Beliefs

As American Baptists, we are a non-creedal people, meaning we do not corporately profess any particular creed or set of beliefs. We affirm the Baptist tradition of Four Fragile Freedoms. Walter Shurden described these briefly in The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms, 1993 as follows:

• Bible Freedom is the historic Baptist affirmation that the Bible must be central in the life of the church and individual and that Christians, with the best and most scholarly tools of inquiry, are both free and obligated to study and obey the Scripture.
• Soul Freedom is the historic affirmation of the right and responsibility of every person to deal with God without the imposition of creed, the interference of clergy, or the intervention of government.
• Church Freedom is the historic Baptist affirmation that local churches are free to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, to ordain whom they perceive as gifted for ministry, and to participate in the larger Body of Christ.
• Religious Freedom is the historic Baptist affirmation of freedom OF religion, freedom FOR religion, and freedom FROM religion, insisting that Caesar is not Christ and Christ is not Caesar.

Together, we practice our faith in accordance with scriptural teachings. We seek to follow Jesus Christ in all we do - knowing that we fall short at times, and practicing grace and forgiveness when we do so. We take seriously Jesus’ command to love our neighbor, and this serves as the basis for all we do. We don’t shy away from hard topics, and we value questions and curiosity. 

We believe that we are called to care for all of Creation and seek to be good stewards of the Earth and the resources with which we have been entrusted. We are a Creation Justice Congregation of the American Baptist Churches USA and we are deeply committed to creation justice and caring for the Earth. 

At RBC, we welcome and affirm all people regardless of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual preference, gender orientation, age, or nationality. We believe all people are created in the image of God and that all are called to carry out their faith in any number of capacities. We are a member of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, a group that gives explicit visibility to the welcome that we practice.