We believe in the God of Life, who creates and loves people, who acts in history and who promises never to leave us alone.
We believe in Jesus of Nazareth, who is our brother, who wants not to be idolized but to be followed.
We believe that we dwell in the presence of the Holy Spirit; without her we are nothing; filled with her we are able to become creative, lively, and free.
Lollypop, lollypop, lah, lah,——- lah, lollypop.
Since most of these youth have been already confirmed, or should have been confirmed, I wonder if any of them can pass an examination in which they have to recite the Nicene Creed and then explain what the Creed means?
Not bad. The three replies are overly-critical. It’s a generally very good and encouraging statement of belief, as far as it goes. And there is the problem: by calling it a “creed”, they have set certain expectations among the audience, and it fails to live up to those expectations. It certainly would not suffice as an official creed of the Church, and if it pretended to (which it doesn’t) then we would even argue that it’s not necessary, since we have perfectly serviceable creeds already! So, take it for what it is, not for what it isn’t. If my children expressed their faith in those terms, I would not have any problems; I also would follow up to make sure they’re clear that there’s “more”. 😉
There you have it folks, a preview of the Anglican Covenant that will be produced by Lambeth ’08. Who needs the Thirty-Nine Articles when we’ve got this?
We believe that we dwell in the presence of the Holy Spirit; without her we are nothing; filled with her we are able to become creative, lively, and free.
Her????
Interesting statement of faith. It has some points of resemblance with Christian belief.
Last year my co-teacher and I led our Sunday School class (5th-7th grade) in writing a creed together. It’s here, if anyone is curious.
#6. Ross, please give your young folks a pat on the back. They did a nice job. — Stan
For a defense of ‘her’ for Holy Spirit see Jurgen Moltmann, The Source of Life.
Should be:
[blockquote]who wants not to be idolized but to be followed[/blockquote]
Anyone up to attempting to give an orthodox explanation to this apparently heretical dichotomy?
I don’t always agree with Paul Zahl, (Probably because I am a product of the fall) But in “Grace in Practice” he describes the irreducible essentials and of the Christian faith, contrasted with others, as these 3:
(1) theological anthropology -Man is highly honored as made in the image of God; yet we have fallen through sin from that high estate, and cannot right ourselves.
(2) Christology -Jesus is the uniquely begotten son of God, and is Himself God.
(3) Sotorology – We are set right by the Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus
(headings are Zahl’s, descriptions are mine-RES)
There are many more truths in the faith, but these are the three that must be brought forth. All else fades to insignificance if these are lost.
This creed, as superficially pleasant as it sounds, fails to support any of these points. To the degree that it even engages the ideas, it speaks in opposition to them.
That said, I would be quite please with this effort produced by a group at the beginning of a retreat; then followed by a “compare and contrast” sort of session.
[url=http;//rericsawyer.wordpress.com]R. Eric Sawyer[/url]
(3) Sotorology – We are set right by the Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus
—more completely, we are set right by these things, accepting them through faith as God’s grace.
RES
The chief thing the statement teaches is through subtext: that the Nicene Creed is inscrutible and problematic.
Can’t say I disagree with Zahl’s essentials, but would not all three ecumenical creeds fail #1, and would not the Apostles Creed fail #3 as well?
Coming Up Next:
A seminar where Jesus is placed on the table to examined how relevant he is to our modern culture in light of our needs.
Ooops. Already happened.
OK,
Coming up next,
A Sunday School curriculum that emphasizes creativity and the individual experience of life in a safe, background-checked classroom setting.
Ooops. Godly Play already exists.
OK, how about a Church where each person brings their own experience of the divine and respects each other without critique?
Unitarians? Nope….something familiar to all..
Thank you LV! I suspect Zahl may wish the creeds had been a bit more outspoken on those points.
-RES
Ross’ (#6) kids show a much greater understanding of the Christian faith.
You have a link to read it all. I don’t think I really need to.
Bad moral theology goes along with bad dogmatic theology.
“We believe in Jesus of Nazareth, who is our brother,…”
Except those who are the children of ?????
Mat 8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Who gets to determine who is Jesus brother? Do they get to just by saying so?
Don
Ouch, you guys are tough. I’m curious to hear the opinion of our host, the Canon Theologian! 🙂
See Matthew 12:50 – “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
It’s also a line in one of my favorite hymns: “Joyful, Joyful we adore thee.” We’ve been singing it for 100 years.
Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Wellspring of the joy of living,
Ocean-depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother,
All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.
As a long time youth minister…I smell adults. I would bet big money (had I any) that this was a joint effort and the Youth stood around in agreement while the adults did most of the composing or “suggesting”. The Creed @ #6 above sounds like a real kid creed.
Wow, if anyone from my youth group days ever coming out with something this pathetic, trite, and touchy-feely they would have been soundly made fun of… not because we were neccessarily good Christian kids, but because we were just that mean.
More on topic, Spirit is gender neutral in Greek and feminine Hebrew. It does not become a masculine word until the translation into Latin. I don’t neccessarily think (let alone believe) that the Holy Spirit is female (or feminine), though one could definitely argue a certain Sky Father/Earth Mother imagery in Genisis 1:2, and that the fruits of the Spirit are qualities that one would normally call “feminine”.
My personal belief is that no matter what “gender” the Spirit might represent within the relationship of the Trinity; as God, the Spirit is quite certainly masculine in relationship with humanity (which takes on the feminine role). The best argument for this one is (bear with me, elves) the term “Spirit filled”. The masculine God fills us with His Spirit and New Life is created. I think the genders required for both parties to give life are quite obvious, even in our “scientific” age.
#6 creed is not only more youthful. It is a much better creed. That’s what I would want to hear MY (grand)children saying!
“…this stunning prayer we used as our creed”
This creedal statement is tragic, and from an orthodox catholic perspective, there is no way that this can be considered even a nice warm fuzzy Robert Schuller-ish gloss on the truth. Understand that to even put this matter to the Toronto youth for their input is about abandoning the Faith of the Church and making a weak, relaxed, lowest common denominator christianocracy the spirituality of choice.
Official North American Anglicanism has betrayed its tradition and the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and now, as all 20th century ideologies that were formed out of the Progressive movement and German Idealism have done, it will lead its children to destruction. TEC/usa and the ACC are now simply fully establishment, mainline liberal denominations who believe in psychotherapy and the new age religion of the self above the sacred healing medicine of Christ.
This creedal statement makes that clear, especially in its declaration that Christ “wants not to be idolized…” (of course, he doesn’t – that would be unhealthy for him and for us). And the declaration regarding the Holy Spirit has the same vision – “filled with her we are able to become creative, lively, and free.” Again, the individual self is the focus, and its expansion is the essence of spiritual reality. A little leaven has leavened the whole lump, and the subtle propaganda has achieved its purposes.
It makes me wonder if TEC/usa and the ACC were ever anything more than simply religious denominations to be shaped in the image of their adherents.
#14 and #16. While it is true the Nicene and Apostles creed do not speak in the explicit terms that Zahl outlines, his essentials are there:
Zahl’s point #1 – “For us and for our salvation he came down.” It does leave the question of “what is salvation” unexplained, but it is not too much to infer that humanity is in need of saving if he came down for our salvation.
Zahl’s point #3 – Again, while it is not explicit, the assumption in the Apostle’s creed is that it was first of all a statement of faith (it was the original baptismal profession: “I believe”) and second of all: why state that Jesus was incarnate, suffered, died was raised and ascended if they have no inherent connection to the realties that he is “the only Son” and “will come again to judge the living and the dead”?
These were certainly addressed more directly in the Reformation, but it is not a stretch to say that these essentials are in the creeds.
It should also be said that the English Reformation was especially good at emphasizing that the creeds were never the be all and end of the Christian Faith in the first five centuries. They are the lens through which we read the Scriptures. So, no one would be troubled by a cursory reference to salvation in the creeds because the fullest extent of salvation could be found in the plain reading of Scripture. Not to mention the fact that salvation was not the point of dispute in the development of the creeds (esp. Nicea and after): it was who is the Son.
Sorry if this is too off topic.
#23,
You are probably right. This creed has all the marks of being strongly guided by adults. The purposeful use of “she” for Holy Spirit, and speaking of Jesus being followed, but not idolized, sounds like it was written by someone who has been to a mainline seminary. Then again, maybe Anglican youth talk just like Anglican adults!
From yourdictionary.com:
idolize Definition
idol·ize (Ä«d′’l Ä«z′)
transitive verb -·ized′, -·iz′·ing
to make an idol of
to love or admire excessively; adore
intransitive verb
to worship idols
“Splendor and honor and kingly power
are yours by right, O Lord our God,
For you created everything that is,
and by your will they were created and have their being;
And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain,
for with your blood you have redeemed for God,
From every family, language, people, and nation,
a kingdom of priests to serve our God.
