanding of the divine purpose and will for our lives.