All of us to a certain extent have our own personal creed,giving credence also to a certain extent to whatever group we see ourselves being part of.
This could be a small local church group,as it seems that Baptists do or to a much larger organisation like that which is often called the Catholic Church.
Religious beliefs have to be passed on to us either by word of mouth or by reading books,so there is always a community aspect to religious belief.
The word 'belief' in English is partly connected in origin with the word 'love' and the Latin word for 'I believe' is 'credo' which comes from 'cor do' (I give my heart) . It refers to feelings which we trust (possibly because they have come from sources which we feel we can trust.
Pope Francis said with reference to interfaith dialogue that all religions have ultimately the same aims and that they more or less say the same things in different ways 'just like foreign languages' as he said.
English speakers,for example, should easily recognise that 'house' appears in other languages as 'Haus' and 'hus' and some may recognise the word 'casa' as another form of the same word but it is more difficult to recognise that some people may say 'maison' or 'dom' and still be saying the same thing as English 'house'
It is the same with religious language such as the forms in whatever language we may think of for the Nicene Creed. The sentence' I believe in one,holy,catholic and apostolic church' can be understood in so many different ways.
And of course I know that I don’t have a monopoly on “nonconformism”. For international reasons, let’s call it “ dissent as a matter of personal conscience”.
Right I have used AI for to get hold of this because I knew it was there but doing the reading was going to take me hours. For people who want to do a thorough comparison for themselves then please go to This tabular listing of Westminster Declaration and Savoy Confession.
I am quoting at length from this version of the Savoy Declaration on that site but removed the numbering which seemed confused:
In the execution of this power wherewith he is so entrusted, the Lord Jesus calleth out of the world unto communion with himself, those that are given unto him by his Father, that they may walk before him in all the ways of obedience, which he prescribeth to them in his Word.
Those thus called (through the ministry of the Word by his Spirit) he commandeth to walk together in particular societies or churches, for their mutual edification, and the due performance of that public worship, which he requireth of them in this world.
The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing (in and by their profession and walking) their obedience unto that call of Christ; who, being further known to each other by their confession of the faith wrought in them by the power of God, declared by themselves or otherwise manifested, do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ; giving up themselves to the Lord, and to one another by the will of God in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel.
To each of these churches thus gathered, according to his mind declared in his Word, he hath given all that power and authority, which is any way needful for their carrying on that order in worship and discipline, which he hath instituted for them to observe, with commands and rules for the due and right exerting and executing of that power.
These particular churches thus appointed by the authority of Christ, and entrusted with power from him for the ends before expressed, are each of them as unto those ends, the seat of that power which he is pleased to communicate to his saints or subjects in this world, so that as such they receive it immediately from himself.
Besides these particular churches, there is not instituted by Christ any church more extensive or catholic entrusted with power for the administration of his ordinances, or the execution of any authority in his name.
If you want to understand the theological stance of Congregational polity you can do worse than read through the rest of this section of the declaration.
A bit of a tangent. But first of all thank you for your link.
I’m in an independent church in voluntary association with others. Viewing the Savoy Declaration as linked I’m pretty sure we can tick all the boxes. It’s a very principled document.
I think the congregational (rather than the episcopal) understandings goes a fair bit further than churches which identify as Congregational. Personally I think it’s been a very valuable insight to dissenters of all shades.
I believe the normal practice in Congregational churches is infant baptism but I’m not sure if there are any minority exceptions. It doesn’t seem a feature of the Declaration - mind you I’m probably missing something.
Section 29, Article 4: "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized, and those only."
Thanks for that! I hadn't heard the heart connection, but since you put it that way, it makes sense!
What always struck me about the word "belief" was the greek connection that "belief" and "faith" are basically the same word in Greek in verb and noun form. "I believe" means the same "I put faith in." Faith is a thing given, just like belief is a thing given.
And framed that way, in the Epistles, the idea of saying "But I have beliefs!" seems like a narcissistic distortion of Paul's sense of faith. Beliefs must be attached to something besides my personal ego to be serious.
I have faith in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ's faithfulness. That is the expression of the Creed. I do not need to put faith into the creed itself. God is faithful, so we seek to reflect that faithfulness. In that vein, I don't need to take my pathetic little faith that seriously. The focus of the gospel is on God's faithfulness. My beliefs are, to use the milder version of a Pauline expression, rubbish compared to that.
