As a publisher of faith formation content, our theological perspective is of particular interest to some. And if we claim, as we sometimes do, that our resources are theologically solid, we’d better be clear about what we are helping you teach.

As my final post of the summer, I wanted to share a bit of our theological perspective here at Spirit & Truth Publishing. A much longer document of our theological guidelines has been written for our writers and editors (eight pages), but I regularly get questions from potential customers about our theology, so I decided to create a shorter document (two pages) and web page. This blog post is my reflection on some of our key points.

We do not require or expect our contributors to commit to these or other faith statements personally, as some other organizations do. A person’s faith is between them and God. Just like our product-specific editorial guidelines and style guide (specific grammar, word choice, etc.), our theological guidelines are what we expect for the writing submissions we receive. While, as the publisher and owner of this company, I am the one who created these guidelines and summary, they do not represent every part of my personal theological perspective. That, again, is between me and God.

So, this blog post consists of reflections on our theological perspective and not the guidelines or summary themselves.

Bible and Context

What we call the Bible or Christian Scriptures is a set of 66 texts (books, letters, etc.) written by Jewish/Israelite authors with a possible exception of a few of the New Testament writings. Christianity did begin as a Jewish movement, after all. While there are common themes and through-lines in the whole of Scripture, each writer lived in a particular time and place and wrote to a particular intended audience with an intended purpose.

This is most easily seen in Paul’s letters. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he was writing to a specific group of people (church members in Corinth) and addressed specific concerns (see 1 Corinthians 1:11). But this is true for all the books.

This means that it is important that we learn as much as we can about the historical, literary, geographic, cultural, etc. contexts as we seek to interpret the meaning of the text and its application to our own lives.

Interpreting the Bible

Interpretation is inevitable. I had a friend years ago who told me “I don’t interpret the Bible, I only read it.” But that’s not possible. It’s not even possible to go about our daily lives without interpreting. Every day, stuff happens, and I give significance to those events based on my past experiences, beliefs, and knowledge about the world. And the very act of translation by very skilled scholars involves them making choices based on what they believe to be the best way to express the intention of the original writer. And these beliefs are based on the theological framework they believe to be true. Just look at the variety of English translations out there!

Finally, we do not assert that the Bible is inerrant or should be always read literally. That does not mean that the Bible isn’t holy, unique, and inspired by God. We believe that the “how” and significance of this inspiration is best left to individual denominations, congregations, and leaders.

Creeds

We hold to the traditional creeds of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan and Apostles’ Creeds as important summaries of the faith. They are no more inerrant than Scripture itself, but we teach the mystery of the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the physical resurrection of the body, and other doctrines that slip my mind right now.

Theological Neutrality

What we think of as theological neutrality is more of a goal to strive for than something we can completely accomplish. As I mentioned earlier, everyone approaches everything with a theological lens or bias. But we do try to avoid the major doctrinal disagreements and theological jargon that separate faith traditions and denominations and stick to what unites us. And I think that works (mostly), since our customers are Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, UCC, Baptist, Mennonite, Quaker, Nazarene, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Salvation Army, and more!

God’s Kingdom

As I wrote about last summer in a series on our core values, our theological foundation is simply love. God loves us undeservedly, unconditionally, and eternally. God has shown this love from the beginning, but most fully in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God incarnate. God loves us so much that, from our perspective, we can say that God is love. God loves us so much that God establishes a relationship with us that we could never begin ourselves and maintains that relationship no matter what we do (though that doesn’t mean that God’s always happy with our choices).

As someone important said (wink), the Greatest Commandments (God’s desire, call, and expectations for us) can be summarized simply as love God, love others. And this love is not fond feelings, but inclinations and actions that benefit the recipient. We call our love for God “worship.” Love toward others is service. Love encountering systems of oppression is justice. The result of love is joy. The end goal of service and justice is shalom (God’s peace), which is a reality when all people have everything they need to thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This reality, of which we only see glimpses now, is called the kingdom of God.

Faith Formation

I just spent several weeks discussing what I mean by faith formation, so I won’t go into that right now, but our basic definition is:

Faith formation is every action, experience, or relationship that nurtures a transformative relationship of trust with the Triune God and shapes the way we see and interact with God’s world.

This “transformative relationship of trust” is another way to say “faith” as a gift of God’s grace. “The way we see and interact” is “faith” as in what we believe (believe and faith being the same word in Greek).

Inclusive Language: God

For us, the foundation for equality and inclusion (specifically inclusive language) comes from the infinite nature of God and the inherent dignity of all people as image-bearers of God.

