I don't like creeds in general, but was provoked recently into writing one I'd be willing to sign up to if I had to. A bit more prodding to expand on it slightly, and I ended up with this.
It's obviously nothing more than an outline, but the statements in bold do I think mark out a theological position that relies only on the assumption that we are being created. I wonder how compatible this is with progressive Christianity?
1. The universe is being created.
This is how it seems to me, based on my 50-odd years experience.
2. The creator can be known to the extent that we can imagine an entity with the capability and willingness to sustain life as we experience it. This entity is God.
If we want to think about the creator, we have to imagine a God and fit that concept around what is and can be known. It's important to retain the underlying unknowability in order to determine the limits of how we can reasonably use our concept of God.
3. The nature of the universe shows God to be absolutely consistent and selflessly committed to its completion.
This seems to be the limit of what we can in general positively infer from God as creator. If either the consistency or the commitment were missing, there would be no universe. Its completion, whatever that means, seems inevitable in the light of the consistency and commitment.
4. God does not remember the past or know the future but is with us in the present, inspiring and enabling us to become fully human.
This ties God's involvement in history to the only time we experience - the present. Nothing else follows from God as creator.
5. Human life alone has eternal significance. The compatibility with eternal values of the values we adopt in this life determines if the identity forged in our humanity continues after death.
Sin and salvation, heaven and hell, have no basis in the universe as we experience it. It's more consistent to imagine that a similar kind of process to the one that controls life within time also applies when life and time separate.
6. The nature of the universe and the good we see in humanity provide grounds for hope that all will at the end be well.
However much humanity in general screws up, however devastating a natural disaster, there always seems to be something to inspire hope. We only have to look in the right places. Why should the end be any different?