Interestingly, the Conference they eventually signed on with was not a principally LGBTQ-friendly conference, but one that espoused the Baptist principle of (if I'm not screwing this up) soul competency. The conference believed earnestly in a church's right to set its own policies on matters that were not fundamental, which included matters of LGBTQ identity. A church had the right to set its own rules.
Soul Competency is definitely an American Baptist principle, but it really refers to the individual’s accountability to God for their personal faith. I suspect the principle you’re after here is the autonomy of the local church, which says the local church—the local congregation being the only entities called “church” among American Baptists—is free to govern itself as it sees fit.
In this way, these literal American Baptist Churches were united in common praxis that included freedom of conscience. I have some old churchy saying about the categories of unity, tolerance, and charity, but I can't quite get it to come out right.
“In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity.” The phrase has been attributed to various people.
Yes, but the principle does exist. It is the principle of Congregationalism. The belief that the only place where the Church can truly be discerned is in the local fellowship of believers. Therefore, it can not be dictated from outside the fellowship.
This is held by BUGB and is a common Baptist belief. . . .
So, yes, an actual Baptist belief, but not under that name.
I’m sorry, under what name?
And what principle did I suggest doesn’t exist, or isn’t an actual Baptist belief?
Under the name of "Soul Competency", rather it is part of "Congregational Discernment" - the ability of the congregation to discern the Church in its context, not of any wider body (or smaller).
I think you’ve misread or misunderstood what I said. I specifically said soul competency wasn’t the applicable principle, but rather the applicable principle was autonomy of the local church.
I think you also failed to take into account the context of what I posted. I was responding to @Bullfrog, an American, who gave a specific example from an American Baptist church. My response was framed using terminology that is regularly used by Baptists in the US. While congregational discernment is definitely involved, the specific principle at play in the situation described by Bullfrog, and the principle he was trying to identify, would, in my experience with Baptists in the US, be the principle of autonomy of the local church.
Section 29, Article 4: "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized, and those only."
Thanks. I hadn’t looked in detail at that comparative table. I’d never seen that table before and it is fascinating, both for the common ground and the diversity.
Congregational polity was never confined to Congregationalism. It was normative for English Baptists as well at the time of the Savoy Declaration and has been since. Hence the commonality with the third column in that table.
I have faith in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ's faithfulness. That is the expression of the Creed. I do not need to put faith into the creed itself. God is faithful, so we seek to reflect that faithfulness. In that vein, I don't need to take my pathetic little faith that seriously. The focus of the gospel is on God's faithfulness. My beliefs are, to use the milder version of a Pauline expression, rubbish compared to that.
Talking of creeds, it is interesting to me that the most violent (figuratively, literally) disagreements within Christianity appear to be between groups who accept the Creeds. Maybe I am not appreciating the nuances but I don't think they have historically been about disagreeing with fundamental points of belief.
It seems that since the widespread pogroms of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, Christians mostly turned their ire on each other, looking past those who were obviously not so similar. Universalists, non-trinitarians and Quakers largely were looked past whereas (for example) it seems like the angry Orange Presbyterians mostly disapproved of the Roman Catholics despite very largely agreeing on the points in the Creeds.
Of course this seems to have reverted again since the growth of twentieth century anti-Semitism when Jews once again became the target.
There was and has always been a 'political' dimension, of course and the level and intensity of violence correlates in proportion to how far into the foreground that dimension becomes. I'm not saying that to exonerate people of faith from violent actions and persecution. Far from it.
I've heard Orthodox say things like, 'Well, at least we only exiled heretics, we didn't burn them at the stake like the Catholics ...'
As if that excuses the violence that Big O Orthodox people have committed in the name of their beliefs.
Both Iconoclasts and Iconodules carried out atrocities, maimings and so on.
'Caesaro-Papism' could be equally as nasty as the Vatican under the Borgias.
I know a priest in the Greek Archdiocese who took a service in a town where the local Greek Orthodox hired a Greek Catholic church for their Liturgies. They would go in beforehand and place icons of their own Saints in front of the Greek Catholic ones.
As he was serving the Liturgy he found himself in front of an icon of a Greek Catholic Saint who'd been done to death by the Orthodox. He 'apologised' to the Saints and 'said' to him, 'Now, I know you are somewhere where all this no longer matters but I would like to say, "I'm sorry ..."'
Alright, that might not go far enough in undoing all the wrong that has been done but it's a step in the right direction at least.