And so, to him who sits upon the throne,
and to Christ the Lamb
Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor,
for ever and forevermore.”
A Song to the Lamb, from The Book of Common Prayer, p. 93
In my own diocesan youth group days, the youth in my diocese answered “creeds” like the above by taking canticles like this one from the BCP and setting them to music, and singing them to the accompaniment of guitars.
Rather modal, aren’t we?!
Actually, it isn’t all that unusual to hear that someone meditating on the Holy Spirit has perceived some sort of feminine image. A Roman, particularly a female Roman, might report a vision of the Virgin Mary, in blue. That might relate to the Hebrew feminine version of “ruach”. Masculine images are also reported.
Of course, those meditating on Jesus usually get a masculine image of some sort, with certain identifying features to distinguish Him from His diabolic opposite. One does hear about feminine images, though, maybe related to a feminine personification of wisdom, or sophia. Or reading too much Julian of Norwich!
Now and then, someone will get the image of a Divine Mother holding the infant Jesus, perhaps due to the proliferation of ikons depicting this.
Still, I agree that this creed was probably crafted by folks who meant well, but need to brush up their classical theology.
The “creed” can be found in the book “Women’s Uncommon Prayers” (pg 325). It was written by The Rev Dr Constance Baugh to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ordination of women in TEC.
[blockquote]It does not become a masculine word until the translation into Latin.[/blockquote]
A bit of confusion here between grammatical and personal gender. The Spirit is already αá½Ï„ός in John, against the Greek grammar. The point seems to be that He is a sovereign Person not a commodity. In Hebrew there is no grammatical neuter, so the case is different.
Thank you, Priscilla, you got there before I did. The Orthodox troparion of the Holy Spirit addresses Him as the ‘Heavenly King’: http://www.pokrov.org.uk/Prayers/heavenly_king.html
I too don’t believe young people composed this ‘creed’.
It’s a long time sicne I tried to read Moltmann, who was very much ‘du jour’ is the 80s, but I recall an Anglo-Catholic scholar telling me he thought Moltmann’s thought was tritheistic. Don’t know enough there to comment.
No. 27 – How do you mean that the English Reformation was good at showing that the Creeds were not the be-all and end-all of Christian belief in the first 5 centuries. The Church, which also produced the Bible, did stipulate that they were what must be believed. And they (the Creeds) do not necessarily contain all the “insights” of the Reformation. Thje early church did not just say that every man should look in his Bible for the truths of the Faith.
The statement is sheer political correctness, nothing more. This is the Baby Boomer effect at work on its grandchildren. I suspect the writer above is on target: This is the work of adults trying to be adolescents (again). Larry
It is impossible to make an idol of Jesus, since he is, in fact, God made flesh.
Bad Christology = Bad Christianity
#3 – I do agree with one thing – who needs the 39 Articles – except they do come in handy at the beginning of the Mass Saturday night before Easter.
Merrilyonhigh
[blockquote]who needs the 39 Articles – except they do come in handy at the beginning of the Mass Saturday night before Easter.[/blockquote]
This is clearly the difference between contemporized Anglicans and Classical Anglicans. The former have discarded the Articles of Religion and it is quite clear they do not understand them. If you can renounce the Articles of Religion then you are not an Anglican.
[blockquote] We believe in Jesus of Nazareth, who is our brother, who wants not to be idolized but to be followed. [/blockquote]
I was a smart *ss teen. I suspect my response to this article would’ve been “Why should I follow Jesus?” The classical creeds at least answer this question, whether or not you accept their assertion that Jesus is God.
I cannot speak to Moltmann’s rationale, but I will address the grammatical issue of Holy Spirit as “her”.
I used to bring this up myself. Hebrew [i]ruach[/i] after all is feminine. Ta da! The Holy Spirit is a she! Anti-patriarchalists rejoice.
But (as noted above) in Greek [i]pneuma[/i] is neuter. Oh dear. So… the Holy Spirit is an it? Why do we push the implications of the Hebrew but mumble behind our hands the implications of the Greek?
It was – frighteningly enough – a hardcore Landmark fundamentalist Baptist who first forced me to rethink my advocacy of “Holy Spirit as she based on the Hebrew”.
