Creedal Christianity.

Whenever I talk about the creeds, certain Evangelicals flinch, ’cause they think creeds are a Catholic thing. No; they’re an ancient Christian thing, and therefore they’re a present-day Christian thing. Creeds existed centuries before the Roman Catholic Church did.

Creeds are faith statements. The ancient Christians were trying to sort out what was orthodox and what was heresy; what was consistent with Jesus and scripture, and what wasn’t. And once their councils sorted it out, they published their faith statement—which, in Latin, began with the word credo, “I believe.” If you believe this too, you’re orthodox; nobody’s gonna doubt whether your Christianity is authentic based on your theological beliefs. (They might still doubt it based on your fruit, which counts for more… but fleshly Christians really hope you never notice. Sad to say, may don’t.)

And churches still have faith statements. And still require their members to sign off on ’em. Not always declare “I believe…” etc.; but if you don’t believe what they do, it’s gonna create problems. So they’re still practicing a form of creedal Christianity; it just doesn’t take the very same form as the ancient creeds. But man alive, are they similar.

For one thing, most faith statements include just about everything that’s in the creeds. Usually that’s because they’re just duplicating their denomination’s faith statement… and the denomination took its faith statement from the creeds. For those churches who independently get to come up with their own faith statements, you realize the leaders of that church simply duplicated the statements of the churches they grew up in, or admire most. And if you work your way back to what inspired those churches, and the churches they imitated them, and the churches those churches imitated… yep, we’re back to the creeds again.

Face it: The creeds are pretty much at the back of all orthodox Christianity. And if they’re not—if, like many an Evangelical, you claim you got your beliefs directly out of the bible, not the creeds—okay, maybe you think you did. I certainly thought I did. Believing Jesus is both fully God and fully human is based on what the bible teaches, isn’t it?—and yes, it absolutely is. But recognizing it’s okay to believe both things simultaneously—even that we should believe both things, and try not to prioritize one over the other—ultimately stems from creedal Christianity.

More precisely: Stems from the ancient Christians who realized, “Oh, we gotta emphasize how Jesus is both, ’cause too many heretics are claiming Jesus is more one than the other, or is only one but not the other.” Who realized overemphasizing Jesus’s divinity at the cost of his humanity, or humanity at the cost of his divinity, gets him wrong. Who realized this wrongness undermines our relationship with him in a big way, so we’d better get this part right, at least.

And generations of Christians thereafter have taken up the ancient Christians’ cause. Including Christians who have no idea this cause didn’t originate with the Christians who wrote the bible, but the Christians a few centuries later who began to realize how important it is, gathered with other Christians across the civilized and uncivilized world to hash it out, and came up with the creeds.

Adopting the creeds, instead of writing a faith statement.

Third Day and Brandon Heath perform Rich Mullins’s “Creed.” Heath’s YouTube channel

Rich Mullins turned the Apostles Creed into his 1993 pop song “Creed.” Y’know, with a little effort, he could’ve made it rhyme… but he decided to go with the traditional Book of Common Prayer text, which is probably best, ’cause now a lot of Evangelicals know the Apostles Creed who otherwise wouldn’t have.

Mullins added a chorus:

And I believe what I believe

Is what makes me what I am

I did not make it; no, it is making me

It is the very truth of God

and not the invention of any man

Of course skeptics are gonna say it is so the invention of any man; the invention of many men, namely the bishops and patriarchs of the church councils, and the Roman emperors who presided over ’em.

Once again, I will point out everything in the creeds is found in bible. Okay, the bible was written by humans too, but inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that’s why Mullins can say it’s the very truth of God. The creeds reflect the scriptures, so they’re also the very truth of God. The church leaders who decided Christendom needed these creeds, were after all trying to get to the truth of God.

Arguably a church’s faith statement is trying to do the very same thing. “Our church believes these things…” because they wanna make sure they’re consistent with historic and biblical truths about God.

But too often a Christian’s individual beliefs, our personal theology, is not based on any faith statement. Not the creeds, nor even our church’s faith statements. They’re an eclectic mix of things we choose to believe, based on whether we wanna believe them. One individual Christian believes Jesus is God because she likes the idea Jesus is God. Another insists, “No he’s not God; he’s the son of God”—

• sometimes because she’s confused about trinity and doesn’t understand how Jesus is also the One God—and certainly doesn’t wanna say Jesus is a second God;
• sometimes because she’s hung up on Jesus’s title “Son of God” and thinks that makes him a demigod;
• sometimes because was raised pagan, Jewish, Muslim, or by various other people who deny Jesus’s divinity and insist only the Father is God, and she finds it a hard belief to shake;
• but often because she prefers the idea that Jesus is somehow less than divine.

You’ll find most Christians do this. Contrary to skeptics’ fears about “organized religion,” and claims that we Christians just swallow our church’s teachings whole, you’ll find most of us do no such thing. (Nor should we! Churches have been wrong. We all have.) We might claim we believe everything our churches teach… but do we really?

Nah, not really. We have our own ideas—about a whole lot of things. We have certain things we choose to believe despite anything Pastor, or the pope, or Jesus himself, teaches. Lookit all the Christians who have no intention whatsoever of turning the other cheek.

But when it comes to Christian theology and orthodoxy, there are certain things every Christian should learn to embrace. If we’re gonna authentically follow Jesus, and gonna claim him as our Lord, we have to embrace these ideas. They’re just part of the package.

And that’d be the creeds. I don’t get to be on any committee which decides whether they’re part of Christianity or not; they already are. I don’t get to reject them yet call myself a legitimate Christian; they (plus the fruit of the Spirit) determine whether I’m a legitimate Christian. If I reject them, or wanna pick them apart and say, “This statement is valid, but this one isn’t,” I’m not legitimate.

If any self-described “Christian” claims they get to define their own Christianity (or “the bible” does, but oy vey do they cherry-pick the bible) and not the creeds, they’re not legitimate. We gotta have some standard for orthodoxy around here, and it’s not gonna be us and our own brainpower. It’s gotta be the creeds. Like Mullins said, “I did not make it; no, it is making me.”

Same with heresy. You’re gonna find plenty of Christians calling this or that practice “heresy,” or this or that belief “heretic.” That’s a power trip on their part: They figure it’s not enough to say those Christians are wrong; they gotta escalate things to the level of “heresy,” and since most Christians presume (wrongly) that heretics go to hell, they’re basically threatening those Christians with whom they disagree, with hell. Yep, it’s evil of them.

Because heresy is not simply any ol’ instance of Christians doing it wrong; it’s self-described Christians who are willfully violating orthodox Christianity. It’s a church which claims God’s not a trinity, or Jesus is subordinate to his Father, or isn’t coming back, or Christians don’t need to go to church. It’s stuff which is really gonna make a hash of Christianity, and stands a good chance of even driving people away from Jesus. It’s people who think they know better than the creeds.

Again: I don’t define orthodoxy and heresy. The creeds do. My duty isn’t to sort that stuff out; it’s to embrace what Christians oughta believe, strive to believe it, and let these new beliefs help make me more like Jesus.