I'm not sure it's entirely the case that non-Trinitarians were overlooked - Servetus was notoriously executed in Calvin's Geneva and with encouragement from the RC side of things too, from what I can gather.
Early Quakers were often imprisoned.
Non-conformists were not allowed into Oxford University until the 1850s.
Northern Irish Presbyterians were only ratcheting up general suspicion and disapproval of Roman Catholics that existed elsewhere across the British Isles. My brother is attending his local RC parish after many years of estrangement from churches of any kind - although he has no intention of converting to Catholicism (yet?). The priest and others there have told him of abuse and shitty comments they've all received from full-on Protestant types over the years.
It became a bigger deal in Northern Ireland for political reasons. 'Home Rule is Rome Rule' and all that. King Billy and the Battle of the Boyne.
Besides, the 'beef' that Protestants and RCs had (or have) with one another isn't so much about the Creed but areas of difference beyond that. The Creeds cover Christology and Trinitarian belief, they don't go into granular detail about how churches should be organised or baptism administered etc etc - those are dealt with in 'rubrics' in the historic Churches and in the various 'confessions' among the post-Reformation Churches.
The issues at stake in the 4th century were about the Person of Christ and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. We can't anachronistically read back later controversies over justification and faith/works and so on into the first millenium of Christianity. Not that these things weren't debated or discussed but they weren't as much of an 'issue' as they later became.
Nationalism, politics and a religion are a toxic mix and none of us are immune to that under the conditions that foster such things.
Historically it was about the Creeds and the authority of the Holy Catholic Church.
Amongst Protestants it’s amazing what folks get so upset about that they have to split.
Currently and for some time I think the major issue has been inclusiveness. Who’s in and who’s out? Are there gender restrictions on who can do what? What can the clergy do that the laity can’t?
And people do argue, endlessly, about the authority and inspiration of scripture!
It’s been said, correctly I think, that diversities of understanding have been a feature of Christian individuals and communities since the first century.
Why are we, both historically and currently, such an argumentative lot? It’s a good question!
I think it’s because we are by no means perfect in our understanding and practice of unselfish love, agape (Greek), charity.
One of the modern translations of probably the most famous passage in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13) says that love (agape) does not seek its own way. In practice, in the heat of some of our arguments, we seem to forget that.
There’s also the historical ordinance that we should speak the truth with love (agape again). I think that can get overlooked as well.
A passion for truth can sometimes produce a lack of charity.
As a scientist, I was fond of, and challenged, by these quotes of Peter Medawar (who, coincidentally) was still in his research role in the institute I found myself):
It is possible to derive a scientific 'creed' from these statements, but it would be as difficult as it was to formulate a creed from Christians' experiences down the ages. I guess he would say, 'test everything, what are the outcomes? try to let go of what doesn't work'. I'm sure he would add, 'Consistency is the sign of a feeble mind'. He was a splendid fellow!
@Barnabas62 - I think it's difficult to generalise as to what issues are contentious across the whole Christian spectrum, although there will be certain 'hot topic' issues that affect all of us.
Disputes about freewill and predestination don't hold much traction within Orthodox circles for instance but are a big deal in certain Protestant contexts.
Likewise daft territorial and jurisdictional spats or disputes over calendars aren't going to affect our Protestant and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters.
The Great Schism of 1054 was ostensibly over the wording of the Creed but there was a lot more to it than that and was ultimately about Papal authority and church politics.
Within Roman Catholicism current tensions seem to focus on conservative traditionalists versus liberals and 'progressives'.
In many settings, sadly, it's all about keeping the show on the road.
I recognise “keeping the show on the road”. But my contention was essentially moral. At the junction of moral and spiritual.
I told the story earlier of an Orthodox saint (can’t remember which one) who opined that if all of scripture had been lost apart from that assertion in the first letter of John, that “God is love” then the essence of Christian faith would be preserved. A conservative Protestant theologian (F F Bruce IIRC) described “agape” as the essential Christian word.
Perhaps we can agree that there ain’t enough of it about?
When my granddaughter was a young girl she was asked by someone'what happens when you die ?'
Her answer was 'When you die, you are dead.'
This was as much as she could surmise by herself.
Any further ideas have to be passed on by others.
All of us will have been told various stories by those who have been with us in our childhood.Some of these stories we will accept,some with our own personal modifications,and others we may reject.
It will often depend on how much trust and belief we have in those who by word of mouth or by the written word have influenced us.
