Our
Philosophy
For information
specifically on our TEACHING PHILOSOPHY click
here.
The
core of our philosophy is summed up in the words
" Reality is more important than anything we believe."
for more on our Beliefs: www.AgathosMinistries.org
OUR CORE PRINCIPLES
1. Reality is More Important Than Anything We Believe.
2. All Principles Must Be Consistently Applied.
3. The Bible is the Undisputed Primary Source Material for Christianity.
When a martial artist defends himself or herself from a criminal assault, how much one believes something is not as important as whether or not the self defense skills one knows will really work. In all of life, the realities of life are more important than what we think of them. Certainly any student of Self Defense would want to know that their instructors are more committed to reality than tradition. Tradition is great to maintain a connection to the past, but when you need something to work, you need it to work under modern conditions. A fast path to fighting skill is great, too, but if you want to be healthy and fit into your senior years, you want to know that the system founder was as devoted to using the body correctly as he was to fighting.
Our children will grow up to be adults, and most of them will marry at least once (and most of us hope they will find their lifelong soulmate on their first try), and most of them will have children. At the Guardian Academy we help parents prepare children for adulthood.
We
do not expect anyone to accept our word on anything just because
we say something is true, or we claim that a particular martial
arts movement is traditional. We encourage questions, and we
generally answer them.
We
want our students to know that we understand what we're teaching,
physically and otherwise, so we explain. Students are not expected
to agree with everything we teach, and we believe that everyone
should have heard something with which they disagree in the
first year or two. We want students to think and draw their
own conclusions.
We are looking for intelligent consideration, not blind faith. In fact, we would rather a student disagreed with us logically and rationally than agreed with us without thinking. We are most intersted in students who think.
Another critical piece of our core philosophy is "All Principles must be consistently applied." That means that if something is truly a principle (as opposed to a justification for a currently held position), then that principle will be consistent in all areas in which it applies. When it does not apply, there are principles that define why a general rule may not apply in a particular case. Certainly something that is always true - attacking the messenger does not invalidate the point. The issue is the issue, not the person, which means wisdom might be found anywhere.
Like
most parents, we seek to lead by example. We want to blaze
the trail so the students, adults and children alike, can simply
follow. We question our own faith, exploring challenges to
what we believe to be true with intellectual honesty and consistency
of principles. If what we believe and teach is true, then the
truth should be able to stand up to scrutiny. If we expect
others to examine their beliefs, then we maintain that we should
do the same first.
One need not be a Christian to understand that the Bible is supposed to be the Christian Book - the "primary source" for information about their religion - so it should be no surprise that a Christian would use the Bible to discuss life principles. Even nonChristians can agree on most of what the Bible teaches... treat others as you want to be treated, love others as you love yourself, etc. We do not demand that you accept our premise. So long as you are respectful of our beliefs (just as you would not argue about Taoism with a Tai Chi instructor), people of any faith - or no faith at all - can train with us.
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Why a Christian Martial Art?
Martial Arts Professional magazine probably reported it best. The magazine said, "Shaolin is a monastery. Bodhidarma, the legendary founder of Chinese martial arts, was a monk. Tai Shi teaches the Tao. As you can see, religion and martial arts have been bound together for centuries. Is it any wonder the Christians would bind their religion to their practice of martial arts?" The magazine also reported "Many traditional martial arts masters watched as Westerners took the spirituality out of martial arts and made it nothing more than an organized system of violence. To those masters, seeing Christinaity merged with the arts is a way to bring the traditional spirituality of the West into martial arts for the benefit of martial artists in the West."
Our
Beliefs
We are a Christian martial
art, so we believe that Jesus Christ sets the standard for our
faith. We arrive at and maintain this faith because we believe
that Reality is more important than anything we believe - NOT
by blind faith. This also means we view the Bible as the undisputed
Primary Source Material for Christianity, and all Christian faith
must be measured by the words therein. Where there is doubt,
we explore the original Greek and Hebrew and consider the entire
Bible, cover to cover, as a single unit. Research
the Bible Online. Includes Greek and Hebrew Texts.
As a result, we often
ask hard questions, and we propose possible answers. At times,
we also take controversial stands (see below the Statement of
Belief for examples). However, each person stands before God
as an individual, so we ask that no one accept what we teach
simply because we teach it. Rather, we prefer intelligent consideration
of what we have said. We hope others will agree because they
have concluded we are correct, or disagree for the same reason
- not emotion or blind faith.
We encourage anyone
with questions about Christianity to ask questions, hard or impossible
questions are welcome, and consider the answer. Also we hope
that Christians will read the Bible for themselves and research
the actual meaning of controvesial passages. The link above is
provided to assist with that.
Feel free to email
Scot Conway with any questions, problems or attacks on
Christianity, or if you are a Christian and strongly disagree
with something we do or teach.
