community of faith, but the principal line of action is the connection between humanity and God. It is this connection, indeed, that lends meaning to life and inevitably points in the direction of salvation.
I believe that angels are best considered as the direct servants of God. According to Bible stories, angels act as intermediaries between God and humanity. However, what the angels in these stories really do is represent humanity's experience of God's Providence and concern for the continued blessedness of human experience.
I believe that the church is a venue where ideas and difficulties connected with living a moral life can be tested and/or corrected. But above all the church is a community of faith that celebrates the Christian message together, strengthens its members morally, and blesses the journey through a meaningful life`.
I believe that the last things--resurrection, the last judgment, eternal punishment, and heavenly bliss--are all bound up, not with a very literal image of graves popping open and cosmic dislocation, but with the idea of permanent connectedness to God, which also involves connection with other people. It is possible to focus on the last things as the world of the long dead and anxiety over the fact that one day the self will depart life. But if the last things have to do with immortality, it is the self's living legacy that matters, not anticipation of a vague afterlife. For really, every day, while we live and in the way we live, the day of judgment is constantly with us.
Concerns that rise to the level of epistemological are not merely exercises in abstract thought but have relevance to the content of moral experience. There remain, however, the problem of justifying what one believes to be true and the problem of how to identify knowledge in the first place. However, knowledge has a moral component, for it can entail the idea of a well-lived life that is pursued for the purpose of obtainin...