Despite the fact that Christians create creeds to protect the church, creeds and confessions often have the opposite result. Creeds kill the church. They are a bullet to the brain of church creativity and unity.crea
Creeds Kill Creativity in the Church
We kill the creativity and liberty of others by scaring them into conforming to our creeds and doctrinal statements. Some of the best exegetical and theological work that has ever been done in the history of the church was done in the early centuries of the church before there were all the creeds and confessions to rein people in. Origen, for example, may have been one of the most creative Bible scholars the church has ever seen, and he came up with some great interpretations of Biblical texts. But he also came up with outlandish ideas, which were later condemned as heresy by the church. As a result, people barely study Origen, because they are afraid of being outcast for reading and studying a “heretic.”
Similarly today, Pastors and professors who develop a fresh way of understanding a biblical text are often afraid to share it with others, due to the theological backlash they are sure to receive. Bible College and Seminary students want to graduate, and so they also are discouraged from researching in new directions, and challenging the status quo in the understanding of some biblical texts. The doctrinal statement of the school restrains their desire to learn, study, and think for themselves.
Creeds Kill Church Unity
One final way that creeds kill is in the area of church unity. And unity, according to Jesus, is one of the key ways that the church is to be recognized. Our lack of unity kills the church. Though creeds and confessions were intended to bring people together over core elements of the faith, what actually happens is that the statements separates one group within the body of Christ from another. The doctrinal differences are usually not that large, but they are significant enough to bring division and strife within the church.
I think it saddens Jesus when there are dozens of groups of believers within the same town who are separated by a minor point of theology and so cannot love and serve others in the community. When arguments about when Jesus will return or whether or not people can speak in tongues today keep us from working together for the gospel, our creeds have killed the church.
In spite of the fact that the original Reformers—particularly Luther—began the movement with a liberating rediscovery of free grace and dying love, their successors…rapidly obscured that liberty by scholasticizing the stuffing out of it. Every church of the Reformation era (the Roman Church not excepted) fell in love with the idea of confecting long-winded confessions of faith—binding documents that spelled out in mind-numbing detail the correct positions to be held on all points at issue (Robert Farrar Capon in The Astonished Heart
).
The new ideas of the Reformation which initially reinvigorated the church, soon killed the church when people tried to codify, define, and defend all the new ideas with ever-lengthening doctrinal statements. In the end, the problem was just as bad as before: the creeds and confessions of the church caused us to completely miss the entire point of the Gospel and the teaching of Jesus.
Creed is Christ Greed.
If you want to be with Christ.. follow our creeds. He is with us, not you.
Interesting idea. So the development of creeds is us trying to control what others think about Christ?
I would have to agree!
I am going to let your opinion soak in a bit. However, creeds, I think, remind us; they don’t kill us. They remind us of who we are and who we are committing ourselves to be.
When we confess, for example, that “we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,” we are reminding ourselves that God brings, gives and is life. We, in turn, are to live as a reflection of God’s life-giving grace and love.
Thanks for the thought. Stay blessed…john
John,
This part of the series on creeds is pointing out some of the negative aspects. Eventually, I will get to the positive aspects, and I think you have hit on one. Creeds can help remind us of the truths of Scripture, and what is important.
But creeds are not always (nor often) used for that purpose, but seem instead to be used to control and condemn others.
Thank you. I happened to Stumble upon the site and did not realize you were in a series. Oops.
In that light, I agree.
Stay blessed…john
I had breakfast Sunday with a friend who is Lutheran. He brought up communion and a couple other issues we don’t agree on doctrinally. And then he got into infant baptism and I started to challenge him on that one. We started to get into a back and forth on it and when I realized we are on the verge of an argument I took a breath and said that when we get to heaven, there are going to be a lot of people who we disagree with on doctrine. Catholics, charismatics, Lutherans, emergents/emergings, maybe even some Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses or other members of cults whose doctrines have flown over their heads and who simply trust in Jesus. And so why do we let doctrinal/creed differences separate us.
What did he say in return?
Oh, he agreed. Our friendship remains in tact. 🙂
That reminds me of a fellow I know who memorized the minor catechism, and always used it debates! He treats Luther’s Catechism as a perfect inspired writing, without error. I’m pretty sure he’s not the only Lutheran who believes that. And to comment on the other poster, I bet Stephen will be shocked when he sees Paul!
Hmm….just thinking….it seems that it often comes down to who (or what) we place our faith in.
When we begin to follow a person and their revelation, never seeking personal revelation, we begin to deify their words – their writings – their beliefs. Statements of faith are not necessarily evil. It is when the statement becomes god to us – when we follow a statement rather than Christ, that the statement becomes a weapon.