For me personally I accept the words of the Nicene Creed - I believe in one God,the Father almighty,maker of Heaven and Earth and all things visible and visible.
From this I deduce that all human beings are children of that one God and that all are in some way members of the one holy ,catholic and apostolic church.,irrespective of what religious faith they may follow or indeed reject.
Within the human family,just as there are many languages,not all of them mutually intelligible,there are many different and differing versions of the 'truth' Each of us has our own version of the 'truth'
a word which can mean also 'faithful and 'loyal'.
Doesn’t truth mean more than just opinion of what is true?
(Personal declaration; I am not a postmodernist. Postmodernism is a metanarrative which is sceptical of all metanarratives but so far as I can see not its own metanarrarive.)
Of course 'truth' is more than just an opinion but many people have different understandings of exactly what the 'truth' is.
If we believe that our understanding of the 'truth' is the only 'truth' what do we say about the many,many people who believe just as firmly as we do that their version of the 'truth' is the only one.
We see here on earth through a glass darkly.While we should act according to our understanding of the 'truth' it is not wrong to try to understand and share as we can in other people's understanding of the 'truth'.
I’ve in favour of sharing too. It’s not the same as swallowing or compromising. But there may be learning.
People who understand and try to practise agape don’t have to be Christian and are worth times of sharing. Not so much folks who are aggressive about their truth.
For what it's worth, I'm not a postmodernist but I think it's healthy to keep a little postmodernism handy as a reminder to be intellectually humble. No narrative that I can comprehend could ever be absolute, just as no faithfulness that I can produce could possibly match God's.
I recognise “keeping the show on the road”. But my contention was essentially moral. At the junction of moral and spiritual.
I told the story earlier of an Orthodox saint (can’t remember which one) who opined that if all of scripture had been lost apart from that assertion in the first letter of John, that “God is love” then the essence of Christian faith would be preserved. A conservative Protestant theologian (F F Bruce IIRC) described “agape” as the essential Christian word.
Perhaps we can agree that there ain’t enough of it about?
Of course there isn't enough of it about...
I'm not sure what point you are making here beyond 'All you need is love ...'
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with F F Bruce or whichever Orthodox Saint it was who said that 'God is love' is the essence of the Christian faith.
Orthodox are 'maximalists' rather than 'minimalists' but that doesn't mean we are making definitive statements as to who is or isn't going to be 'saved' as it were nor are we reducing everything to 'just be nice to everyone and that's all that matters.' Of course it matters. But it ain't for us to judge who is 'in' or 'out' in the broader sense.
@Forthview - I'm not sure any of the historic Creeds set out to do anything more than 'define' or 'defend' or 'determine' what was considered to be core Christian belief. They weren't setting out to determine the truth or otherwise of conflicting or complementary truth claims.
Yes, of course if God is God then all of humanity bears the divine image in some way - however marred it may be by sin.
There isn't anything in the Creed to determine what anyone else should or shouldn't believe nor is it saying that humanity in general is beyond the scope of God's love and care nor that it's only Christians that God is bothered about and only then if they sign up to a particular statement or set of doctrinal propositions.
Gamaliel - I liked and agreed with your last sentence.
That all religions in essence try to teach us how to live a better life and ultimately serve the same purpose in bringing us closer to God need not stop us trying to find that path through following the religion which we know best.
For what it's worth, I'm not a postmodernist but I think it's healthy to keep a little postmodernism handy as a reminder to be intellectually humble. No narrative that I can comprehend could ever be absolute, just as no faithfulness that I can produce could possibly match God's.
Historically it was about the Creeds and the authority of the Holy Catholic Church.
Amongst Protestants it’s amazing what folks get so upset about that they have to split.
Currently and for some time I think the major issue has been inclusiveness. Who’s in and who’s out? Are there gender restrictions on who can do what? What can the clergy do that the laity can’t?
And people do argue, endlessly, about the authority and inspiration of scripture!
It’s been said, correctly I think, that diversities of understanding have been a feature of Christian individuals and communities since the first century.
Why are we, both historically and currently, such an argumentative lot? It’s a good question!
I think it’s because we are by no means perfect in our understanding and practice of unselfish love, agape (Greek), charity.
One of the modern translations of probably the most famous passage in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13) says that love (agape) does not seek its own way. In practice, in the heat of some of our arguments, we seem to forget that.