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OUR
STATEMENT OF BELIEF
1. THE
TRINITY - There is only one God who is holy and perfect,
and has manifested Himself as the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ)
and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19 NIV) "Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
2. JESUS
CHRIST - Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God,
and He is the one true Son of God. He died for our sins (Crucifixion),
rose from the dead (Resurrection) and has ascended into heaven.
(Romans 3:23 NAS) "For the wages of sin is death, but
the free gift from God is eternal life through His son Jesus
Christ."
3. HOLY
SPIRIT - The Holy Spirit is the spirit that dwells
within us to give us power and guidance in our lives. It is
the helper that God has sent us. (John 15:26 NAS) "When
the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,
He will bear witness to Me.
4. BIBLE -
We accept the 66 books of the Bible as the Word of God, and believe
the original scriptures as inspired by God are perfect. We accept
no other text as scripture.
5. SALVATION -
Man is an imperfect being, naturally sinful, and therefore separated
from God. We are released from our sins through the acceptance
and faith of Jesus Christ, and the belief that He has atoned
for our sins. (1 Peter 3:18 NIV) "For once Christ died for
the sins of all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring
you to God."
6. GOOD
WORKS - Although good deeds alone can not save us
from God's judgment, God is pleased with good deeds. We believe
that they become a natural part of the Christian life, but
they are not the reason we are accepted by God. (Romans 3:24-28
NAS) ". . . being justified as a gift of God by His grace
through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ; . . . we maintain
that a man is justified by faith apart from works."
7. JUDGMENT -
There is to be a second coming of Christ and judgment will follow.
God will accept all true Christians in heaven, and all others
will be punished according to their sin. (Eccl.12:14 NAS). "Because
God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden,
whether it is good or evil."
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
The Guardian Academy is affiliated with Agathos Ministries. Agathos, most simply put, means "Be Good, Do Good." The best way to describe the "denomination" is "Alethian Christian"* - which simply means "Truth" - that we are committed first to Truth. That means in all the statements of belief above, they are all subject to consideration and subject to being questioned based upon the Bible.
A hallmark of "Alethian Christians" is that any Biblically legitimate position is respected, whether or now it happens to be the same position we hold.
* Thanks to the diligence of one of our parents, we have recently learned that since we established our website, that a distinctly nonChristian organization has claimed the name Alethian for a religious belief system that purports spirituality without a personal God. We've been using the term for more than a decade, but now that this other organization has now purchased the domain name, we must distinguish ourselves. They claim it is a "reality based" system of belief, thus the distinction as Alethian Christian. The others would more accurately be called Alethian Materialists, since they believe only in the material world, not a spirit world. Likewise, an Alethian Muslim would then be someone who truly studies the Quran to understanding what it actually says and means. So our modified term of "Alethian Christian" is to distinguish ourselves from this other new group who call themselves "Alethians."
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Controversy and
Intelligent Dissent
While we take sometimes controversial stands, we are also open to discussion. Generally, we believe that Christianity is an affirmative religion, not a negative religion. That means that we think that Christianity is NOT built on what you avoid, but on what you seek. We do not try to avoid sin in our strength, but rely on forgiveness and walking in harmony with God to achieve righteousness. We do not need to run away from Harry Potter or Pokemon. They are no threat to a praying, Bible reading Christian - so if we are praying, reading our Bible, and fellowshipping, those things are no threat to our faith. If they are a threat to our faith, then the answer is praying, Bible reading and fellowship, NOT running and hiding from things that should be no threat. We do not oppose Halloween or horror films on the basis of "introduction to the occult," but, rather, use them as innoculation against it.
We believe that to the
holy and pure, all things are holy and pure (see Titus 1:15)
- because we see the best rather than the worst in everything.
We also believe that it is the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin,
and our place is to facilitate the relationship with God that
will lead to that conviction. God has nothing to fear from Harry
Potter, nor Dungeons and Dragons, Pokemon or Halloween. Rather,
those who seek God, who pray, read and study His word, seek to
have His mind, His heart and love Him, those people will make
their own judgments. For everything else, it is like meat sacrifices
to idol about which Paul spoke extensively in Romans 14. If we
keep others from seeing us do those things, it is to keep them
from stumbling, not because we believe the things to be wrong.
We make reasonable accomodation for the weak-of-faith, but we
do not have to keep from it ourselves.
Other examples
that lead to controversy is the fact that we do sometimes ask
hard questions about "holy grails" of Christian culture.
For instance, we will open discussions about homeschooling, courting
vs. dating, creation vs. evolution, giving control to God, fashion
styles, and even theological pets like the Rapture. We foster
thought, even providing information on positions opposed to our
own convictions so we can help people see ideas under "friendly
fire" conditions. We think this is better than waiting until
someone seriously opposed to our faith attacks maliciously. After
all, would you rather just assume you're ready for a fight, or
train for self-defense under mildly stressful circumstances with
someone who isn't really trying to hurt you? Our martial arts
philosophy is applied to spiritual self-defense and defense of
our faith - after all, we were commanded to always be prepared
to give a defense for the hope that is in us.
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