What does Emmanuel Presbyterian Church believe?

Emmanuel is part of the Presbyterian Church, USA, part of the Reformed tradition in North America. Theologically, this means we believe that salvation is by God's grace alone (not our merits), through faith in Christ alone (not in our good works, nor any other mediators between God and humans) and to the glory of God alone.

Presbyterians believe Jesus Christ is the eternal son of God, the “Word” of God who was “with God” and “was God” (John 1:1). At the same time, we believe “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14) fully human, fully divine, for the sake of God’s love for humanity and the created world.

Beyond this, Presbyterians as a denomination hold a set of common beliefs, yet we as individuals often understand these beliefs and the application of them in our lives differently. 

The following are a few questions people often ask about Presbyterians. Hopefully they will spark your interest to know more and to be engaged with Emmanuel! We need perspectives from all of God’s people to be whole. A common saying among Presbyterians who value being with other Christians who do not think exactly alike is “We are better together!” Christ is the unifying factor of our community, not any one ideology. 

If you read the following questions and answers and want to go further, contact Pastor Jane or one of Emmanuel’s ruling elders, or check out the extensive information provided by TheoAcademy 

How can Presbyterians justify different understandings of belief?
It’s simply that one of our core beliefs is that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” which means that ministers or councils do not dictate to individuals what to believe, rather we trust God to reveal truth when and how God chooses. 

How do Presbyterians view scripture?
Presbyterians claim that the Bible is the Living Word of God, but we also understand that it often needs interpretation. Two people can read the same scripture and yet it can speak to each differently because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

How can you read the Bible faithfully this way?
Self-interested readings are a danger. That’s why Presbyterians always do two things when we interpret scripture. First, we pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we read. Second, we read scripture with other people who can help us see our blind spots or recognize our own hidden agendas. 

Sometimes those ‘other people’ are scholars who’ve written commentaries on the scripture we’re reading and sometimes they are people from other cultures and sometimes they are our Christian brothers and sisters who are similar to and yet different from us. 

For instance, reading about Jesus with a man who lives on the streets can provide amazing insight into the passage in which Jesus says, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Above all, we practice what is called a hermeneutic of love. Any interpretation of scripture must be loving. Through the work of the Holy Spirit and in community, diversity of understanding strengthens and deepens our understanding of the love of Jesus Christ and how Christ’s love calls us to serve. 

We read the Bible with these questions in mind: Where is God in this reading? Where is love in this reading? Who is hurt or elevated by my interpretation of this reading? How does this reading convict me to live a more honest, loving, strengthened, and honorable life that shows my love of God, my acceptance of God’s love for me, and my charge as a Christian to love others?

What is a commonly held belief of Presbyterians?
We believe that God loves us. Each of us. This is the starting point of faith. This belief rests upon our trust in God’s grace that is constantly at work in our lives and the world, even when we do not see it, and even when people are accidentally or purposefully working against it. 

Presbyterians do not believe that we are saved by works of our own making. We believe we were saved by the actions of Jesus Christ who lived, taught, died, and was resurrected for the sake of God’s will to reconcile all of creation to God.  We believe, as we grow in our faith and follow Christ, God’s grace is at work in our lives and will produce the fruits of the Holy Spirit over the course of our lives: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We believe God is a God of love. This makes sense of everything else. For instance, creation. God creates this world out of love. It is a good world. It is not a prison or a place to waste away a life waiting for heaven. It is our home. We are to have dominion over it the way God has dominion over us. That is, we are to love, and care for it, too.

What’s incarnation?
Incarnation means “in the flesh.” It is the word we use to describe God becoming a human in Jesus. It’s an act of love. For Christ followers, we all agree that in some way Jesus was reconciling the world to God—because “God so loved the world.” God came into human form in Jesus Christ, as a child, as a human with a body. We celebrate Christ’s incarnation in the season of Advent.

What do you mean that Jesus paid the debt of our sin?
Atonement describes Christ’s death on the cross resulting in reconciling humanity with God. How that reconciliation

God, trying to speak to us in our own human language and experience, lived and died in such a way that we could see his reconciling love for us.  

A debt paid is one way scripture talks about atonement. That’s a legal/economic metaphor for what Jesus did when he died on the cross. There are others: overcoming the power of sin and death, paying a ransom, reconciling estranged parties, making the final sacrifice, restoring the fullness of humanity, and a host of others. 

Each way of speaking about atonement guides us to remove whatever separates us from God. In Jesus, God has taken the initiative to end that separation. That’s love. That’s how we should always talk about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the words of the Bible: God’s reconciling love for humanity. 