There’s also the historical ordinance that we should speak the truth with love (agape again). I think that can get overlooked as well.
A passion for truth can sometimes produce a lack of charity.
C.S. Lewis’ “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer” seems to me relevant here:
An often outspoken, sometimes angry, Jew who became the Apostle to the Gentiles said he would show them, and therefore us, “a most excellent way”.
And as is generally believed, he repeated a very early hymn. Sung by Christians within 20 years of Jesus’ climactic departure from this life. Sung before the gospels were written, before orthodox belief was hammered out 4 centuries later. It says, among other things, that no matter our gifts of insight into all mysteries, even if we have a faith that can move mountains, without this agape love we are nothing.
Don’t you think that just a little more than “being nice to everyone”? The imperative of agape love came before historical orthodoxy, before we had written records of the life of Jesus.
I say it still becomes before those things today. It has primacy over all our beliefs. It is the greatest value we know. It is central to being a follower of Christ. Without it we truly are nothing. I don’t think that is hyperbole. It is the mark, the shibboleth of who we are.
So that’s why it’s important to practise what we preach and teach.
Nobody here is advocating orthodoxy without orthopraxy.
1 Corinthians 13 and so on.
The reason those who formulated the Creeds didn't add a clause saying, 'Oh, it's vital in all of this that we remember the royal law of love first and foremost...' is because that would have been accepted as a 'given'.
Not that they'd always have lived up to that any more than we do.
If they'd added an agape clause would the world now be a better place?
Or would we be here debating what they meant by it or trying to find loopholes or reasons why it might not apply to us?
'Things change. We can't allow formularies agreed centuries ago to apply today. This agape business for instance...'
Ok, I'm messing about to underline a point. Nobody's saying that the historic Creeds should 'replace' love and charity any more than anyone is saying that the Savoy Declaration or the Westminster Confession or an independent evangelical church's 'statement of faith' is a stand-alone thing that shouldn't be accompanied by appropriate behaviour.
On the credal thing, I'm reminded of a story - possibly apocryphal? - about an Orthodox parish in the US which decided to announce and advertise its Easter services on a local Christian radio station.
The radio station considered the request but not having heard of the parish before decided to ask for a 'statement of faith' to ensure they were 'kosher'.
The priest and deacon scratchec their heads. What did they mean by a statement of faith?
Eventually they faxed or sent over a copy of the Nicene Creed (this is an old story).
When the radio station staff received it, they then scratched their heads.
'What's this?'
'I don't know,' said the producer, 'But it looks pretty orthodox ...'
I agree. It’s axiomatic. No need to add it to the Creeds.
The irony to me, Gamaliel, and probably to you, is that there didn’t appear to be a whole lot of love in the fierce and (has been said) political debates leading to the formation of the Creeds!
In John’s gospel, which I think we both see as a later reflection (certainly later than Paul) on the life of Jesus, he reflects that Jesus gave his disciples to love one another as he loved them.
And in 1 John 4, he observed that whoever claimed to love God but hated a brother or sister was a liar.
I’m suggesting that there are some very important lessons from history that the passion to get things right has on several occasions got in the way of the imperative to love one another. Even in the formation of the Creeds and Orthodoxy.
The fragmentation of the church, compounded by continuing lack of love in the fragments, is a very sad state of affairs. In early days the insight was “see how these Christians love one another”. A huge evangelistic aid. Folks outside the church can hardly be blamed for wondering where love has gone.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that the early Church Councils operated in a way that was all 'sweetness and light' any more than Baptist 'church meetings' are always amicable or straightforward or any other 'collegial' enterprise.
As far as I can gather, Judaism was marked by often fierce and contentious debates between Rabbis. The early Christians carried on in the same vein.
It's easy to romanticise these things. I'm sure there was a lot of arm-twisting, brinkmanship and gerry-mandering going on at the great Church Councils just as there probably has been at Synods and small c councils since.
Do you think I’m romanticising things? I was trying to argue something quite unromantic. That regardless of Orthodoxy, the main imperfection of the Christian church in all its fragments is a demonstrable lack of love.
To use your own very helpful language, orthopraxy through time has fallen well short of the the axiomatic central value which governs that orthopraxy.
It suggests to me that the fragmented church would have done better to focus more on orthopraxy than orthodoxy. I appreciate that is a dissident view, but, ironically, I think it is a very orthodox one.
I wasn't accusing you of romanticism, @Barnabas62. I was making a general observation.
