creeds
Scott McKnight author of the excellent book, the Jesus creed has a number of posts about the importance of using the early Christian creeds, before we start to articulate what we believe.
Emerging and Orthodoxy 1
Emerging and Orthodoxy 2
Emerging and Orthodoxy 3
Emerging and Orthodoxy 4
Scott’s suggestion is that on our web sites, where we state what we believe (Ooops we don’t do that at Northern!), we should list one of the ancient creeds first. As an indication that our own articulation of what we believe stands connected to orthodox historical Christianity. He cites Jacob’s well as an example of this.
The Apostles creed (ca. ad 215) is the main one that is used.
“We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. AMEN.”
I have no problem with the above creed. But here are my problems.
Firstly, there seems to be a very important part of jesus ministry missing in this creed. What happened to the bit between what I have bolded? Where is the commitment and the belief in, his teaching, the way Jesus spent his time, the way he arranged his priorities, who he related to and what he did! Is that not an important part of our belief?
Secondly, I am nervous about this emphasis on what we believe. The Western church has been very good at excluding, marginalising and smothering those who think or act a little different from the so called ‘norm’ or ‘orthodox’ way.
So, I would like to propose an additional description to be placed on emerging church (or any church’s) web site. Alongside the list of things you believe, list the things that you also do!
August 19th, 2006 at 12:51 am
looking at some of the earlier creeds highlights the fact that they gradually became more complicated as people started to preach things that were obviously heretical but werent covered by the creeds… like a loophole really… what are we going to do when someone starts preaching in our denominations name something which is obviously wrong but not in the creed..??? the obvious thing will be to refine it .. not to exclude people but to exclude grevious error .. any creed or statement of belief or truth claim is going to exclude someone along the way
August 19th, 2006 at 1:17 am
getting back to a ‘mere christianity’ like the type that was espoused by CS Lewis i think is similar to what Scot McKnight is trying to achieve and is welcome
August 19th, 2006 at 1:20 am
i should not drink coffee at 10 pm… adding this to my personal creed