📖 Reading 6.2: Faithfulness, Love, Justice, and Objective Truth
Reading 6.2: Faithfulness, Love, Justice, and Objective Truth
Reading Purpose
Scientology offers an organized framework for interpreting life through survival, the Eight Dynamics, affinity, agreement, communication, knowledge, responsibility, control, emotional tone, and ethics.
These concepts address genuine human concerns. People want their lives to be ordered rather than chaotic. They want healthy relationships, better communication, emotional stability, ethical clarity, increased responsibility, and meaningful spiritual direction.
Christianity recognizes these longings but places them within a different account of reality.
The Christian worldview does not organize life around survival, personal ability, or expanding control. It orders life under the lordship of the Triune God.
This reading examines five central Christian principles:
faithfulness is greater than survival
objective truth is greater than agreement
stewardship is greater than control
justice is greater than institutional success
self-giving love is greater than personal ability
These principles help Christian leaders understand where Scientology notices something important, where its framework reduces life, and how the gospel offers a fuller hope in Jesus Christ.
1. Recognizing the Human Longing
A respectful Christian comparison begins by recognizing the human longing underneath a belief.
The Eight Dynamics offer a way of organizing personal life, family, groups, humanity, biological life, the physical universe, spiritual existence, and infinity around survival. Official Scientology teaching presents these dynamics as interconnected expressions of life’s fundamental survival impulse. (Official Church of Scientology)
This framework appeals to several understandable desires:
the desire to bring order to a complicated life
the desire to become more responsible
the desire to improve relationships
the desire to live for something larger than oneself
the desire to avoid destructive decisions
the desire to understand emotional reactions
the desire to produce measurable improvement
the desire to achieve spiritual freedom
Christians should not ridicule these desires. Many reflect the way human beings were created.
God made people to live responsibly, cultivate relationships, care for creation, seek wisdom, exercise stewardship, and reach beyond selfish isolation.
The Christian concern is not that survival, knowledge, responsibility, communication, or emotional awareness are worthless. The concern is that these genuine goods can be given a role they were never intended to carry.
A created good becomes an idol when it is treated as the organizing center of all life.
Survival is good, but it is not God.
Knowledge is good, but it cannot save.
Responsibility is necessary, but it cannot remove guilt.
Communication is valuable, but it cannot create truth.
Control has a proper place, but human beings were never created to master all outcomes.
2. Faithfulness Is Greater Than Survival
Life is a gift from God and should ordinarily be protected.
The command against murder protects human life. Biblical wisdom warns against reckless behavior. Parents are called to care for their children. Communities should protect vulnerable people. Human beings should responsibly tend the earth and its creatures.
Survival is therefore a genuine created good.
The Christian difference is that survival is not the highest good.
Jesus said:
“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the Good News’s will save it.”
Mark 8:35
Jesus was not encouraging carelessness or self-destruction. He was teaching that preserving earthly life cannot become more important than belonging to him.
Faithfulness may require sacrifice.
A person may need to tell the truth even when doing so threatens a career.
A leader may need to expose wrongdoing even when disclosure damages an organization’s reputation.
A Christian may need to protect a vulnerable person even when powerful people object.
A believer may face persecution rather than deny Christ.
A parent may surrender personal comfort to care for a child.
A person may risk safety to rescue a neighbor.
In these situations, survival cannot determine what is right.
Jesus and the Way of Self-Giving Faithfulness
The life of Jesus provides the clearest Christian correction to survival as the governing principle.
Jesus did not preserve himself at any cost.
He refused Satan’s temptation to use divine power for self-serving purposes.
He confronted hypocrisy despite opposition.
He welcomed people who could offer him no social advantage.
He touched the unclean.
He served the poor.
He defended those who were being exploited.
He continued toward Jerusalem knowing that suffering awaited him.
Jesus said:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
John 10:11
At the cross, Jesus did not demonstrate failure to survive. He demonstrated perfect obedience, justice, mercy, and self-giving love.
The resurrection then revealed that death does not have the final word.
Christian hope is not based upon the human ability to maintain survival indefinitely. It rests upon God, who raises the dead.
Martyrdom and Christian Faithfulness
The history of Christian witness includes believers who could have protected themselves by denying Christ but chose faithfulness instead.