If anything I'm tilting at my own constituency as we can take a very unnuanced and romantic view of the Councils, the pre-Schism Church and much else besides.
Stuff about doctrinal definitions is infinitely easier than stuff about peoples behaviour. Thats personal and we all fall short.
Many of those who have formed ultra conservative schismatic groups post Vatican 2 quote being nice to non Catholics and Jews among the reasons (dressed up as diluting the faith.) They wanted a council about doctrine and got one about practice.
@Stephen most Anglo-Catholic clergy I know wear Gothic vestments! Iirc Gothic vestments have historically been preferred in English churches in general. Other Anglo-Catholics may vary.
@Basketactortale as a minor correction, there were anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe for a lot longer than your post suggests - hence the large Jewish communities in 19th century London for example.
@Barnabas62 - yes, I don’t think your 'unorthodox' view is particularly 'Un-Orthodox' as it were.
I think if fragmented Christendom is ever to heal its lamentable divisions then there'll need to be more orthopraxy and generosity on all sides.
I think @Alan29's observation about Vatican 2 is a pertinent and salutory one. The Ecumenical Patriarch is coming in for some stick from virulent anti-ecumenists within Orthodoxy at the moment.
I'm meeting up with an Anglican chap next week try and rebuild bridges damaged by zealous converts on our parish FB page who'd picked up on this toxic vibe and saw it as a badge of Orthodoxy.
Patriarch Bartholomew had prayed with the Pope. 'We are told to pray for our enemies not with them,' this numpty opined. When an RC friend posted a mild challenge she was greeted with a tirade of abuse. The convert got a well-deserved kick up the backside but the damage was done.
I'm no great shakes and make lots of mistakes but if I can try to put things like that right I will do.
A bit like Anglo Catholic wearing Latin vestments when mainstream RC tend to wear Gothic
People can wear whatever vestments and have the same theology, and love one another just as much. I’m Anglo-Catholic in terms of sacramental theology, but not in terms of the style (liturgy and the words used, yes, depending on what they are—some things change the meaning or leave out important stuff) but not the number of candles on the altar, etc.
Converts can be particularly unrelaxed about their ecclesiastical landing strips.
Something about needing something to hold onto, perhaps. I do think of some converts from Episcopalianism to Catholicism who wanted more "objective" rules and discipline. And I think now they're frustrated that the Pope is more liberal.
There's some kind of paradox in wanting a religion with more external discipline and being frustrated when the external discipline isn't lining up with what your internal "disciplinarian" says that discipline should be doing. Can't take the Protestant our of the Protestants, I suppose. It's one reason that even if I'm sometimes tempted to hop the Tiber, to the point of making jokes about it, I think I'll safely stay on this side. It feels more honest. For me, it's a way of showing respect.
Comments
This could be a small local church group,as it seems that Baptists do or to a much larger organisation like that which is often called the Catholic Church.
Religious beliefs have to be passed on to us either by word of mouth or by reading books,so there is always a community aspect to religious belief.
The word 'belief' in English is partly connected in origin with the word 'love' and the Latin word for 'I believe' is 'credo' which comes from 'cor do' (I give my heart) . It refers to feelings which we trust (possibly because they have come from sources which we feel we can trust.
Pope Francis said with reference to interfaith dialogue that all religions have ultimately the same aims and that they more or less say the same things in different ways 'just like foreign languages' as he said.
English speakers,for example, should easily recognise that 'house' appears in other languages as 'Haus' and 'hus' and some may recognise the word 'casa' as another form of the same word but it is more difficult to recognise that some people may say 'maison' or 'dom' and still be saying the same thing as English 'house'
It is the same with religious language such as the forms in whatever language we may think of for the Nicene Creed. The sentence' I believe in one,holy,catholic and apostolic church' can be understood in so many different ways.
And of course I know that I don’t have a monopoly on “nonconformism”. For international reasons, let’s call it “ dissent as a matter of personal conscience”.
I am quoting at length from this version of the Savoy Declaration on that site but removed the numbering which seemed confused:
If you want to understand the theological stance of Congregational polity you can do worse than read through the rest of this section of the declaration.
Thanks,
Doublethink, Admin
A bit of a tangent. But first of all thank you for your link.
I’m in an independent church in voluntary association with others. Viewing the Savoy Declaration as linked I’m pretty sure we can tick all the boxes. It’s a very principled document.
