The flourishing of God’s world is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and vice versa. It’s time we had doctrinal statements that made this connection clear – and showed that this connection is not in tension with, but actually supports and is supported by, more familiar doctrinal commitments like the Trinity and the Incarnation, or justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Today, Karam Fellowship is unveiling:
- A new faith statement that puts flourishing at the center of our doctrine, where it belongs
- A new website for the Fellowship, and for its journal Faith & Flourishing
- A new way forward for the Oikonomia Network, the most familiar face of our work
It’s been almost a full year since we announced the creation of Karam Fellowship in April 2021. We continue to be profoundly grateful for the support of our members, which now fuels everything we do – including the Oikonomia Network, Karam Forum, Faith & Flourishing and much more. If you’re a member, thank you. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
If you haven’t yet joined, and you value the work that we do, please find out more and join the Fellowship today!
Our New Faith Statement
In the past, our community has been content to endorse the faith statement of the World Evangelical Alliance. And we’re not knocking it. It’s a fine statement! In fact, it’s so good that in our new statement of faith, we make a point of explicitly celebrating our harmony with it, as well as with the Lausanne Covenant, and with other expressions of doctrine going all the way back to the early creeds and the Letter to Diognetus.
But as a fellowship of theological scholars dedicated to theology for the life of the world, it seemed good to us that we lay out our faith and mission in a way that makes clear just how central we think these matters are to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the historic doctrinal commitments associated with it.
And so, we are delighted to release the faith statement of Karam Fellowship: “What Is ‘Theology for the Life of the World’?”
We open with this summary:
Karam Fellowship strives to root all its thinking and practice in Christ, God’s incarnate word. We discern Christ by the testimony of the Bible, God’s written word, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit binds us to Christ, and in Christ to one another, and he illuminates the testimony of the Bible as we study it in community. In Christ and through the Bible we rediscover, and learn to understand anew, ourselves and the entire world Christ made. In Christ, by the Spirit and with one another, we are summoned in all areas of life to God’s mission: to bear the divine image renewed in Christ, bear witness to God’s holy love in this dark and suffering world, and bear fruit for God’s glory. Our magnificent redemption from sin and despair into this life of flourishing in the Lord’s holy love is accomplished for us and in us according to the plan of the Father, who in pure and free grace sent his “two hands,” the Son and Spirit, to triumph over our sin and reclaim us to the holy love of God. This holy love we now offer to the world, and strive to put into effect in the world.
And we close with this call to action:
Looking back to Christ’s perfect life and his accomplished victory in the cross and the empty tomb, and forward to his return in glory, we believe that we are called, individually and together, to God’s mission in all areas of life: to bear the divine image renewed in Christ, bear witness to God’s holy love in this dark and suffering world, and bear fruit for God’s glory. By a life of good works done in holy love by the power of the Spirit, we live as the body of Christ, serving as his hands and feet, bringing his holy love to the world as prophets who speak God’s truth against evil and injustice, priests commissioned to invite all people into reconciliation and healing through Christ, and kings and queens who have been entrusted with personal and social forms of stewardship responsibility. As Christ’s body we can neither isolate ourselves and withdraw from the nations and cultures of the world (for then we would abandon the love of God and the call to missional living) nor complacently conform to the world’s evil and unjust ways (for then we would abandon the holiness of God and the call to ecclesial living) nor seek to subdue the world to ourselves by brute force (for then we would abandon both the love and the holiness of God). Instead, we strive to be good neighbors, participating in the lives of our nations in ways that make the holy love of God visible as we proclaim the good news; serve the good of our neighbors and of all creation in our daily work; stand – with love, but with firmness – against all forms of evil and injustice; organize particular efforts of many kinds to cultivate all that is good; and remember with special care the poor and the marginalized.
This is our “theology for the life of the world.”
So help us God.
Read the full statement and let us know what you think!
Our New Website
If you clicked the links to the faith statement above, you’ve already seen that Karam Fellowship has a new website. Don’t worry, nothing’s happening to our existing websites – the websites for the Oikonomia Network, Karam Forum and the Economic Wisdom Project. These initiatives of the Fellowship are staying right where they are.
The main reason the Fellowship needs a new website – besides having a place to fully tell the story of who we are and what we do – is to host its new journal, Faith & Flourishing. As you can see, our site provides the journal’s Call for Papers (please send us your submissions!) as well as an archive page for our published material. We’ll start using that just as soon as we publish some material!
Hey, the archive page looks like it’s got a sneak preview of what our first publication is going to be. Want to know more? Watch this space in April – that’s when we’re planning to launch with our first publication!
A New Way Forward for the ON
We’re finding that some people have been confused by the two names we operate under – Oikonomia Network and Karam Fellowship. That’s partly our fault. When we founded the Fellowship, we weren’t sure at first how they’d relate, or even whether we would keep them both, or if it would instead make more sense to consolidate under one name. So we didn’t communicate with perfect precision, because we didn’t know all the answers ourselves.
The Fellowship board has been making this up as we go. But as we’ve continued to listen to feedback and consult with our partners, we’ve reached much greater clarity about how we’re doing to do this.
“Oikonomia Network” is a great name with a lot of substantive significance, expressing our intention to bring good “stewardship” into all our “economies.” (If you don’t know how we got that name, check out the official, authorized History of the Oikonomia Network – it’s a funny story!) And “ON” is the name people know and trust. So we’re going to keep it.
But we’re going to change the way we use it.
In the past, the ON was constituted by partnerships with 21 “partner schools,” and had several other kinds of official “partner” relationships. That made sense in our first decade, given the way the ON first emerged and the structure of our work. However, now that we’re run by a membership organization, we don’t think this system continues to make sense.
Our schools are still at the heart of what we do! But structurally, as a membership organization, we can’t continue to operate as if we were still fundamentally constituted by these institutional partnerships. Our heart still belongs to our schools, but the new way of doing our work doesn’t allow us to continue formalizing those partnerships at the institutional level.
So while the ON is still a learning community of theological educators, it will no longer have formal “partner” relationships. Instead, it will operate as a name used by Karam Fellowship for the outward-reaching side of our mission to serve theological educators. Activities that are either partly or entirely open to the public, including Karam Forum and the monthly newsletter, will continue to be offered by the Fellowship under the ON name. Meanwhile, activities that we offer only to paying Fellowship members, such as our peer-reviewed journal Faith & Flourishing, will carry the Fellowship name but not the ON name.
We hope that makes sense. As always, if you have questions, contact us.
And if you want to support our work, please browse our brand-new website to learn more about what we do and why it’s important, and the benefits of joining. And then join the Fellowship today!