This does not mean Christians seek persecution or ignore safety. Scripture permits believers to flee danger, use legal protections, and act wisely.
The central principle is that earthly survival cannot demand disobedience to God.
A survival-centered ethic asks:
“What action will best preserve or advance life across the greatest number of areas?”
Christian ethics must also ask:
“What action is truthful, just, loving, and faithful before God?”
Sometimes survival and faithfulness point in the same direction.
Sometimes they do not.
When they conflict, Christians are called to faithfulness.
3. Life Is More Than Competing Survival Interests
Scientology’s Eight Dynamics expand concern beyond the individual. A person is encouraged to consider self, family, groups, humanity, living things, the physical universe, spiritual existence, and infinity. This is broader than a purely individualistic view of life. (Official Church of Scientology)
The difficulty is that moral discernment can become a calculation of which action appears to increase survival across the greatest number of dynamics.
Such a calculation cannot fully explain why an action is morally right.
Consider several examples.
A Successful but Unjust Organization
An organization may preserve jobs, generate revenue, and expand its influence while mistreating certain people.
Its survival may benefit many participants.
That does not make the mistreatment just.
The juridical question cannot be reduced to the survival question.
Justice asks:
Who has been harmed?
What rights or responsibilities were violated?
What protection is needed?
Who should be held accountable?
What restitution should be made?
A Family Protecting Its Reputation
A family may conceal abuse because disclosure could damage relationships, community standing, or financial security.
Silence might appear to preserve the family as a group.
Christian justice requires the protection of the vulnerable rather than the preservation of reputation.
A Church Hiding Wrongdoing
A church may fear that acknowledging misconduct will harm attendance, giving, or public credibility.
Protecting the institution is not the same as protecting the body of Christ.
Faithfulness may require truthful disclosure, investigation by appropriate authorities, protection for victims, repentance, and institutional reform.
A Person Sacrificing for Another
A person who enters danger to save someone else may decrease personal survival while expressing courage and love.
A mother who loses sleep caring for a sick child is not simply making a survival calculation.
A missionary who remains faithful under persecution may not be maximizing personal security.
Human actions involve meanings that cannot be reduced to survival:
truth
love
justice
promise
sacrifice
worship
loyalty
mercy
responsibility
beauty
calling
Christian philosophy recognizes these as distinct dimensions of created life.
4. Objective Truth Is Greater Than Agreement
Scientology’s ARC Triangle connects affinity, reality, and communication. Official Scientology teaching describes reality fundamentally in terms of agreement and teaches that affinity, agreement, and communication interact to produce understanding. (Official Church of Scientology)
There is practical relational wisdom in seeking points of agreement.
People communicate more easily when some trust exists.
Clarifying shared beliefs can reduce unnecessary conflict.
Careful communication can increase mutual understanding.
Christians should listen well and identify genuine common ground whenever possible.
Agreement, however, cannot create objective truth.
Agreement Describes Shared Belief
Agreement tells us that two or more people hold something in common.
It may reveal:
shared vocabulary
common expectations
relational trust
cultural assumptions
mutual goals
a common interpretation
Agreement does not establish that the shared belief accurately corresponds to reality.
Two people may agree about something false.
A large group may accept misinformation.
A culture may normalize injustice.
An organization may repeat a claim until questioning it becomes socially difficult.
Personal sincerity does not make every belief true.
Group consensus does not make every practice righteous.
Reality Exists Before Human Agreement
Christianity teaches that reality exists because God created and sustains it.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1
The universe does not depend upon human recognition for its existence.
God’s character does not change when people disagree about him.
Moral truth is not created by social consensus.
Jesus’ identity does not depend upon the number of people who accept his claims.
The resurrection is either an act of God in history or it is not. Agreement may influence whether people believe the resurrection, but agreement does not cause the resurrection to have occurred.
Christian faith is therefore more than a personally useful interpretation of life.
It makes public claims:
God created the world.
Human beings bear God’s image.
Sin has entered human life.
Jesus Christ became truly human.
Jesus died under Pontius Pilate.
God raised Jesus bodily from the dead.
Jesus is Lord.
God will judge evil and renew creation.
These claims invite examination, belief, trust, and obedience.
