Great questions again, Prudence Louise. As for the tradition I follow, it is related to but not exactly the same as the one I was born into. My family is Dutch, with deep northern Holland roots on all sides and my father immigrated after the war when he was 18. So I am part of the Calvinist tradition with the Dutch Reformed church in the US as the Christian Reformed Church. I attended a Christian High school, Calvin College, then completed undergrad at Seattle Pacific (a Wesleyan school) and graduate at Wheaton (IL) College. I taught for four years at Christian universities before starting in business.

I am steeped in the Reform traditions and understandings but am not entirely true to my Reformed roots. The Christian thinker who has had the most impact on me is C.S. Lewis (I even taught a Lewis Symposium). Another is John Polkinghorne.

While these are the traditions, I like to think that I think things through for myself, but there is no question that there is a starting point for all of us.

As for the non-negotiables, another great question, I have explained in a couple of places what I consider the very basics of Christian belief. I summarize those as creation, fall, incarnation, restoration. I do not profess to know how to work through the various questions of Jesus' divinity and humanity, as I suggest in this article, but to consider him a great teacher and prophet in a long line of others of similar value would remove an essential element of Christianity. I agree with Lewis here (who got this from Chesterton I just found) in the reference to Jesus as a loony bin along the lines of someone who says he is a poached egg.