Inquirers’ class

This short course was written to provoke discussion in an adult inquirers’ class at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Corpus Christi, in the fall of 2009. It was meant to be complementary with a book by Jennifer Gamber and Bill Lewellis titled Your Faith, Your Life (Morehouse). There are no blazing insights here, but there are a few arguments from a particular point of view.

I’d like to think these short lessons present a coherent overview of how one might embrace Christian faith and practice in the 21st century without being either a fundamentalist throwback or a reductionist crank. These brief articles are not meant to persuade or convert but to inform and, I hope, invite people with generous hearts and open minds into fellowship with God in Christ Jesus.

Quite frankly, I have never wanted to be a Christian in order to be saved but to love and be loved by God and all others of my kind on Earth as it is – or may be – in Heaven. I have plenty of doubts about Christian doctrines, but I have no doubt whatever that Christ Jesus is the way I choose to be with God in this world. As for what comes next, I have no fear, for eternity is in God’s hands, not mine; and it’s a waste of my precious time of God-given life to fret about that which I can not begin to comprehend.

• We are the church
• Community: Tradition, scripture and reason
• Community: Fellowship, bread and prayers
• Jesus in the gospels
• The Gospel of John
• Jesus and the kerygmatic Christ
• Paul’s letters
• Revelation
• The church in history
• Anglican tradition
• Vocation
• Common prayer
• Using the Book of Common Prayer
• Formation in love
• Christian maturity
• Sacraments: Acts of the church
• Baptism/confirmation
• Eucharist
• Healing
• Reconciliation
• Ordination
• Blessing of a marriage