They are not made true by private certainty.
The Danger of “What Is True for You”
The phrase “what is true for you” may be used in different ways.
It may simply mean:
“What have you personally become convinced is true?”
That is a fair question about a person’s beliefs.
It becomes philosophically problematic when it means:
“A belief becomes true for you because you accept it.”
Personal belief and objective truth must be distinguished.
A person can sincerely believe something that is inaccurate.
A belief can feel helpful while resting upon mistaken assumptions.
An experience can be genuine while its interpretation remains uncertain.
A method can produce a perceived benefit without proving the truth of the entire worldview connected to it.
Christian ministry should therefore ask:
What happened?
How are you interpreting what happened?
What evidence supports that interpretation?
Are other explanations possible?
How does this claim correspond with God’s revelation?
Is the belief internally consistent?
Does it fit what is publicly known?
What view of God and humanity does it assume?
Truth should be pursued with both confidence and humility.
5. Understanding Is More Than Affinity, Agreement, and Communication
Affinity, agreement, and communication can contribute to relational understanding.
They do not guarantee it.
Two people may like each other and still misunderstand one another.
They may communicate frequently while using important words differently.
They may agree because one person feels pressured.
They may preserve affinity by avoiding difficult truths.
They may appear united while hiding fear, disagreement, or resentment.
Christian understanding requires more than relational harmony.
It includes:
truthful definitions
careful listening
honest disagreement
evidence
moral discernment
patience
humility
love
willingness to be corrected
Love Does Not Require Pretended Agreement
Christians do not need to pretend agreement in order to love someone.
Jesus showed compassion while also correcting error.
Paul reasoned with people who did not share his beliefs.
The early Christians lived among people with very different religious commitments.
Christian love respects the person without affirming every belief.
A Christian may say:
“I value you, and I want to understand what you believe. I also understand this matter differently.”
That statement preserves both love and truth.
Communication Must Not Become Control
Communication can serve understanding, but it can also be used to influence, pressure, distract, intimidate, flatter, or control.
Christian communication must be governed by truth and love.
Paul writes:
“But speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ.”
Ephesians 4:15
Truth without love can become harshness.
Love without truth can become sentimental avoidance.
Communication without freedom can become manipulation.
The Christian goal is not merely to produce agreement. It is to bear faithful witness while honoring the other person’s conscience.
6. Stewardship Is Greater Than Control
The KRC Triangle connects knowledge, responsibility, and control. Official Scientology descriptions present these as interdependent, with improvement in one expected to raise the others. (Official Church of Scientology)
Christianity values all three in their proper places.
Knowledge helps people act wisely.
Responsibility helps people own their choices.
Appropriate control allows people to govern conduct, establish boundaries, and care for entrusted resources.
The Christian framework, however, is stewardship rather than mastery.
God Is the Owner
Psalm 24:1 declares:
“The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.”
Human beings are not absolute owners.
Our bodies, time, resources, relationships, abilities, and opportunities are entrusted to us.
A steward is responsible but not sovereign.
This distinction protects against both passivity and pride.
The Christian cannot say:
“Nothing is my responsibility.”
The Christian also cannot say:
“Everything depends upon my control.”
Human Knowledge Is Limited
People can gain real knowledge without becoming all-knowing.
Christian humility acknowledges:
we may misunderstand another person
we may lack important evidence
our memories may be incomplete
our motives may be mixed
our predictions may be wrong
we cannot see every consequence
we do not know the future
Paul writes:
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12
Knowledge should produce wise service rather than superiority.
Responsibility Cannot Save
Human beings are responsible before God.
Responsibility includes:
admitting wrongdoing
telling the truth
making appropriate restitution
honoring commitments
protecting others
seeking accountability
changing destructive conduct
Yet responsibility cannot erase the past.
A guilty person cannot save himself merely by becoming more productive.
A person cannot undo every consequence.
Repentance is necessary, but forgiveness remains a gift.
Christianity teaches that Jesus bore sin’s judgment and offers forgiveness by grace.
Responsibility is a response to God’s grace, not a technique for producing salvation.