The bottom line is this. [b]Grammatical gender does not (always? often?) determine or imply [i]ontological[/i] gender (or “sex” if you prefer).[/b] Languages just do not work that way. So I stopped bringing up the whole “Holy Spirit is a she” thing. It is bad linguistics.
‘ruach’ is certainly of the ‘feminine’ gender in Hebrew, but when we consider how the noun is used with (gendered) verbs in the Hebrew Bible we get some interesting results. For experiences of the ruach YHWH e.g. ‘possessing’ (lit. ‘clothing onself’) as in the Judges or Saul, the feminine verb is used but in 2 Sam 23.2 the verb ‘spoke’ is masculine; cf. also the use of masc. verbs in 1 Kings 22.21-22 for the spirit-being. A little learning is a dangerous thing!
#34 – Your question shows a bit of unintended ambiguity. What I meant by the phrase “not the be all and end of the Christian faith” spoke to the comprehensiveness of the creeds and not to their completeness. In other words, yes the creeds tell us that “he same down for our salvation”, but no they do not tell us as the Scriptures do that salvation means: we are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved, for example. Or that he died on our behalf. Or that he bore our sins in his body on the tree. Or that by his wounds we are healed, etc. The Scriptures give us the comprehensive picture that the creeds — in great economy — sketch. They are complete, not comprehensive.
I only meant to point out that they only make sense when they are fit within a broader context. I hope this clarifies.
Hi all, the discussion on here is better than at another site. I posted my thoughts on this affirmation of faith over on my blog, if anyone is interested in reading it. The conservative commenter I mention in the post made their comment over on Stand Firm. Here’s my reflection: http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/commonprayer.html?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:6801a4ae-544a-43dd-bddd-7b94a4f2a977Post:8ac19385-520e-45e6-99c8-994c027f500b
#38 –
I thought it was more the difference between Catholics in the Anglican Tradition and Protestants.
I am not sure where you get the idea that the 39 Articles are a Doctrinal Statement. Archbishop Fisher said it best:
“We have no doctrine of our own – we only possess the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds; and those creeds we hold without addition or diminution.” – –Geoffrey Fisher, 99th Archbishop of Canterbury
Merrilyonhigh
No. 44 – Thanks. That needed saying. No. 42 – When did the canon of Scripture become finalized? I think that the broader context in which the Creeds are understood is the tradition and liturgy of the Church at that time. Scripture was, and is, part of that tradition.
It’s interesting that this should come up around this time, to me — I just graduated from law school, and one of the positions for which I’m applying (with a Christian legal ministry) requires that I write a “statement of faith.” I thought about just copying-and-pasting the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds into a Word document, but that seemed like a cop-out. Instead, I wrote this: [url=http://diezba.blogspot.com/2004/02/my-statement-of-faith.html]Statement of Faith[/url].
I consider myself an orthodox person (an evangelical Anglo-Catholic). Would you agree after reading this?
No. 46 – Yes, pretty much so.
No. 45,
We have an answer, but the party assembled here does not like it.
No. 48 and 45. The reason I did not respond to the question is because I sat and sat trying to figure out what relevance the question had to what I had written, and I truly came up blank. *When* the canon was finalized does not seem connected to my point: creeds are sketches, the Scriptures are complete. What we now consider as “the canon of Scripture” was widely in use all over the church until it was officially set and final. When that occurred (which I believe was by the time Nicea came), I still do not see how that counters my point. Sorry. I must be dense.
No. 49 – Sorry, I could have stated my point more clearly. The Church, which produced the Bible (yes, the Scriptures we know now were in use, especially as part of the liturgy) determined that it was the Creed which was to believed, not anything else. Of course, Scripture, as read by the church, fleshes out those things which must be believed. Thanks for getting back on this.
[url=http://www.ntcanon.org/]The Development of the Canon of the New Testament[/url] is a helpful site on this issue.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
No. 50. Thank you for the clarificaiton. Yes. Yes. Yes. As St. Athanasius says, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly, And the Catholic Faith is this:” and then proceeds to give us his creed which far in away is better than the Youth creed of this post. The creeds are, of course, based on and drawn from the Scriptures, their use in the church and the proclamation of the gospel throughout the world. And were the essence of what is to be believed. Thank you for posts.
No. 51 Thank you for the resource. Very helpful.
Blessings to you both.
I should add that the Tradition of the Church also fleshes out that which must be believed.