This week, a follow-up from last week…
When looking at Christian history, starting with the earliest Christian communities, we see a dynamic spirituality anchored in the faith experience of the followers of the Way of Jesus. Gradually, recollections of Jesus’ life and deeds and Christian community foundational experiences were recalled and written down. As communities expanded, organizational structures were created for good order and to ensure a correct passing on of the Way of Jesus to the next generation. The Scriptures were written down. Symbols, rituals, and statements of belief were created. A key operational principle was that if language and structures no longer worked, they were changed and adapted to fit the needs of the local community. This explains why we have four very different theologies in the Four Gospels.
Ideally, change and adaptation in language and structure should be an ongoing process. Occasionally, as history shows, Christians have had times of arrested development and institutional rigidity. In times of rigidity, the message always was: don’t question or think, just believe!
This brings me to my subject today: the Creed.
I know the creeds – Nicene Creed and Apostles Creed — very well. For many decades now I have recited and sung the Nicene Creed; and in my younger days -– few know this — I even accompanied that singing as a part-time organist in my home parish.
Now for my first creedal observation:
The classical Christian creeds: the Nicene Creed, written in the fourth century, and the Apostles Creed, whose earliest version appeared in the fifth century, were formulated within the context of a comparatively simple biblical understanding of a three-level universe: Heaven was up there with God. Earth was down below. Below earth was Sheol: the abode of the dead. What we think of today as “outer space” was believed to be a large universally-wide cosmic ocean. A big dome over the flat earth kept the waters away. As needed God could open little windows in the dome to let it rain over various sections of the earth. The stars were suspended from the ceiling of the dome. Very simple and compact. God was the heavenly manager. He – yes God was considered male — had all the strings in his hands.
A very faulty English translation of Sheol in the Apostles Creed, by the way, says Jesus “descended into hell.” A more correct translation would be “he descended to the underworld” or “descended to the world of the dead.” What the creed was really referring to was that, after dying on the cross, Jesus went to the place of the dead. He did not go to a Satanic hell. The Latin version of the Apostles Creed has absolutely no mention of hell. The Latin version reads “descendit ad inferos,” where “inferos” (not infernos with an “n”) means “those below.”
The three-level universe perspective is also found in accounts of Jesus’ Ascension, where Jesus steps into a cloud, like into an elevator, and then he is lifted up to Heaven. Curiously the same old perspective was used in the Catholic doctrine of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven. That teaching dogmatically defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950, says that Mary was lifted up to Heaven, body and soul to sit next to her Son and reign as “Queen over all things.”
Today we have moved far beyond the biblical three-level universe. Consider for a moment that one light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year: about 6 trillion miles. Our ever-expanding Universe is 93 billion light-years in diameter at the present time. Those 93 billion light-years cover just our observable Universe. The whole Universe might very well be 250 times larger than the observable Universe.
Last week I stressed that the reasons why people are abandoning the churches do not lie within our Christian Faith but rest with the way many church authorities present Christian belief.
We are not static medievalists. We need to begin with an historical developmental perspective on what happened with the disciples of Jesus after his death and resurrection. Then we need to shift to an historical developmental understanding of what is happening to us today as contemporary believers.
Now for my second creedal observation:
Christian life is a process. Spirituality comes first. Structures, doctrines, and creeds come after that. If certain church structures, doctrines, and creeds in particular times and places fail to nourish the spirituality of its constituents, they will either have to change, or they will fade away. Or people will fade away from them. It is happening now.
When I read either ancient creed, I think immediately about obedience and loyalty to the institution. The Roman Emperor Constantine (emperor from 306 to 337 CE) certainly wanted exactly that when, in 325 CE, he convoked the first Christian council in Nicaea and had the bishops come up with a binding creed to unify Christianity in his empire. Many scholars suggest Constantine’s main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes in the empire. He chose Christianity to implement his political agenda but had to first of all insure Christian unity through loyalty and obedience to the Nicene creed. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 during the reign of Emperor Theodosis I, who ruled from 379 to 395 CE.
Frankly what I miss, in both creeds, is human warmth: a spirituality that speaks of a compassionate and loving God, who journeys with us, and holds us in the palm of his or her hand. I would like a more spiritual creed that speaks of a wondrous creator of the constantly expanding and immense universe, who is beyond our imagination and ability to describe, and yet who is as close to us and as intimate as the air in our lungs. I would like a creed that resonates with Paul in I Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” That warrants much reflection.
I would like to see a creed that reassures people today that Jesus’ voice is just as much a living voice as ever; that his truth is a living truth; and that his God is a living God, near to all of us.
A few years ago, in a summer theology course I taught at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, I asked my students to write their own creeds. The results were amazing and deeply moving. The most touching creed was written by a young fellow who was a professional jockey! When I complimented him in private he replied with a big smile: “Well I guess I am a believer who is also, as you say, an inquisitive still searching believer.” I hope he is doing well today, and still an inquisitive believer.
Third creedal observation:
Please write down your own creed. I am serious. For your own spiritual reflection. Or it could even be a group process.
