Who am I????

Alright, for those of you who are still in doubt what my faith is...I'm going to use this next post to spell it out. For the benefit of whatever readers I have, I also plan to spend the next few posts talking about WHY I chose to believe what I believe in.

First of all, I am ,and through God's grace, will always be, a Christian. That means I believe in the saving Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross ALONE being enough to guarantee my redemption from sin and thus, entry into heaven. What sort of Christian am I? Well, thats the point of this post. I shall henceforth redirect anyone who asks about faith to my blog. :)

I am:-

1) I am an Evangelical:-
That means that I (thanks Wiki, for making my life easier):

a) Believe in the need for personal conversion (or being "born again");

b) Have a high regard for biblical authority (though I'm not a literalist);

c) Put an emphasis on teachings that proclaim the saving death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ;(therefore, I do not put as much emphasis on what I deem to be "non-required for salvation". Things like Baptism, Communion etc.

d) Believe in the Christian actively expressing and sharing the gospel.
(This is why even though I have some of the same beliefs as a Fundamentalist Christian, I am not one myself. Rather, I do not believe in the "inward looking" tendencies of Christian Fundamentalism. Instead, I believe a Christian should, by his nature, ACTIVELY seek to promote the gospel and look to the salvation of OTHERS since our own salvation is already ASSURED.

That last point brings me too my next point which is,

2) I am a Calvinist
I believe in a Christ Centred method of Salvation rather than one where the free will of man plays the pivotal role. Therefore, I believe that my salvation is assured and cannot be lost. More on this in my next post(s)

3) I am a Continuationist

This is a bit confusing to those who have known me. I am a Continuationist by faith. I believe that the miracles of Pentecost still happen today and CAN happen. However, I also believe that too many of the things deemed as "miracles" by today's Church are not genuinely from God. Make no mistake. I believe miracles HAPPEN, but not as much as some Christians believe it does. Again, the emphasis here is the word GENUINE.

4) I am an Egalitarian

I believe in the overarching principal of fairness between the sexes, both in the Church and in marriage. I do not believe that God predestined the woman to be the de facto supporter of her husband, nor do I believe that it is even logical nor beneficial to consider that. At the same time I do not believe that the man is any different from the woman, and that certain preconceptions of the male as made by today's society (i.e. the DE FACTO provider and protector) are purely societal and not Biblical. I will elaborate on this further when I have the time. Instead, like most egalitarians, I believe in an ABILITIES based leadership structure vs. one where being born a man makes you the default leader.