|
Higher Ground is the educational ministry of Dick Davenport. It has also become a community of people who share values as to what is most central for spiritual growth.
The principles of being God-centered, Biblically-grounded, Christ-following, and Relationship-building allow for Higher Ground to be a bridge between traditional religious convictions and contemporary experiences of spirituality.
God-centered: Higher Ground glorifies a God who is both Father and Mother (check out Isaiah 66:13). Recovering the feminine in the God of the Bible enlarges a view of the Divine who responds with both justice and mercy -- whose desire is for a relationship with humanity that is not premised on the threat of a tortuous eternity to motivate us, rigid adherence to posturing outward behaviors to mark us as acceptable, and toxic judgment of one another to keep us "pure."
Biblically-grounded means that Higher Ground sees the arc of the Bible narrative, its approach to a developmental understanding of a God that is unchanging, as providing the spiritual foundation of life more abundant both now and forever (John 10:10). Higher Ground fully engages contemporary Bible scholarship and archaeology, as well as advances in human sciences. The Bible is not to be "used" as a selective legitimization of whatever we want to believe from the left or the right of human opinion.
Christ-following refers to a discipleship of Jesus that is independent of needing to deify him. Higher Ground is in sync with the understanding of Christ articulated in the Statement of Faith of the National Council of Churches, which confesses "Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord." Being the "Word" (in Greek "Logos" and in Hebrew the feminine "Wisdom" - Proverbs 8) is not synonymous with Jesus being God. It refers to Christ as the creative agency by which Divinity embraces humanity, by which the transcendent is made tangible, intimate, and personal in way each of us can understand and feel right where we are.
Relationship-building
In the Bible, the journey of spiritual growth is not a solo act. Being in right relationship with God is contingent upon being in right relationship with others. 1 Peter 3:7 mentions that one's prayer to God would be hindered by the relationship maintained towards one's spouse.
Jesus affirms this in quoting the sum of the Law as loving God and loving your neighbor - both his references are from Torah. The faith community of Acts stresses its care of each member as the signature fulfillment of Jesus' statement that people will know you are my disciples by the love you show each other (John 13:34,35) Indeed, according to first century sources, including the New Testament, the most unique element the public saw and was drawn to in the early church was the quality of their relationships with each other.
| 
