Collateral Bloggage What passes for thought around here…

Theology Thursday Book Review: The Creed

I’m singing in church this weekend, and I was also asked to lead the reading of The Apostles’ Creed for one of the services, and so you just know what my reaction was going to be, don’t you?

Okay, so my initial reaction was, “No, thanks.”  Nervous as I can get about singing into a microphone, it’s ten times worse to speak into one.  However, the service I’ll be speaking in is a small one, and the atmosphere is very family, so I’m going to stretch myself a bit.

My next reaction was, “I’ve got a book about that!”  The Creed:  What You Believe and Why, by Michael Bauman, is a concise treatment of The Apostles’ Creed, explaining each point and adding in testimonials from Christians about what the Creed means to them.  I picked it up for a buck from CBD.  Mmm…dollar books.

One would hope that most pew-dwellers would already know what each line means, rather than just reciting the Creed without understanding, but then a book such as this would be unnecessary.

Having grown up in a decidedly non-liturgical church (Assemblies of God), I didn’t grow up knowing any Creed other than Petra’s.  (Which I still think is an awesome song.)  But after taking a Church History course in college, and doing quite a bit of self-study on the topic, I’m now reasonably familiar with the various Creeds.

There are a couple of points I disagree with the author on, but that’s hardly surprising given my tendency to disagree with everyone on something.  The first disagreement comes in the Introduction:

A well-written creed marks out the truths that the Bible reveals and requires for salvation.

I’m not one to put knowledge tests on salvation, given that the Disciples were apparently saved before knowing much more than “Jesus is Lord and Christ.”  Yes, we have more knowledge today, and so we have more responsibility to shepherd that knowledge, but imperfect belief in Christ is still belief in Christ.  Errors can be corrected after conversion.

The other issue is Bauman’s treatment of “He descended into hell,” in which he makes the common mistake of not recognizing that “hell” is a bad translation of “Hades,” which is better understood as The Grave, or the place of the dead, and not a place of punishment.  The idea that Christ suffered the tortures of Hell is interesting, to say the least, but I’m not aware of any Biblical case that can be built for it.

One other minor thing was that Bauman recycles the very common idea that God the Father turned away from Christ when he was on the cross.  I’ve written before that the idea makes sense but isn’t explicitly taught in Scripture and shouldn’t be taught so dogmatically.

Other than that, though, The Creed is a nice, short work of basic apologetics, and it would be very useful as a resource for new converts or those just wanting to brush up on the particulars of their Faith.

But, of course, I was looking for something I could use, man!  And I found it.  Actually, several things.  First, Bauman mentions the legend of the origin of the Creed.  The legend says that the Twelve all collaborated on it (after Pentecost, so including Matthias rather than Bad Judas), with each of them contributing one statement to it.  A cool idea, to be sure, but not provable.

The next thing is the fact that The Creed is personal.  Even though it’s often spoken communally, it’s phrased “I believe,” not “we believe.”

And finally, Bauman emphasizes that there are two sides to faith.  The first is the mere intellectual assent, stating things like “I believe this.”  The other side is the trust aspect of faith, where we say, “I believe in Jesus.” 

It’s the difference between knowing facts about God and knowing God.  It’s the difference between saying, “I know what I believe,” and saying with Paul, “I know whom I have believed.”  It’s certainly useful to know what you believe about God, but it’s only a stepping stone on the way to knowing Him.

So now I guess I’m ready-ish for Sunday.