Statement of Faith

The statement of faith adopted by the Academy summarizes classical Christian orthodoxy.

We believe in one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God created man in His own image with the responsibility to reflect His holiness through obedience to His commandments. In the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden, all mankind enters a state of moral corruption, called original sin. Though God preserved in humanity the faculties of intellect, will, and affections, mankind became estranged from God, enslaved to sin, and morally unable to incline themselves toward the things of God without the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit.

For His own glory and because of a profound love for His creation, God initiated His eternal plan of redemption, which He accomplished in history by the person and work of His only Son Jesus Christ, applying it to His people by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We confess Jesus, both truly God and truly man, to be the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Through His life of perfect obedience, His substitutionary atoning death, and His bodily resurrection, Jesus Christ provided the meritorious ground of our justification.  God graciously imputes the righteousness of Christ to His people which they receive by faith alone.

Before the foundation of the world, God elected unconditionally a portion of the fallen human race to be redeemed by Christ, leaving others to themselves and to the just recompense of their sin. The Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to this elect by sovereignly effecting their regeneration and by working in them for their sanctification. God gathers His people together into a community of believers, thus establishing a visible Church. God calls the visible Church to live in the power of the Holy Spirit under the authority of Holy Scripture, exercising discipline, administering the sacraments and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ.

We believe that the Bible in its entirety is divine revelation, and we submit to the authority of Holy Scripture. We receive it as inerrantly inspired by God and carrying the full weight of His authority. We believe that God is also revealed in nature and that He calls us to study it, as well as Holy Scripture, to learn the full scope of divine revelation.

We believe God created man with the duty to serve and obey his creator-king, and called to build culture (cultural mandate) as sub-creators; and that mankind accomplishes this calling as two distinct, yet complementary genders – male and female.  God created man as both male and female and ordained marriage as a union between one man and one woman as the basis for the family, with the chief responsibility to fulfill mankind’s calling and with the primary responsibility for raising children; God established the sexual union exclusively within the bonds of marriage; God also established the husband as the head of the family unit.

We support the work of Christian institutions and organizations that are catholic* (pertaining to the church established throughout the world) and evangelical. We are committed to the implementation of the social and cultural implications of God’s Law for the well-being of man and created order. We believe that our faith should be visible in our actions as we seek to be faithful disciples of Christ, enduring in love and obedience until He returns to consummate His Kingdom.

Summarily, we embrace and adopt the essential truths of catholic* Christianity (i.e., those held by all Christians throughout the world as unified in the Lord Jesus Christ) as articulated by the Apostles’ Creed, and in the ecumenical councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon, and the system of doctrine expressed in the creeds of the Protestant Reformation, including the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Second London Confession of 1689, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, The Second Helvetic Confession, the Savoy Declaration, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the catechisms of Westminster, both Larger and Shorter.

The statement of faith does not exhaust the extent of our beliefs.  The Bible itself, as the inspired and infallible Word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind, is the sole and final source of all that we believe.  For purposes of Geneva Classical Academy’s fatih, doctrine, practice, policy, and actions, our board of directors is the organization’s final interpretive authority of the Bible’s meaning and application.

(Click on the links to read the documents referred to in the Statement of Faith)

* catholic – The definition of catholic as used above in the Statement of Faith is an adjective, pertaining to the whole Christian body or Church.