Control Has Proper Limits
Appropriate human control includes:
self-control
planning
healthy boundaries
careful decision-making
responsible leadership
management of resources
protection of vulnerable people
Unhealthy control includes:
manipulating people
demanding private disclosures
eliminating freedom of conscience
dominating family members
controlling another person’s spiritual decisions
claiming certainty about every outcome
treating people as instruments
Christian leaders must especially resist spiritual control.
A pastor, Soul Center leader, chaplain, or Christian coach should not claim:
“God has privately told me what you must do.”
The leader may teach Scripture, offer wisdom, identify moral responsibilities, and encourage faithful action.
The participant remains responsible before God.
7. Justice Is Greater Than Success
A survival-based system may evaluate actions according to whether they improve conditions or promote survival across several dynamics. Official Scientology teaching connects ethics with reason and the pursuit of optimum survival across the dynamics. (Official Church of Scientology)
Christian ethics includes concern for consequences, but it cannot be reduced to successful outcomes.
Justice asks whether people receive what is rightfully due to them.
It concerns:
rights
responsibilities
fairness
protection
accountability
restitution
lawful authority
defense of the vulnerable
An action may appear successful while remaining unjust.
A company may become profitable through exploitation.
A religious organization may grow through manipulation.
A leader may maintain order through fear.
A family may preserve peace by silencing a victim.
A ministry may produce impressive statistics while treating people as projects.
Success does not sanctify the method.
God Loves Justice
Isaiah 61:8 declares:
“For I, Yahweh, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity.”
God’s justice is not merely a technique for preserving society. It reflects his holy character.
The prophets repeatedly condemned communities that maintained religious activity while oppressing the poor, ignoring widows, exploiting workers, and accepting corruption.
Micah 6:8 teaches:
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Christian justice cannot be sacrificed to personal advancement, group loyalty, or institutional survival.
Justice and Mercy Belong Together
Christian justice is not cold punishment.
God’s justice includes protection, restoration, accountability, and rightly ordered relationships.
Mercy does not erase justice.
Justice does not eliminate mercy.
At the cross, Christians see both the seriousness of sin and the depth of God’s mercy.
Christian ministry therefore asks:
Has someone been harmed?
Who needs protection?
What responsibility belongs to each person?
What authority should become involved?
Is restitution possible?
What boundaries are necessary?
What should be reported?
Where is forgiveness being confused with avoidance of accountability?
8. Self-Giving Love Is Greater Than Ability
Scientology frequently emphasizes increasing ability, competence, understanding, and effective control of life.
The desire for greater ability is not inherently wrong.
Skills can help people serve their families, fulfill responsibilities, solve problems, and contribute to society.
Christianity, however, does not measure spiritual maturity primarily by ability.
Paul writes:
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
1 Corinthians 8:1
A person may possess knowledge without compassion.
A leader may possess influence without integrity.
A speaker may communicate effectively while manipulating an audience.
A highly capable person may use others as instruments.
Spiritual ability without self-giving love can become pride.
The Way of Christ
Jesus defined greatness through service.
“Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever of you desires to become first among you shall be bondservant of all. For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:43–45
Christlike love is not weakness.
It requires courage, patience, truthfulness, sacrifice, boundaries, and moral clarity.
Love does not mean pleasing everyone.
Love does not require remaining in an abusive situation.
Love does not conceal injustice.
Love does not manipulate people into conversion.
Love seeks the genuine good of the neighbor under God.
Human Worth Is Not Ranked by Ability
People differ greatly in their abilities.
Some live with disabilities.
Some experience serious illness.
Some lose physical or cognitive abilities through aging.
Some are exhausted, grieving, traumatized, or overwhelmed.
A Christian does not conclude that these people possess less human worth or necessarily occupy a lower spiritual condition.
Human worth comes from bearing God’s image, not from measurable productivity, emotional tone, communication skill, or control.
Weakness may become a place where dependence upon God is more clearly recognized.
Paul heard Christ say:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
Christian maturity is not unlimited ability.
It is faithful dependence upon God expressed through love.
9. Biblical Emotion Is More Than Movement Up a Scale
Scientology’s Tone Scale numerically arranges emotional states and presents higher tones as connected with greater competence, well-being, and desirable attributes. Official Scientology materials also describe using the scale to predict behavior and help people move toward higher emotional states. (Official Church of Scientology)
Christianity recognizes that emotions influence conduct and communication.
