The Rev. John Beverley Butcher (“Creeds are lacking”) is not alone in sensing the creed’s complete exclusion of Jesus’ life and ministry, mentioning only his birth and death and nothing in between. In the flow of the liturgy, Scripture, passing the peace, prayers of the people, the sermon and the Eucharist, Jesus Christ’s ministry and gospel are present. The creed, instituted by Roman decree more than three centuries after the Resurrection, leaves out both entirely. The Council of Nicea’s purpose was to institutionalize Roman power and authority.
We are Episcopalians and have been open to the Holy Spirit to help us in the evolution of our worship from the beginning. In the Nag Hammadi discoveries, we are now fortunate to have the gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene to read. None of the four original Gospels nor these new findings contain the creed.
Women also have sensed the irony of referring to the Holy Spirit as “he” when it is a feminine word in both Hebrew and Greek and would best be translated as “she.” Patriarchal language is problematic in a church with a woman presiding bishop.
Judy Massye Chimes in on those Inadequate Ancient Creeds
Posted in Christology, Theology
Speaking as one who is charismatic, TEC has fallen into the worst sort of unbalanced charismatic error: “It is so because the Holy Spirit told meâ€. I would never have believed that TEC was such a hot bed prophetic action. As I learned from those much wiser than I, the Holy Spirit will never lead you away from God and His teachings, so if you feel you have a “revelationâ€, test it through prayer and through the wider Body of Christ. I think the wider Body of Christ has already spoken and judged what should be in the Creeds, and, for what its worth, the qualifications for the office of bishop as well. The Body of Christ is not just TCE’s Executive Council, nor GC ’03 and GC ’06.
“The Council of Nicea’s purpose was to institutionalize Roman power and authority” – where does one even begin, when a writer thinks that the gnostic “gospels” (which are not even really in the same literary form as the canonical Gospels) should possess an interpretive authority greater than that of the catholic Tradition of the Church?
For the sake of brevity (and a minimum of frustration), I would only observe that this often quoted observation that “Spirit” has feminine gender in Greek and Hebrew could only be thought important by someone whose primary tongue is a language without grammatical gender forms (like modern English), who doesn’t understand that grammatical gender is usually arbitrary.
[i]We are Episcopalians and have been open to the Holy Spirit to help us in the evolution of our worship from the beginning.[/i]
And, recalling Dr Luther’s mocking comment on the enthusiasts of his day, these Episcopalians have swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all.
Sorry for the double comment.
No Gospel in the Creed, huh? So what is, “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried,” referring to then?
I am continually amazed to hear American clergy and bishops trumpet that the spirit of the Elizabethan settlement allows them assert that pretty much anything goes. This was never the case. What Elizabeth referred to in “not making windows” into a man’s soul was that provided he turned up at church as the law required and followed the services and did not assert anything contrary to the Prayer book and Articles, his personal beliefs would not be investigated [as some were urging the authorities to do].
I have come to the conclusion that so many TEC clergypersons like this one are not so much heretical as really really badly educated.
Apparently both Judy’s church and the Rev. Butcher’s seminary does not provide adequate adult education or emphasis on education. Is it any wonder that TEC “theology” is rejected in the rest of the world.
Pardon this neophyte’s possible ignorance, but wasn’t the Council of Nicea convened to address numerous heresies floating about at the time?
Reading this, it seems an opportune time to reconvene.
Anglicans are usually quite proud (in a bad way) of their education. They throw around their degrees and where they went to school like a baseball during warm ups. Why do so few of them actually say anything intelligent?
What I don’t understand is how TEC can say out of one side of its mouth: “Oh, we’re fully orthodox; we believe the creeds and say them every Sunday.” Then out of the other side “The Nicene creed is lacking, … is about projecting Roman power, … is no more valid that the Gospel of Thomas.”
Ignorance in the priest and the laywoman is no excuse. These however have obviously left their respective brains at the door of their entry into noncanonical gozpels like those of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and the Episcopal whatever-it-is grouping of thinkers lite.
shhesh, such a lack of historical understanding (and accuracy!).
The creeds are not a substitue for the Gospel reading, they are the distilled essence of the faith: this is what it means to say “I believe” and what beliefs are referenced.
The ministry years of Jesus were set up in the lectionary readings going back to the beginning, when the Apostles would recount the words and deeds of our Savior in worship. Historical documents records the lectionaries that were created after the apostles went to be with the Lord, taken from their writings.
Send the author back to school!