God is infinite and beyond our ability to understand. Anything we say about God is necessarily incomplete. The names, titles, and images of God we find in Scripture are only metaphors that communicate aspects of God in ways we can understand. God is not a rock but is steadfast and reliable. God is not a king as we understand human kings but is in charge. God is not a parent (father or nursing mother) but cares for us more than any human parent ever could. These images are gifts from God to facilitate a relationship in ways we can understand.

In similar ways, God has neither sex (biological characteristics including chromosomes and genitalia) nor gender (an internal sense and identity usually described as male, female, nonbinary, etc.). This is speaking of God as God, not the full humanity of God incarnate. Since, in English, the primary non-gendered pronouns are “it” (which is insulting when used for people) and “they” (a much longer discussion when related to God). Thus, we try to refrain from using pronouns for God or other gendered language.

Equality and Inclusion: People

All people inherently possess God-given dignity and equality as image-bearers of God. In our resources, as written materials, we only have two ways to express this dignity and equality: the language we use and the activities we include. From the beginning, we have used “they” to refer to leaders, participants, and anyone else we use pronouns for. This is simply because we don’t know the gender of whomever we are writing about (and he/she gets old very quickly). More recently, as we have come to better understand the complexities of sex and gender in us as God’s creations, we are also exchanging other gendered language (e.g., siblings rather than brothers and sisters, parents instead of fathers and mothers, etc.).

We also choose to honor the dignity of others by using person-first language. This is a style that originated within the disability community that literally puts the person first (e.g., people who are blind rather than “the blind”). We have also expanded this to include socio-economic conditions (e.g., people in need rather than “the poor”). In addition, we try not to assume any type of “normal.” Not all children have two married, living parents of different genders and a healthy relationship. Not all participants have a house or backyard (in fact, not all people have stable housing at all). Not all participants have money, time, or other resources to spare.

In terms of activities, we try to include service and justice work where it seems reasonable and not overwhelming to leaders/teachers. It is true that we have more direct service activities than justice work, in part because service opportunities tend to be much more active and concrete, and in part because justice actions tend to be quite context-specific.

In Conclusion

It is not our intention to force any type of doctrine or theology on our customers. As mentioned above, we seek to be theologically neutral when possible. If you disagree with any of our points here, there is a good chance that you can easily adapt our resources. For example, if you don’t agree with our inclusive language, you can easily add your traditional gendered language into the scripts we provide (or use your own words in general).

Please note that, as we are a small company with limited resources (and fallible humans), our materials might not always match these theological guidelines, especially in terms of inclusion. We always strive to improve, so if you notice any specific instances that do not meet our standards, please contact the publisher Gregory Rawn (me) at g.rawn@spiritandtruthpublishing.com.

May God help your faith to grow!

Gregory Rawn (Publisher)

Note: These theological guidelines apply to all our faith formation resources with the partial exception of our Spirit & Truth: Teaching Kids the Heart of Worship curricula for PK-2nd and 3rd-6th. As our earliest product, it does not follow our guidelines for gender-neutral language and is written for the common liturgy and basic theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and is thus not theologically neutral.

Order Faith Formation Resources

Order now for the 2024-2025 program year! Narrative Lectionary, Revised Common Lectionary, Classic Sunday School, and more. The fall and winter quarters for all products are available for immediate download. Spring quarters are on their way! If you don’t have much time for children’s Christian education, then check out our Kids Mini Lessons for the NL and RCL.

Are you still looking for shorter resources to launch the program year, family/intergenerational events, or Sunday school? Check out our Learning Together series, a set of five-lesson units on a variety of topics. You can read outside reviews on both our newest Created to Care and Do Justice units! Our faith formation resources are easy to use, theologically sound, and inclusive.

Introducing our newest Learning Together unit: Created to Care! Wonder at God’s creation and learn about what we can do to protect and heal it in these five lessons, intended for children and intergenerational groups, family or churchwide events, or Vacation Bible School. This curriculum is published in collaboration with BibleWorm, a weekly Narrative Lectionary podcast, to accompany their summer series on Creation Care.

At Spirit & Truth Publishing, we might just have exactly what you are looking for:

• Resources for the Narrative Lectionary (2024-2025): Products for all ages (with NEW mini lessons, if you only have a short time for elementary faith formation).
• Classic Sunday School Curriculum: Key Bible stories for PK-2nd and 3rd-6th, also great for your Christian elementary school!
• Learning Together: Five-lesson, topical units for VBS, Sunday school, children, and intergenerational classes.
• Cross+Generational Confirmation
• Resources for the Revised Common Lectionary (2024-2025): Intergenerational classroom, mini lessons for children.
• Worship and Liturgy Education

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