A grieving person should not be addressed in the same way as a joyful person.
A frightened person may need safety and reassurance.
An angry person may need space, truth, correction, or protection.
Emotional awareness is valuable.
The Christian concern is the reduction of emotional life to a fixed hierarchy in which upward movement becomes the central goal.
Emotions Respond to Meaning
Emotions are not isolated internal energies. They are embodied responses to people, events, beliefs, memories, expectations, and perceived meanings.
Grief may respond to loss.
Fear may respond to danger.
Anger may respond to injustice.
Shame may respond to wrongdoing, rejection, or harmful messages.
Joy may respond to beauty, love, worship, or hope.
The same emotion can be appropriate in one situation and disordered in another.
Jesus Experienced Deep Emotion
Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb.
He felt compassion for crowds.
He expressed righteous anger.
He experienced anguish before the cross.
He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit.
These emotions did not indicate changing degrees of human worth or spiritual failure.
They revealed his truthful and loving engagement with the world.
The Psalms Teach Faithful Lament
The Psalms include:
sorrow
fear
anger
confusion
loneliness
gratitude
confidence
joy
hope
Biblical faith does not require people to pretend they are cheerful.
Lament brings suffering into relationship with God.
A grieving Christian may be demonstrating deep faith by crying out to God rather than hiding pain.
The Christian goal is not simply to move a person toward a socially preferred emotional state.
It is to help the person respond truthfully, wisely, lovingly, and faithfully before God.
10. Christian Ethics Is Grounded in God’s Character
Scientology describes ethics in relation to reason, personal action, and optimum survival across the dynamics. It also offers Conditions Formulas intended to help identify and improve a person’s or activity’s condition. (Official Church of Scientology)
Christian ethics begins elsewhere.
It begins with God.
An action is not good merely because it produces improvement, expansion, efficiency, or survival.
Goodness reflects God’s character.
God is:
holy
truthful
just
merciful
faithful
loving
wise
God’s commands reveal how image-bearers should live within his creation.
More Than Consequences
Christians should consider consequences.
Wisdom asks where a path leads.
Leaders should evaluate whether their decisions are helping or harming people.
Consequences, however, cannot be the only measure.
Christian moral discernment also considers:
the nature of the act
the leader’s motive
the rights of other people
duties and promises
truthfulness
justice
love
God’s commands
the means used to pursue the goal
A good outcome does not justify a sinful method.
A ministry cannot justify manipulation by pointing to conversions.
A leader cannot excuse dishonesty because the organization benefited.
A person cannot violate another’s freedom because the intended result appears helpful.
Grace and Moral Transformation
Christian ethics does not teach that people earn acceptance from God by improving their condition.
Obedience matters, but obedience is not self-salvation.
The gospel announces that sinners are reconciled to God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit then forms believers in holiness, truth, justice, love, and self-control.
Christian moral growth is therefore:
a response to grace
empowered by the Holy Spirit
guided by Scripture
practiced in Christian community
shaped by repentance and forgiveness
directed toward love of God and neighbor
11. A Fuller Christian Ordering of Life
Christianity does not replace survival with another single impersonal principle.
It places every dimension of life under the personal lordship of God.
Personal Life
The self is created by God and called to faithful stewardship, not autonomous self-determination.
Marriage and Family
Family is a covenantal and relational calling shaped by love, fidelity, protection, nurture, and responsibility.
Groups and Institutions
Groups should serve justice and the common good. Group survival never excuses exploitation.
Humanity
All people bear God’s image. Human unity is not merely species survival but shared creaturely identity and accountability before God.
Biological Life
Animals and plants belong to God’s good creation and should be treated with responsible stewardship.
The Physical World
Matter, energy, space, and time are not merely an environment used by spiritual beings. The physical creation is good, meaningful, and destined for renewal.
Spiritual Life
Human spirituality is not autonomous. People were created for communion with God.
God
God is not simply the highest point of an expanding survival system.
God is the eternal, personal, Triune Creator—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God is not discovered through human advancement toward infinity.
God reveals himself and comes to humanity in Jesus Christ.
12. The Gospel Fulfillment
The deepest Christian response to the longing for survival is not a better technique.
