Chi Alpha @ Stanford

Our beliefs can be sum­ma­rized simply:

1) God is real.
2) God has revealed Him­self in Jesus.
3) The Bible is God’s word.
4) God still does stuff.
5) God ought to be the most impor­tant thing in every person’s life.

These beliefs can be described as ortho­dox, evan­gel­i­cal, and Pen­te­costal.

By ortho­dox, we mean that we affirm the his­toric dec­la­ra­tions of the Chris­t­ian faith: specif­i­cally the Apos­tles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.

By evan­gel­i­cal, we mean that we believe the Bible is trust­wor­thy and we believe that faith requires per­sonal com­mit­ment — no one is born a Chris­t­ian. There’s a Wikipedia arti­cle that explains the nuances.

By Pen­te­costal, we mean that we believe that the min­istry of the Holy Spirit includes mir­a­cles, and this is an impor­tant part of the life of the church. We’re spon­sored by the Assem­blies of God, the world’s largest Pen­te­costal denom­i­na­tion (although we wel­come stu­dents from all back­grounds). Our pas­tor is ordained by them and fully sub­scribes to their state­ment of faith: the full text is called the State­ment of Fun­da­men­tal Truths.

This is a plain-English ver­sion of them:

1. WE BELIEVE… the Bible is God’s mes­sage to us.
SO WE SEEK… to under­stand and obey its truth.

2. WE BELIEVE… there is one God who is three per­sons.
SO WE YEARN… to know Him in all of His com­plex­ity and beauty.

3. WE BELIEVE… Jesus is fully God and fully human.
SO WE REJOICE… that Christ can be a bridge between us and God.

4. WE BELIEVE… peo­ple, through­out his­tory, have sinned against God.
SO WE ARE… deeply aware that we too are marked by will­ful disobedience.

5. WE BELIEVE… God extends for­give­ness to us through Christ.
SO WE REPENT.… and rejoice in our forgiveness.

6. WE BELIEVE… God offers free­dom from sin’s grasp.
SO WE LIVE… lives that are pleas­ing to God.

7. WE BELIEVE… fol­low­ers of Jesus must be empow­ered by the Holy Spirit.
SO WE EXPECT… super­nat­ural power in our daily lives.

8. WE BELIEVE… that God can heal both the body and the heart.
SO WE PRAY… with faith and hope.

9. WE BELIEVE… the outer mark of inner sur­ren­der to the Holy Spirit is speak­ing in tongues.
SO WE PRAY… that God would grant us this super­nat­ural gift.

10. WE BELIEVE… in the Church.
SO WE LIVE… in this com­mu­nity of faith, invit­ing oth­ers to join us.

11. WE BELIEVE… God gives lead­ers as gifts to His Church.
SO WE SERVE… those whom the Lord entrusts to us.

12. WE BELIEVE… God com­mands his fol­low­ers to cel­e­brate com­mu­nion and bap­tism.
SO WE PRACTICE… these sym­bolic actions, reflect­ing on their significance.

13. WE BELIEVE… Jesus will return to claim His Church.
SO WE LIVE… in expectancy of his coming.

14. WE BELIEVE… Christ will one day be seen clearly as King on earth.
SO WE LIVE… as cit­i­zens of His King­dom now.

15. WE BELIEVE… God is the ulti­mate Judge.
SO WE LIVE… know­ing that our choices will echo through eternity.

16. WE BELIEVE… we will live with God for­ever.
SO WE LIVE… with hope regard­less of our circumstances.

Our name was inspired by 2 Corinthi­ans 5:20, “We are there­fore Christ’s ambas­sadors, as though God were mak­ing His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be rec­on­ciled to God.”

Tak­ing the con­cept of Christ’s Ambas­sadors, our founders chose to make our name sound sim­i­lar to the names of honor soci­eties pop­u­lar at the time we were estab­lished (1953). Hence, Christ’s Ambas­sadors was ren­dered as Chi Alpha (XA).

Given that we have Greek ini­tials for a New Tes­ta­ment phrase, you might assume that our ini­tials actu­ally stood for the Greek phrase in question.

Oddly enough, you would be wrong.

If you look at the Greek words in 2 Corinthi­ans 5:20 (alter­nate site), you will notice the word that is trans­lated as ambas­sadors is pres­beuo. Being bright, you will instantly notice that this word doesn’t begin with an alpha (a).

For­tu­nately, some resource­ful Greek-speaker decided XA could also stand for the Greek phrase Chris­tou Apos­toloi, which means Christ’s Mes­sen­gers or Christ’s Sent Ones, which is really pretty sim­i­lar to the idea of Christ’s Ambas­sadors anyway…

And it was just so that Chi Alpha got its name…