Principles

Christianity

We stand ready to fulfill the Will of Christ.

Beyond that, as a member of The Order, your connection to God is your personal relationship.  As members of The Order, our purpose is to become the best that we can be and use that to accomplish goals within the world.  The Order does not want to intervene in your personal relationship with God.  As an Order, we are united in this Christian Faith and work together, but we are not about telling you what your relationship with God should be like.

Qualities that we Value

• Faith
• Honor
• Respect
• Discipline
• Strength of Will
• Mastery of Intellect
• Mastery of Emotions
• Integrity

Character

Society is made up of individuals.  The state of society is a direct reflection of the state of the individuals that make it up, the Character of those individuals.  Therefore, the problems in society have their root cause in the character of the individual.  This means that improving the character of the individual is the primary component in solving our greater societal problems.

But how do we change the character of the individuals within our society?

A society's culture is the root of what a society values.  And in turn what the individuals that make up the society value.

Currently, our culture values achieving goals of status, wealth, fame, comfort, acquiring material goods, online presence, supporting the right causes etc.  It puts very little value on the character of the individual.

Thus, it is our goal to make character development valued by society's culture.  This will lead to more and more people working on developing their own character.

The Development of Character

The Development of Character means:

1. To develop traits such as respect, discipline, work ethic etc.
2. Overcome issues such as anger, laziness, ignorance, anxiety, selfishness, greed etc.
3. Develop and gain mastery over our fundamental qualities:  Will, Intellect and Emotions. 

We learn how to do each of these three things and then make this effort part of our daily lives.  Identifying our current state and systematically working to improve one trait at a time, overcome one issue at a time, and gain more and more mastery over our Will, Intellect and Emotions.  Integrating this effort into our daily lives.

Growth

Of course we are all Loved and welcomed by God.  However as Christ speaks of many times throughout the Bible, we are to strive to be the best people that we can be.  Life is a school, and God directs the lessons.

Life is about learning how to become closer to God, not living a perfect life from beginning to end, never making a mistake.

As an Order we highly value the development of character, but we don't seek to be self righteous, to judge others, to cancel others over past mistakes.

And to that end, we recognize that Life is difficult.  It can be ugly and dirty.  We each are put into difficult situations that we don't know the best way to handle.  And we make many mistakes along the way, even doing bad things.

Too often we think of people as either "Good People" or "Bad People".  This is not often stated this way, but it is how many people subconsciously label ourselves and others.   

When people have this absolute view of you are either perfect, or you're a bad person - because you did something in your past - then this eventually puts everyone into the bad person category.  This is not a good way to look at God's gift for us.  This gift is a life where we can learn from our experiences.  Where we are given the experiences that we individually need in order to become closer and closer to our Creator.  To imply to people that having made mistakes puts us in the Bad People category is a misunderstanding of the purpose of this life that we have been given.  We are to live life and always strive to learn and be better-we should look at life and its experiences as a school to teach us how to become closer to God-, but the stumbles are part of the process and they don't make us damaged goods. In fact, it is those stumbles and mistakes that show us what areas we need to work on.  It's not important that we never make mistakes, what's important is that we are always striving to learn from our mistakes and regularly make progress.

It is not important to us that people are perfect.  It is important that people are always striving to become better.

This is supported in the Bible.

There is a misunderstanding: It is commonly believed that if you do a bad thing then you will be punished by being sent to Hell.  Even if you change your ways and do good things with your life then you are still doomed to eternal fire.

The Truth is that if you do a negative thing, you do so because part of you is negative in that way.  And when you die, your Soul goes to a negative place that it is at home within.  However, if you do a negative thing, because part of you is negative in that way, but you learn from the experience, you learn why you should not do such things, then you are no longer negative in that way.  Your Soul is no longer negative in that way.  So when you die, you do not go to that negative place.  Instead you go to a place that your Soul is now at home within.  (This is a simplification because its the combination of all aspects of yourself, not just one negative experience.)

As Jesus says:

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

²³ “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

²⁵ “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. ²⁶ Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

Matthew 5:21-26

Here, Christ is stating that if we do bad things, but learn from them, reconcile them, and become better, then we are no longer subject to punishment.

Political Stance

To seek the Truth.