It is the gospel.
Creation
God created human beings as embodied image-bearers within a good creation.
Fall
Human rebellion brought guilt, alienation, disorder, suffering, and death.
The human problem cannot be reduced to insufficient knowledge, low emotional tone, poor communication, or lack of control.
Incarnation
God came to us in Jesus Christ.
Human beings do not climb toward God through increasingly advanced spiritual states.
God descended to save.
Cross
Jesus bore sin and gave his life in self-giving love.
At the cross, faithfulness proved greater than survival.
Resurrection
God raised Jesus bodily from the dead.
Christian hope is not the survival of a spiritual being apart from the body. It is resurrection and renewed creation.
Grace
Salvation is received as God’s gift.
It is not achieved through knowledge, responsibility, control, emotional advancement, or exact procedures.
New Creation
God promises to judge evil, raise the dead, and renew creation.
Christian hope extends beyond present success or survival.
It rests upon the faithfulness of God.
13. Respectful Ministry Questions
A Christian leader may use questions like these in a permission-based conversation:
Questions About Survival
Do you believe survival is the highest good?
Can an action promote survival while still being unjust?
Can sacrificial love be good even when it places someone’s life at risk?
What does the death of Jesus reveal about faithfulness and survival?
Questions About Truth
Can people sincerely agree about something that is false?
Does agreement create reality, or does it describe a shared belief?
How do you determine whether a spiritual claim corresponds to reality?
Could a practice seem helpful without proving its entire worldview?
Questions About Knowledge and Control
What are the proper limits of human knowledge?
What happens when a responsible person still cannot control the outcome?
Can dependence upon God be a sign of maturity rather than failure?
Is spiritual freedom achieved through mastery or received through reconciliation with God?
Questions About Emotion
Is grief always a lower condition?
Could sorrow be an appropriate response to love and loss?
What do the Psalms teach about bringing painful emotions before God?
Does a person’s emotional condition determine human worth?
Questions About Ethics
What makes an action morally good?
Can organizational success justify an unjust method?
How should guilt be addressed when responsibility cannot undo the past?
What is the difference between improving one’s condition and receiving forgiveness?
These questions should not be used as traps.
The Christian leader listens carefully, asks permission, avoids pressure, and allows the person to express disagreement.
14. Ministry Safeguards
When presenting this Christian comparison, ministry leaders should:
Describe Scientology Accurately
Do not criticize a distorted version of Scientology.
Use official sources to establish what Scientology says about itself.
Recognize Genuine Human Longings
Acknowledge the desire for order, responsibility, healthy relationships, and spiritual freedom.
Explain the Reduction
Show why survival, agreement, control, ability, or emotional advancement cannot explain the whole of life.
Present the Christian Alternative
Explain objective truth, creation, stewardship, justice, self-giving love, grace, resurrection, and the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Avoid Manipulation
Do not use communication techniques to pressure someone into agreement.
Respect Freedom of Conscience
The person remains free to disagree, pause the conversation, or leave.
Trust the Holy Spirit
Christian leaders bear witness.
The Holy Spirit brings conviction, regeneration, and conversion.
Conclusion
Scientology’s life-ordering framework addresses real human concerns. Survival matters. Communication matters. Knowledge, responsibility, and appropriate control matter. Emotional awareness and ethical reflection matter.
Christianity places these goods within a fuller created order.
Survival is governed by faithfulness.
Communication is governed by truth and love.
Knowledge is governed by humility.
Responsibility is governed by grace and accountability.
Control is governed by stewardship and creaturely limits.
Emotion is interpreted through embodied life, meaning, Scripture, and relationship with God.
Ethics is grounded in God’s holy and loving character.
Justice protects people even when protection threatens institutional success.
Love seeks the good of others rather than using them as instruments.
Christian hope does not rest upon self-attained survival, ability, or spiritual advancement.
It rests upon Jesus Christ, who faithfully gave his life, rose bodily from the dead, grants salvation by grace, and promises the resurrection of the body and the renewal of creation.
Central Principle: Survival matters, but faithfulness is greater than survival. Ability matters, but love is greater than ability. Agreement matters, but truth is grounded in God. Responsibility matters, but salvation is received by grace.