In His peace
Jim E. <><
“…when (spirit) is a feminine word in both Hebrew and Greek and would best be translated as “she.” ”
This comment shows us exactly why understanding the original languages is so important. The writer is only about 1/3 right. While it is a feminine word in Hebrew, the writer makes a common assertion which is incorrect, namely that it is feminine in the Greek. This assertion is made because in the lexical form it ends with an alpha, a sign that often (not always) indicates a feminine word. This particular word, however, is part of the third declension in a class of nouns that are actually neuter. This is easily learned by picking up any lexicon but which people are happy in their ignorance when it serves their own purposes.
The other reason this statement is fallacious is that, as Todd #2 pointed out, the genders of things that are not commonly thought of as actual people are arbitrary. Note that both languages were not created with the Holy Spirit in mind and so were not thinking of the word “spirit” as a personal word as we do in the Christian Church who believe in the Trinity. The most technically accurate pronoun would be “it.” The only reason we use “he” is because “he” conveys the personal nature of the Holy Spirit.
This brings to close the language class for the day. God bless.
“Those Inadequate Ancient Creeds”
Think about it: this drivel passes for erudition among ECUSA’s revisionist clergy. They ladle it out each Sunday even as their flocks dwindle and starve.
“Women also have sensed the irony of referring to the Holy Spirit as ‘he’ when it is a feminine word in both Hebrew and Greek”
Just as war is feminine in Spanish.
Just as in German:
— Peace is masculine.
— “Girl” and “Miss” are neuter.
— All “weak nouns” are masculine.
In addition to #12’s excellent statement:
AND the fact that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as “he” in his promise of sending the Spirit in John’s Gospel (one of the accepted ones). Jesus would presumably be accurate on a thing like this, but the laywoman in question would probably claim text-tampering as the explanation. Some people. The only thing to do is to walk away and leave them to their own sorry selves.
When someone recently attempted to attack Bishop Iker for leading Fort Worth out of the Episcopal Church, one of the bizarre criticisms of the diocese is that we’re not sent copies of Episcopal Life. Being in school in North Carolina, and on the address list of a local parish, I do get that interesting publication, and this was precisely the page that I thought of both when I read Via Media’s complaint about the withholding of this “award-winning” publication and when I saw Jim Naughton’s recent protestation at the notion that Christology is “debated” in TEC. It is amazing to me that a Church publication is routinely full of such nonsense (ignorant, antagonistic, deceptive, etc.)… and equally amazing that laypeople in this Church have been so badly catechized as to hold such distorted views of the Symbol of Faith (as the Orthodox call it). I try not to rejoice or make light of the fact that my diocese will soon depart the Episcopal Church, but this is one of those in-your-face experiences of anti-ecclesial behavior leave no doubt in my mind that such a decision is right.
Although I think it would be flawed to redo the creeds, they seem incomprehensible to the unchurched = and I think more so now than they would have 1600 years ago.
It may be time to reconvene. But who would be invited? How would these things be decided?
The Creed instituted by the ancient church was not done by a “Roman” church. The Council of Nicea was a meeting of all of the Provinces of the Orthodox Church, of which Rome was but one Province. At that time, the Ecumenical of the Orthodox Church resided in Rome; but much like the Archbishop of Canterbury – the first among equals.
Father Butcher really needs to go back and restudy history to get his facts straight. libraryjim is absolutely correct about the Creeds – they are statements of what we believe. The Creeds the Episcopal Church provides in the Book of Commun Prayer, are essentially the same as used in the Orthodox Church, then and today (wording and arrangment of some material differs, but the context is the same.) The Orthodox Church of old faced the same problems the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion face today.
From Orthodoxy, we watch and pray for all of you. Pray for us as well, as the lures of society also try to invade and corrupt Orthodoxy as well. God’s peace and love to all.
Of course, if one were going to call for a new general council of the church, then Article 21 points out that councils “may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes.” So you’ll have to hunt up a Christian monarch who is willing to command that such a council be held.
I would have thought that the creeds are remarkably clear and concise summaries which would help the unchurched to understand what it is that Christians believe
““Women also have sensed the irony of referring to the Holy Spirit as ‘he’ when it is a feminine word in both Hebrew and Greekâ€
And the fact that both sailor and farmer are feminine in structure in Latin (“nauta” and “agricola”) doubtless proves that Rome was actually founded by Minoan matriarchs displaced by the eruption of Thera, a fact which has been hidden from us by the patriarchal powers that have oppressed us for millenia. Phooey!