By way of a example of a contemporary creed. a friend sent me a creed created by The United Church of Canada.
We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
Now get started writing your own creed. 😇
- Jack
I have written “A Progressive Christian Theology” and you are one of my inspirations.
To what address can I send it to you??
Basically, the creed is “Orthopraxy over Orthodoxy.”
Thankyou very much! My address: marygrey144@gmail.com
Jack,
Thanks for the idea of a Contemporary Creed. I had never thought about it in these terms even though it is what we live in our spiritual journey.. Our personal creed is a dynamically growing process that is constantly changing. You inspired me to write my own at this particular juncture.
Thanks and peace,
Dennis
Many thanks Dennis and warmest regards
Jack
From some of the churches which I have served as organist, I remain impressed by the adoption of the Belhar Confession (1986) and the Barmen Declaration (1934).
For 66 years I have ministered as an organist and music director in at least 11 congregations, as the incumbent or as the long-term interim for parishes in transition. I am a musician by nature, by training, and by practice still, but churches with pipe organs (mostly) have been my chief venue. The organ unites and transports people on the same breath as their song, and it is the instrument uniquely containing almost every element of mineral, animal, vegetable, and spiritual life derived from this Earth, our island home. Over my decades of service on the bench, often aloft, I have habitually recited thousands of creeds, but often in my own personal version, muttering along with the congregations I served. I try not to sound paternalistic and patronizing in my own credal editing, because “fatherhood” is sometimes lacking or downright dangerous in some single-parent households, a tragic fact of life in the fleshy-now. Here is just one of my attempts, maybe more a confessional complaint than a creed, penned initially to myself alone, in some choir loft during a flaccid homily, oblivious to Bach’s birthday in March 2019.
“Master, Incarnate Word of the Father, so many of us Sapiens, including Christians, abridge what we believe fits our own needs and desires as if we owned our faith, as a thing we possess. Pardun us, pardon me, when I forget that the credal “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” conditions are mere marks of hope that seem to reflect Your will. Unsure in shadow shy on light, in my stumbling and hesitation, I ask You: Does all depend on grasping my belief, from here to Kingdom come? Or do You believe in me, holding onto me? I trip along the way of faith, as Sebastian’s cantata says, Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, . What do I risk in claiming You as my stumbling block, groping for You here at rock bottom in the lion’s den? Lieber Herr, hilf du meinem Unglauben.
“If my heresy offends or forefends your coming, I am sorry. I repent of judging others too harshly or myself too timidly. In my darkness I fret, not about the Kingdom of God, but about the Kinship of All in the Wide Old World, where all life is suffering to endure, struggling through pain to find a way, is wick to walk on simply in hope, if not in faith.
“Shed your light on my behavior so encrusted in salt, so that instead of wasting divine energy of Being in holy Matter by pickling the dead, I may savor the changing needs of Sapiens, of siblings, of spouse, of offspring, while I live here in the fleshy-now. Discipline my aging desires to perceive the earthy pigments of your Word arrayed on the palette of this Wide Old World of yours.
“You came to us once in time quietly, barn-born in human flesh, bone and blood of Mary and maybe Joseph, the One from the Earth raised up by them for service to others, cross-bound in, but not of, a world enslaved to sin. As you once began your submission to a new beginning in the Jordan of old, anoint Thou my mind, strengthen Thou my will, that I be an accompanist, a worker, wickening earthly beauty, goodness, truth and integrity for “the life of the World to come.”
“Thus says our mantra in the metier of your presence among us: Maranatha. EUOUAE. “
Dan, This is wonderful!
Jack
Dear Jack,
What a WONDERFUL way to invite us to really profess our own commitment to our loving God! I seldom pray the Creed in private when one I am alone because it often seems like a religious version of the pledge of allegiance….like a laundry list meant to be a group recitation. What you have done for me is make me think about not only WHAT I believe but, more importantly, WHY I believe. You have nudged me to really focus on what is the core of my Catholicity and it makes so much more sense! I feel like MY creed is now more vibrant and personal and meaningful. I don’t disbelieve the other elements of the creed but you have opened up a whole new way of thinking and believing. Thank you, dear teacher/friend!
Peace,
Frank
P.S. A personal “hello” to Dan Meyer, a fellow seminarian from St. Paul days!
Many thanks again, very good friend!
Outstanding! Thank you for encouraging me to dig into my soul and mind as I give thanks every day for Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Warmth and mercy and compassion are all part of my creed or beliefs. More meditation and, then, writing…
Thank you Margaret….Writing is a very good spiritual activity.
Thank you for your reflections, Mr. Dick. I am struck each time I say either ancient creed by how our professed beliefs jump from the birth of Jesus to his death and resurrection, completely skipping over Jesus’s mission, the Word of Love – an omission that misses the entire point of Christianity.
Patrice, exactly. You say it very well!
Jack, I never thought of it as a creed, but on reading your reflection this immediately came to mind.
“God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them”
The need for a better creed is becoming more obvious in our world.