Under each of the following choices, choose the
statement that MOST CLOSELY corresponds
with your beliefs. Mark your answers on the
Answer Sheet.
CHOICE 1: God's Nature
God is an awesome judge who sends his enemies to eternal hell.
God stands over and against the human individual and demands a faith commitment.
God is beyond all descriptions; personal, but not a person, not limited by a name.
God is a creator who has established certain rules by which the world operates.
God's intention is for every human to be entirely free. Good works to that end.
God is part of a world-process that changes both God and the world.
There is no supernatural. Life needs no such explanation.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 2: God's Interaction with the World
God can and does do whatever he wishes in the world. All events depend directly on him.
God acts primarily in history. He calls individuals to places of leadership to carry out his will.
God is the ultimate ground of all being. Thus he transcends all existing things yet closely relates to them.
God works in the world through regular processes, which he will not violate.
God leads humans to complete freedom; they must struggle to respond and obtain it.
God influences world events through love and persuasion. God cannot do otherwise.
God may be thought of as the tendency of the universe to realize and preserve values.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 3: Jesus' Personhood
Jesus was God in every sense, including knowing the future. He claimed to be the Son of God.
Jesus is the center of God's action in the world, through his incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, living Lordship, and second advent.
Jesus as Christ symbolizes ultimate truth about God. One encounters Jesus now and in history.
Jesus was the best and greatest man who ever lived. From him we learn the nature and will of God, because his sonship is found in word and deed.
Jesus was a revolutionary whose principal mission was and is to the captive and poor.
Jesus is the event in history which shows that love, relationship, and movement toward fulfillment are God's will.
Jesus was the incarnation of growth of meaning and value. This growth can be idefinitely great, but is never fully realized in one individual.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 4: Jesus' Significance
Jesus substituted himself for us on the cross, thus paying for our sins.
Jesus Christ by entering into human misery makes a new life possible. God awaits our response through him.
Jesus as the Christ signifies God's acceptance of persons as they are. Accepting one's acceptance gives new being.
Jesus calls his followers to serve and suffer with him for the sake of the Kingdom. Redemption is both individual and social.
Redemption is primarily this-worldly and is realized in every upward step of lowly persons. Jesus overthrows the mighty and exalts the lowly.
Jesus Christ is related to all things; he is the focus of all God's purposes for salvation, which is complete personal and social wholeness.
Redemption is devotion to the value believed to be supreme for all humankind. Jesus is the outstanding example of such devotion.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 5: Holy Spirit: Mode of Opperation
The Holy Spirit brings direct, even audible messages from God to some human individuals.
The Holy Spirit witnesses to the truth in the hearts of believers, and breaks out into the world with love and goodwill.
The Holy Spirit is manifested in faith and love. The supreme criterion of this is Jesus as the Christ.
The Holy Spirit makes the infinite resources of God available in the present; if we respond, God's will can be done in us.
The Holy Spirit speaks to persons primarily through the temporal, secular situations in which they find themselves.
The term "Holy Spirit" can be used for the fact that God is intimately involved in all world happenings.
The Holy Spirit is a way of describing certain types of religious experiences but is not itself a reality.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 6: Revelations
God revealed Godself long ago to the Hebrews and through Jesus. This revelation has been handed down to us and is to passed to others.
God has revealed Godself in history through mighty acts of salvation. Revelation is transmitted by testimony.
Revelation is the way the mysterious depths of being is concretely expressed in the expereince of a person who feels concern about their own existence.
God is revealed in many ways, both secular and sacred, but supremely in the example of Jesus.
God is revealed in the struggle for peace and freedom. This is both an individual and a group experience.
God is progressively revealed in the totality of universal events, from the subatomic to the ultra-celestial.
Revealed truth is an attempt to explain experiences which are beyond known methods to distinguish between valid and invalid inquiry.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 7: Church Nature
The church is a gathering of those who believe the true gospel.
The church is the center of the activity of the Word in the world. It is the redemptive community.
The church is a group of people who express in the contemporary culture a new reality by which they have been grasped.
The church is a community which strengthens its members through the formation of habits of worship, study, and service.
The church is the Kingdom in miniature, and society should be made over to fulfill the aspirations of its members.
The church's primary function is to provide participation in work and worship in order that persons, society, and the world may grow toward God's will.
The church is an association of persons for the purposes of religious living.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 8: The Christian in the World
The Christian is set apart from the world, and ideally should be involved in it as little as possible.
The Christian's major function is to witness in such a way as to bring modern humans to a confrontation with the Gospel.
The Christian inevitably finds himself/herself involved in life-situations which require decision-making. Choices determine what the person really is..
The Christian life is to be lived in imitation of Jesus, seeking to establish the Kingdom and demonstrate love.
The Christian throws himself/herself into the struggle for justice and equality for oneself and others, no matter what the cost.
The Christian life is lived in relationship with God known in Christ, and in company with others, as a social process, taking every opportunity to realize love.
The religious person develops a drive toward values believed to be supreme. Usual characteristics of such a life a self-criticism, patience, hope, and a sense of mission.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 9: Nature of the Human Person
Persons are basically evil, and without Christ they are lost.
Human dignity lies in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. His entrance into the world shows the worth of persons inspite of sin.
Persons are alienated from God, the ground of their being, and need to be reconciled.
Persons are neither good nor bad, but the influences of life can lead them either way.
Persons are created to be free. They realize this in political and economic ways as well as in religion.
Persons are dynamic products of the past with genuine freedom to reach goals. Direction is more important than the present state.
Persons are one with the natural universe and must realize their potential in this context.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 10: The Bible
The Bible is the infalible word of God.
Biblical scholarship must be acknowledged, but the Word is revealed in the Bible and demands our reponse.
The Bible depicts both a self-revealing of God and the contexts within which it takes place. We must see it from our own context.
The Bible is an important sourcebook for Christianity, but it requires reinterpretation both in its own terms and in light of modern scholarship.
The Bible is a textbook for liberation. Women, minorities, and the oppressed everywhere find great meaning in stories like Exodus.
The Bible is valuable only when taught for life experiences. It is part of the past which makes us, but must be appropriated for the present and future.
The Bible is a record of human experience which may be one source of religious teaching.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
CHOICE 11: Christian Religion
The Christian religion consists of certain irreducible beliefs. One who does not believe them is lost.
The Christian religion is a faith-repsonse to God's initiative. It is normative for all.
The Christian religion is a way to overcome our alienation from God and therefore from our own being.
Christianity rises above all other religious expressions, but it is different in degree rather than in kind..
Christianity expresses itself best in true democracy, where political, economic, and social matters are dominated by the well-informed masses of people.
Christianity affirms life, gives life, and pervades life. It does not consist of negatives which express distrust of human nature and God's good world.
The Christian religion is a past culture which has been superceded in modern thought and practice.
[Color Code:
teal
purple
blue
yellow
green
red
pink]
Beginning
Answers
This "Theology Quiz" is an adaptation of information found in Charts of Christian Theology & Doctrine by H. Wayne House (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992).
These pages were created by Charles Neff in conjunction with Sister Joan Marie Smith's "Theology and Education" class at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. (Spring 2000)