Unfortunately, too often, the easy route is to just follow what someone else tells us to do rather than seeking for ourselves. It is easier to give someone else the power and responsibility of telling us what to do and not do…”just tell me what to do and I’ll do it”…than to pursue a true daily relationship with God ourselves.
The first only requires of us external behavioral things that can be faked, without having to truly address our internal stuff. The latter requires being honest with ourselves and God – acknowledging our brokenness.
Paradoxically, the first creates an atmosphere of fear – if someone challenges my doctrine, they’re challenging my perceived position with God – my sense of security; while the second creates a state of not caring so much about others individual beliefs as just being real with God.
In my experience, those who pursue the latter seem to scare the crap out of the ones who pursue the former….
Great insight. We do often deify the doctrinal statement, which is why we feel threatened when people disagree with it.
The only “creed” that really matters is John 3:16.
That’s a good one!
But if I could play “devil’s advocate” (maybe I should say “creedal advocate”?), John 3:16 doesn’t name who the “begotten Son” is, why we will perish if we don’t believe, or a variety of other things that most creeds spell out in some detail.
I often think of the thief on the cross. He seems to defy every doctrinal statement I’ve ever read. 🙂
The thief on the cross had plenty of time to get baptized and turn from his sins and do his hail Mary’s while eating some crackers and grape juice as he read the KJV Bible! get your facts straight!
Hmm….isn’t it so sad that everyone prior to 1611 (when KJV was written) never had the chance to read the bible properly….;-)
ah you have a point. But you get what I mean lol
Faith alone in Jesus alone for eternal life = only way.
Yes, I understand and agree.
If we could just get along we wouldn’t “need” a thousand different churches in a metro area. We could spend God’s money on his work instead of bills for all of the separate facilities.
So true, Rick!
I really believe this. I am not trying to make money off of my theology, but I do think that most of the church is, which is why I argue that this version of “church” must be done away with. Did you read the accompanying post which goes with this FB notice?
Dear brother Jeremy I have a question please. Do you write so polemically in order to get hits on your blog and make money? or do you really believe this stuff? Or do you have the wisdom to know the difference. “Kill the Church?” really? I have eliminated almost all the FB folks/friends that blog at pangea because the market ideology was so pervasive in their posts. I don’t even think most of them even understood what I was talking about when I asked them about it. They would make the most absurd and flamboyant assertions often backing away from them later on, etc.. So much of it reminded me of tabloid/Fox news bulls%$t, like the Bell fracas over Hell. I’m not saying that about you, but I am asking a serious question. I have posted some challenging things on my own blog from time to time (http://rosenzweigshmuesn.blogspot.com/) I have been criticized and challenged and usually find that a good thing over all, my own crapola stinks as much as anybodys, but I never have to worry about actively pandering to the market because I do not intentionally monetize my blog, art, or music. I say intentionally, because I am as corrupted as anyone else by ‘late-modern commodity capitalism’ whose influence is so pervasive that if I was looking for something “killing the Church’ (which is a theologically impossible assertion) I would look to that and not creeds to point a loaded gun at. Obliged.
LOL. I am just a fellow critic trying to make the church a better place for all of us.I am not trying to do away with the church, just raise it up to all it can be within the gospel.
Yes I did the blog post, but first I read this: “Shocking discovery by Cambridge researchers leads to the fastest selling joint product in years. Look below to see why….Start living healthier by taking care of your joints. No matter what your age, proper joint care is critical. Do your joints ever feel like the brakes in your car? Slowing you down, jerking from side to side, and even stopping you dead in your tracks?” Truth is I am getting old myself and who knows maybe this here “Instaflex” stuff might help me out! LOL. As for the rest of the post, well….hmmm, seems like a concoction of overdetermined and incongruent syllogisms to me, but hell, what do I know? And although I am Roman Catholic I am hardly a defender of the Roman Church, rather I am often an ardent critic. But if pedophiliac priests, cozying up to Hitler, a 2000 yr history of apostasy, murder, heresy, and you name it hasn’t destroyed the Church I don’t reckon reciting the creed will do much damage. I encountered the Icon “Blessing Christ” at Saint Catherine’s at Sinai. It is my favorite Icon and I have made one copy. Many consider it the most beautiful Icon in the world and perhaps the most beautiful painting as well. There the monks and priests have been continually praying some form of the Nicene creed for 1500 yrs.. At what point would you say that this devotion “Killed the Church?” I think that the Church (in the most comprehensive sense) has got much bigger problems my brother, but hell, if you don’t like creed, forget about it. What the Gospel is calling us too is so demanding, radical, and profoundly life-changing, and even the best of us are such fu%#k ups and unfaithful bastards that I believe with Heidegger and Bonhoeffer ‘Only a suffering God can save us.‘ be blessed and Obliged.
“Christian community is not an ideal we have to realise, but a reality created by God in which we may participate”. Dietrich Bonhoeffer