Why are we separated from God anyway?
That’s a question you could spend a lifetime answering. Some have looked at the story of the garden of Eden and come to the conclusion that humanity had a “fall,” and became a broken people who forgot that God is always with us and we are always in God. This is the interpretation Paul makes in one of his letters. 

In Christian history, the fall has been the most influential answer. Others look at the Bible and at their fellow humans and simply note that we live in a broken world without offering a reason why it happens. These are not fully satisfactory answers. We can only acknowledge that in our free will, we have a chance to choose, and we often make hurtful choices. Choosing not to love separates us from God and reveals our sin. Jesus stands in the midst of this pain and sin and calls us back to God in love. 

Well, can we talk about Adam and Eve? Because I’m not sure they’re real.
That’s okay here. Presbyterians acknowledge that the Bible is reflective of the times in which it was written. Some stories—gasp!—were initially regarded as legends (for instance, the stories of creation, Noah and the flood, Jonah and the whale, etc…). You do not have to believe that the Bible is without scientific or historical error in order to be a Christian. The Bible is a ongoing revelation of God’s character, God, who is beyond our human understanding. In response to someone who might say the Bible must be read absolutely literally, a Presbyterian might say “I take the Bible too seriously to read it literally.”

By reading scripture, particularly about Jesus, we can more fully know what God is like. If we look at Jesus, we discover that God cares about healing; we discover that God cares about the outcast; we discover that God cares about how we treat each other; we discover that God cares about us, God loves us and is working with us to live in a way that reflects these truths. 

But isn’t it easier to just believe everything exactly as written?
Scripture holds great vitality for those who have trouble believing it all. A great theologian named Karl Barth was traveling in the U.S. giving a lecture on Adam and Eve when a student raised his hand and asked, “Dr. Barth, you’re an intelligent man. You couldn’t possibly believe that a serpent could talk to Eve, could you?” Dr. Barth replied, “I’m not interested in whether the serpent could talk. I’m interested in what it had to say.” This may not be the easiest way to think about the Bible, but we believe the Holy Spirit works in us to guide us in reading and hearing the Word of God.

Don’t Presbyterians believe in predestination?
Predestination is not the belief that everything we do in life has been pre-ordained. That’s predeterminism. Predestination is the belief that God has given us salvation even before we are born. There is nothing we can do to gain it or to lose it. Like our birth, it is simply a gift. So, yes, Presbyterians believe in predestination. We also believe only God predestines us: it is not a human determination made from one human to another. 

You baptize adults who want to proclaim their faith, but why do you baptize babies?
We baptize our children because we believe God chooses us before we can ever make a choice for God. When children come to an age where they can make conscious choices about faith, we ask those children to confirm their baptism by making the same vows their parents made for them when they were young. 

Do you have communion?
Yes. The Lord’s Supper, a sacrament that has as its backdrop the Passover meal that Jesus ate with his disciples, is celebrated every first Sunday of the month at worship. The invitation to the Lord’s Supper is extended to all who desire to follow Christ, remembering that access to the communion table is not a right conferred upon the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love. Even one who has doubts or whose trust is wavering is invited to the table to be assured of God’s love and grace in Christ Jesus. The church has two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 

Churches are so political these days. Are you one of those?
We are a small congregation presently, but theologically, Emmanuel is a “big tent church” where Democrats and Republicans, Independents, and apoliticals all come together to worship God, to learn about God, to form a healthy, loving community and to participate in mission outreach (through our local church and through the broader PC(USA)). 

We do not espouse a particular political platform. (Remember - God alone is Lord of the conscience.) One thing we all have in common is a strong commitment to the traditional separation of church and state.

We believe that God is sovereign over every part of our life and that the demands of the gospel often cross over into areas where politics exist. We must each discern this faithfully, and in the meantime, we know we are called to serve Jesus Christ and that requires that we observe the world’s needs, study scripture, examine our bias, and discern our faithful witness and behaviors at a particular time in history. Presbyterian theology emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ.

Many types of Christian denominations and non-denominational believe these things, what is different about Presbyterians?

As part of the Reformed tradition, the primary distinction that makes the PC(USA) church Presbyterian is the way we govern the church, that is, our church polity. The Book of Order gives guidelines on church governance. The term presbyterian designates a collegial type of church government by pastors and by lay leaders called elders, or presbyters(from the New Testament term presbyteroi).

The Presbyterian church is run at every level by a combination of clergy and laity, men and women alike, and is governed from the bottom up – starting at the church level and moving upward to the combined national bodies of the church.