In churches all over the world people stand up every
Sunday to recite a Creed: either the Apostles’ Creed or the more elaborate
Nicene.
What is the function of these creeds? Historically,
they have been devised as a test of orthodoxy. Before being baptised or
confirmed, people had to recite these items of belief in order to be accepted as
members of the Christian Church. As ‘heresies’ increased, so items were added
to the creeds. The Apostle’s Creed, for instance, mentions three human beings:
Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate. Pilate certainly didn’t win a place
in the creed for his holiness or piety: it was simply that some people claimed
that the story of Jesus was a kind of symbolic myth with no historical reality.
In order to show that they did not hold this unorthodox idea, prospective
members of the Church were made to assert that Jesus was in fact crucified at a particular time in
history, ‘under Pontius Pilate’.
When Christianity became the official religion of the
European countries, holding the ‘wrong’ beliefs came to be seen as treason. Whether
or not you were willing to say the Creed could be literally a matter of life and death. Even
today, holding the wrong beliefs can get you excommunicated or ostracised by
Christians, though thankfully the Church can no longer get the State to back up
its condemnation with penal sanctions.
People today are increasingly uncomfortable with
being made to prove they are orthodox. Belief surely has to come from the
heart. Some of us feel that the Church should be a fellowship of people who
genuinely share the same beliefs and values, a place where we can openly discuss the nature of God and the meaning of life and celebrate the variety of
our experience, rather than an institution we are only allowed to belong to if
we can either force ourselves or pretend to believe the ‘right’ things.
Perhaps ‘I believe…’ is the wrong thing to say.
Sometimes I feel more like saying ‘I feel in my bones that…’. When Thomas,
after doubting, cried out to Jesus ‘My Lord and my God!’ it wasn’t a considered
theological statement. It was an exclamation of overwhelming joy, an expression
of a feeling that was beyond words. In fact, it is not certain that he meant by
it what we usually take it to mean.
‘I believe…’ is alright so long as we bear in mind
that it is not a matter of believing that (certain statements are factual), but of believing in
(a person or a way of life). It is a matter of feeling, and of being prepared
to take the risk of living by that feeling. Only then can I truly say ‘I
believe…’ – but I can’t say that about all the items in the Apostles’ Creed.
In future blogs I want to explore and express what I
really
believe. But maybe this thought is enough for now.
