05/ Theological Position

The Educational Mission of Regent College speaks of “the handing on of living faith from one generation to another.” We believe that the content of this faith is set forth in the revelation of God given in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We confess the faith therein set forth and summarized in such historic statements of the Christian church as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. We here explicitly assert doctrines that we regard as crucial to the understanding and proclamation of the gospel and to practical Christian living:

We believe in:

1. The sovereignty and grace of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in creation, providence, revelation, redemption, and final judgement.


2. The divine inspiration of Holy Scripture and its consequent entire trustworthiness and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.


3. The universal sinfulness and guilt of human nature since the fall, bringing everyone under God's wrath and condemnation.


4. The substitutionary sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God as the sole ground of redemption from the guilt, penalty, and power of sin.


5. The justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone in Christ crucified and risen from the dead.


6. The illuminating, regenerating, indwelling, and sanctifying work of God the Holy Spirit in the believer.


7. The unity and common priesthood of all true believers, who together form the one universal Church, the Body of which Christ is the Head.


8. The expectation of the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Global Mission statement speaks of “commitment to Jesus Christ,” which means that we embrace not only the truth of the Gospel, but also the way of life that Christ invites his disciples to inhabit. Thus, Regent’s Educational Mission statement expresses the hope that our students will not only have “their minds filled with the truth of Christ” and “their imaginations captivated by the glory of Christ,” but will also have “their characters formed according to the virtues of Christ.” We therefore commit to the moral vision set forth in the revelation of God given in the Old and New Testaments, as a good and beautiful gift of God to his people and to the world. We believe this is a vision that leads to human flourishing for individuals and communities.

Our Values statement makes clear that we desire to be a Christian graduate school where learners can be “transformed by the Holy Spirit through study, to the end that we might become more Christ-like and therefore more fully human.” We welcome our students with hope that our curriculum and community life will open the way to an ever-deepening life in Christ and his Church, rooted in foundational belief and theological understanding, and expressed through integrated Christian practices.

We aspire together to pursue an educational process centred on the Christian calling to love God and to love our neighbour. Therefore, we affirm that we need to take all our neighbour relationships seriously, seeking to understand and live those relationships in light of our biblical and theological commitments. We strive to be formed by the vast implications of being the “new humanity in Christ,” loving our neighbours as ourselves and extending hospitality and respect to all. This hospitality and respect extends across differences, including denominational and theological commitments and perspectives.

Regent College welcomes students as varied as the whole people of God and from beyond the community of Christian faith. Because of this, Regent students are not required to subscribe to the College’s theological and moral commitments, which form the basis for our teaching. However, we hope they will be aware of and respectful of those commitments as foundational to our educational mission.

As a graduate school committed to the pursuit of truth, we invite those in our community to wrestle with complex and sometimes controversial topics as we engage with matters about which people disagree. We seek to nurture an environment in which all are encouraged to participate in careful, courteous, and respectful conversation. We want Regent College to be a place where students can develop biblical and theological convictions in a community of honest exploration and dialogue.

We also desire to be a place of spiritual formation and pastoral concern. We invite all to be formed and transformed by the truth taught in the Scriptures, learning what it means to live under the lordship of Christ. We understand that everyone is in a process of transformation and stands in need of God’s grace. Students have a variety of needs and concerns, and we want to care for those in our community with the love of Christ and the sensitivity of the Spirit, even as we all seek to grow up into Christ.

Our moral vision includes the following essential elements:

1. Followers of Christ are called to a life of increasing maturity in holiness and depth of character. As sinful people we all need the grace of God and the work of the Spirit of God as we live into Christian virtues, resisting patterns of sin that hurt ourselves and others, and growing into the freedom of Christ (Romans 3:23–24; 6:19, 22; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 5:1; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:14–16).


2. Given the unique status of human beings made as God’s image, we are committed to the dignity, value, and sacredness of human life from conception to death. Accordingly, we reject all forms of prejudice that objectify, diminish, or devalue human beings, either individually or collectively (Genesis 1:27–28; Genesis 9:6; Psalm 139:13–16; James 2:1).


3. As we learn to love one another, paying attention to the needs of all, we foster a faithful witness to the gospel in the world (Hebrews 12:14; 1 Peter 2:5, 11–12). Thus, we seek to orient ourselves towards our neighbours and the world at large in ways characterized by humility, joy, mercifulness, peaceableness, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, and courage (Matthew 5:1–12; Galatians 5:22–23; Philippians 2:1–5; James 3:17).


4. We uphold the church’s historic understanding of the biblical view of marriage and singleness. Marriage is a covenant commitment between a man and a woman, intended by God to last a lifetime and to serve as the rightful context for the expression of sexual intimacy. Both singleness and married life are spheres of discipleship in which we are called to sexual holiness in obedience to Christ (Genesis 2:20–24; Malachi 2:13–16; Matthew 19:1–12; Romans 7:2; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Hebrews 13:4).


5. Our choices and actions are informed by a concern for justice and are designed to promote such justice on behalf of those who are deprived of it, including people experiencing poverty, marginalization, displacement, racial and ethnic prejudice, or misogyny (Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 16:19; 24:17; Amos 5:24).


6. We seek to respond obediently to the biblical mandate for all humanity to live responsibly and creatively within God’s good creation (Genesis 2:15; Psalm 8; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Revelation 4:11).

We believe it is our calling, and as we mature in Christlikeness it is increasingly our delight, to seek to love God, our neighbours, and God’s creation in ways that attend to “the whole will of God” (Acts 20:27).