Mr. Wilkins, why should the Church use non-Christians as the standard for it’s doctrinal statements?
Thanks to all who have sorted out this woman’s linguistic ignorance. There is much truth in what Pageantmaster says in #5 – ignorance of history as well as ignorance of language. One thing that troubles me is the insistence that “patriarchal language” is unfair to women. I often get the feeling that to women such as this one, “fairness” to women is more important even than God.
[i]Although I think it would be flawed to redo the creeds, they seem incomprehensible to the unchurched = and I think more so now than they would have 1600 years ago.[/i]
As Nikolaus points out (#22), the Creed was not written as a tool of evangelism, nor for the casual inspection of the unchurched.
I think, Fr Gawain (a.k.a., John Wilkins), that the Creed would have been incomprehensible to the unbelievers of the 4th century Mediterranean world no less than the Creed might be incomprehensible to the unchurched now. I offer up two exhibits as evidence: the scandalous truth that God (THE God, the “first cause”, not merely a demigod, not a Tammuz or Attis or even an Osiris) became incarnate and died; and the truth that this same God-Man rose again from the dead (see the incomprehension of the Athenians in Acts 17 on this point).
[blockquote]In the Nag Hammadi discoveries, we are now fortunate to have the gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene to read.[/blockquote]
What is she talking about? Neither the Bible or the or the Apocrypha contain the gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene.
She sounds more like a cult leader than an Episcopalian priest.
Todd, fair enough, but would you not agree that the questions are different? Our modern “heresies” could be geological time and evolution. None of my confirmands believe in Osiris or Zeus. But they do believe that money saves. It’s the ethic of capital. And pretty convincing, if I may add.
That God rose from the dead is not, however, unusual in the ancient world. The meaning of such, however, is different in our faith.
The “gospels” of Thomas, Philip, and Mary Magdalene are each “two lies for the price of one.” They are not gospels nor where they written by the people whose names appear on them. In the four canonical Gospels, the authors’ names do not appear in the text, but were named by the Tradition in the 2nd century.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Betty, you’re right — but FYI, Nag Hammadi is an archeological site where several years ago a collection of Gnostic (not Christian) manuscripts were discovered. A lot of progressives thought that orthodox Christianity would be somehow hurt by this, but they forgot that it was all cleared up in the 3rd century. (It is hard for these people to believe that there was a world before the 19th century.) In some sense I might even say that we are indeed fortunate to have these works with us — not because they reflect Christian belief, but because they are in themselves an easy antidote to Gnostic sympathies (it is one thing to be drawn in by the sexiness of the Da Vinci code, but when one starts reading the weird cosmologies about Ialdabaoth and the Sophia, it all gets real).
I’m with Todd on the Creed. I really don’t think that the modern heresies are so different. What is different is the whole sacramental (antiquity) vs. anti-sacramental (modernity) distinction in the eras… but this is really not an issue of the Creed but of evangelism and the Church’s liturgy.
“The creed, instituted by Roman decree more than three centuries after the Resurrection, leaves out both entirely. The Council of Nicea’s purpose was to institutionalize Roman power and authority.”
Once an intelligent human has read such utter crap, why would they stay in the same room, let alone organization, with the person who said it? Any excuses, any reason whatever? I have read this hogwash in a number of modern Anglican sources, heard in recorded sermons. No wonder Ann Redding is a priest among them. It sounds like Muslim evangelism to barbaric illiterate peasants. If it isn’t it ought to be.
A minaret could be up at Canterbury Cathedral tomorrow and not one Anglican would bat an eye.
Here’s the text of the “Old Roman Symbol,” a second century ancestor of the Apostles’ Creed:
“I believe in God the Father almighty;
and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord,
Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,
on the third day rose again from the dead,
ascended to heaven,
sits at the right hand of the Father,
whence He will come to judge the living and the dead;
and in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Church,
the remission of sins,
the resurrection of the flesh.”
No reference to Christ’s earthly ministry. And no possibility that the Christian Church, then under persecution, was seeking to “institutionalize Roman power and authority.”
“I have come to the conclusion that so many TEC clergypersons like this one are not so much heretical as really really badly educated”
— Pageantmaster [#5]
Make that “really badly miseducated”: schooled in heresy.
I’ve added the quotes from this post along with all the background materials and links to SF’s “Document the Heresy” thread.
