This is the first p
ost on what will probably be a series on the Nicene Creed that will lead up to, and continue from the conference at Beeson Divinity School. I’m acrtually working on another peice right now, but came across this quote from Pelikin which just had to be posted.
“For the “will to believe” it so relentless — or, if I may put it this way, so insidious — that when it is denied or frustrated and when religious toleration, instead of being “justified by faith” (Rom 3.28), is justified by non-faith, belief will (in Dostoevsky’s phrase) go around the locked doors and sneak in through a window, substituting Wotan for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and replacing the Shema, andNicene Creed with the creed of Blut und Erde.” - Jaroslav Pelikan
Why do we need to confess what the church has always confessed about the nature of God and his redemption? Because we are “prone to wander” but unlike the popular song, we do not often feel it when we do. This is around the point where some of my less “confessional” friends will tell me that we do not need a creed, because we have the bible. The problem with this, I think, is that while we are believer/priests, we are not apostles. By the way, exactly NONE of the “apostolic fathers” considered themselves to be apostles. Every crack-pot heretic and most inventors of religion, read the bible, use the bible, and refer to the bible for their understanding. Some of them also claim to be apostles :> The key word there is understanding. The early church (second century) used whatever scripture they had (many old testament documents and perhaps some new testament writings that were beginning to circulate.) yet the primary thrust of the argument is what do the biblical writers MEAN. The early church was very interested in carefully handling and passing on the understanding of scripture received from apostolic teaching on the meaning of the text.
Sometimes we get confused on the challenge. The real challenge, as Dr. Pelikan notes, is not the will to believe, but the content of that belief. We so easily are influenced by our culture and do not even see the vacume, nor feel the air of truth replaced with a lighter, more toxic gas. He points out that in the vacuum we cause when we fail to think and teach truth is always filled with something. Often times this vacuum, though invisible, makes a sucking sound as the air escapes, often preceded by something along the lines of ”doctrine divides, can’t we just love Jesus” or, “I’m really more spiritual than religious”, or “All that head knowledge puffs up, we need more heart focus.” Yea, the heart, undirected by the knowledge of God always drifts into the stream of heterodoxy, and sometimes heresy.
Sometimes this drift might be harder to see in our carefully written doctrinal statements, but the drift is easier to see in our practice. When we fail to communicate the truth about sin, and leave out the uncomfortable aspect of Gods absolute justice, because it might hurt a seeker’s sensitivities, well we have just drifted from the stream of what has always been taught about salvation. The result is people like popular author William P. Young who don’t believe in substitutionary atonement. Did his readers feel the drift, um, no.
When we have the teaching of the apostles, given to the men they picked to run the churches, that the central element of worship is communion, without which worship does not exist. And we take the Lord’s table and move it to an annex, because the sanctuary has new stadium seating so that we can have a better show, we have drifted. But then the vacuum is filled and we just say that music is what constitutes worship. Try this out, go to some evangelical church websites and click on the link entitled worship. Do you see the communion there? But with all the cool new lights and HD screens and high def sound systems, I think we did not feel the drift.
God has designed the community of the Church to work together throughout time to keep the main thing the main thing. This is what the creed does for our beliefs. Our practice flows out from these beliefs.
We need the accountability of historical orthodoxy. Say it out loud! We believe in one God the father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth….