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/13902/
I really suggest that all orthodox T19 readers bookmark that thread and make a habit of adding to it whenever you come across something like this. It is invaluable for demonstrating the nature and gravity of the crisis to those trying to keep their head in the sand…
Consider the source of this latest bit of revisionist drivel:
Rev. John Beverly Butcher, M. Div.
I see Pescadero Community Church as a multifaith community of people serving as a pilot project for affirming our shared humanity and committed to preserving Life on Earth. When will we human beings discover how to live peacefully together on this beautiful little Blue Planet?
John Beverley Butcher is an Episcopal Priest who became a minister of Pescadero Community Church in the Fall of 2005. A student of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary of Magdala, and Lao Tzu of China. He is seeking to integrate Holy Scripture, archetypal psychology, Taoist philosophy, and personal experience with the arts and lively Spirit filled liturgy. His primary purpose in life is to discover how to become more fully human.
Intensely engaged in research and writing, his published work includes:
The Tao of Jesus, Harper, San Francisco 1994, revised 2006, Apocryphile Press
Telling the Untold Stories, Trinity Press International, 2000
An Uncommon Lectionary, Polebridge Press, 2002
He is an Associate Fellow of the Jesus Seminar and a Fellow of the Canadian College of Chinese Studies. He serves on the Steering Committee of Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice. Before coming to PCC, he served as Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, Pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Menlo Park, California, and Episcopal congregations in Winslow, Sedona, and Clarkdale, Arizona. He also served as Chaplain of the Arizona State Prison and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He earned his B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard and a Master of Divinity from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He hopes to become a Quantum Mechanic when he grows up.
It’s so convenient to have this sort of stuff come out, because it allows me to keep track of all the ministers from whom I won’t take communion. If you can’t even repeat the creed, then I cannot consider you a Christian minister. It’s that simple.
#34, I agree! Clarity is good! But what’s the difference between folks who can’t or won’t say the creeds and people who say them but “nuance” the meanings to the point that they’re essentially meaningless or “cross their fingers”? It’s great when the wolves are howling and growling, but when they’re wearing wool coats, it’s not always easy to spot em!
The Nicene Creed was promulgated in AD 325 and is found on page 326 of the BCP. I always thought that was kind of fun.
Wingate, I’m sure you don’t mean to say exactly that. I have known utter flakes who happily *repeat* the Creed. I’m sure the village atheist Mr. Toedt *says* it. Schori says it. James Pike was more subtle, he ordered that it be *sung*, not said, because it was “Poetry, not theology”. I bet you meant believe it, but even then you have to play 20 questions with it. Which is exactly why it’s there! Once upon a time a non believer had the integrity (now replaced by Integrity) to leave if he didn’t believe, now he just gets ordained. It’s much easier to leave the organization.
What I meant to say was it’s now easier for believers to leave rather than wait for non believers to.
A correct, logical interpretation of what I said would have saved a lot of responses here. What I said set a minimal standard; if bishops are willing to keep saying (or singing, a la Pike) the Creed while publically denying it, then that repetition is not only not enough, but worse in its way. But that hypocrisy is so blatant that its denunciation, as far as I’m concerned, can be taken as a given. (And yeah, yeah, I know one can’t take orthodoxy as a given these days. My response was more addressed at the people who claim to have other reasons why we should drop the creed.
Sorry to be one, but I’m going to be a conspiracy theorist here and suggest that this is more of the ongoing program to change the church to make it acceptable to the revisionists’ secular society. Creeds are finite standards of our faith, that the reappraisers have had trouble overcoming, since the beginning of their campaign 30-40 years ago. This is just one more step – sort of like Michael Hopkins saying just flat out that the Bible was wrong about homosexuality and Bp Bennison saying since we wrote the Bible we can re-write it. If they can change the creed, in the name of “inclusion” of more of Jesus’ ministry, then they can make it like they want it, where it is not in conflict with their lifestyles. Not sure what they think they’ll have when they finish, but also not sure I want to be around when they try to explain it on Judgment Day.
Marion R. post 36, You may think it is fun, but you miss the point. It is truth, and that is why we still recite it and believe it and why generations coming after us will also recite it and believe it.
Betty,
You can still seriously believe it yet note the irony of the date/page number. God allows us to laugh at things like that without it being derogatory.
😉
In His Peace
Jim E. <><
Libraryjim: Thanks for the tip, I read Marion R.’s post again and I get it now.
Marion R: I am sorry I misunderstood your post but now I understand that you weren’t being sarcastic and I agree that it is fun to know that “the Nicene Creed was promulgated in AD 325 and is found on page 326 of the BCP”.