I think the congregational (rather than the episcopal) understandings goes a fair bit further than churches which identify as Congregational. Personally I think it’s been a very valuable insight to dissenters of all shades.
I believe the normal practice in Congregational churches is infant baptism but I’m not sure if there are any minority exceptions. It doesn’t seem a feature of the Declaration - mind you I’m probably missing something.
Thanks for that! I hadn't heard the heart connection, but since you put it that way, it makes sense!
What always struck me about the word "belief" was the greek connection that "belief" and "faith" are basically the same word in Greek in verb and noun form. "I believe" means the same "I put faith in." Faith is a thing given, just like belief is a thing given.
And framed that way, in the Epistles, the idea of saying "But I have beliefs!" seems like a narcissistic distortion of Paul's sense of faith. Beliefs must be attached to something besides my personal ego to be serious.
I have faith in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ's faithfulness. That is the expression of the Creed. I do not need to put faith into the creed itself. God is faithful, so we seek to reflect that faithfulness. In that vein, I don't need to take my pathetic little faith that seriously. The focus of the gospel is on God's faithfulness. My beliefs are, to use the milder version of a Pauline expression, rubbish compared to that.
I think you also failed to take into account the context of what I posted. I was responding to @Bullfrog, an American, who gave a specific example from an American Baptist church. My response was framed using terminology that is regularly used by Baptists in the US. While congregational discernment is definitely involved, the specific principle at play in the situation described by Bullfrog, and the principle he was trying to identify, would, in my experience with Baptists in the US, be the principle of autonomy of the local church.
Thanks. I hadn’t looked in detail at that comparative table. I’d never seen that table before and it is fascinating, both for the common ground and the diversity.
Apologies for my question That comparative table is large! But very useful.
It seems that since the widespread pogroms of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, Christians mostly turned their ire on each other, looking past those who were obviously not so similar. Universalists, non-trinitarians and Quakers largely were looked past whereas (for example) it seems like the angry Orange Presbyterians mostly disapproved of the Roman Catholics despite very largely agreeing on the points in the Creeds.
Of course this seems to have reverted again since the growth of twentieth century anti-Semitism when Jews once again became the target.
I've heard Orthodox say things like, 'Well, at least we only exiled heretics, we didn't burn them at the stake like the Catholics ...'
As if that excuses the violence that Big O Orthodox people have committed in the name of their beliefs.
Both Iconoclasts and Iconodules carried out atrocities, maimings and so on.
'Caesaro-Papism' could be equally as nasty as the Vatican under the Borgias.
I know a priest in the Greek Archdiocese who took a service in a town where the local Greek Orthodox hired a Greek Catholic church for their Liturgies. They would go in beforehand and place icons of their own Saints in front of the Greek Catholic ones.
As he was serving the Liturgy he found himself in front of an icon of a Greek Catholic Saint who'd been done to death by the Orthodox. He 'apologised' to the Saints and 'said' to him, 'Now, I know you are somewhere where all this no longer matters but I would like to say, "I'm sorry ..."'
Alright, that might not go far enough in undoing all the wrong that has been done but it's a step in the right direction at least.
I'm not sure it's entirely the case that non-Trinitarians were overlooked - Servetus was notoriously executed in Calvin's Geneva and with encouragement from the RC side of things too, from what I can gather.
Early Quakers were often imprisoned.
Non-conformists were not allowed into Oxford University until the 1850s.
Northern Irish Presbyterians were only ratcheting up general suspicion and disapproval of Roman Catholics that existed elsewhere across the British Isles. My brother is attending his local RC parish after many years of estrangement from churches of any kind - although he has no intention of converting to Catholicism (yet?). The priest and others there have told him of abuse and shitty comments they've all received from full-on Protestant types over the years.
It became a bigger deal in Northern Ireland for political reasons. 'Home Rule is Rome Rule' and all that. King Billy and the Battle of the Boyne.
Besides, the 'beef' that Protestants and RCs had (or have) with one another isn't so much about the Creed but areas of difference beyond that. The Creeds cover Christology and Trinitarian belief, they don't go into granular detail about how churches should be organised or baptism administered etc etc - those are dealt with in 'rubrics' in the historic Churches and in the various 'confessions' among the post-Reformation Churches.
The issues at stake in the 4th century were about the Person of Christ and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. We can't anachronistically read back later controversies over justification and faith/works and so on into the first millenium of Christianity. Not that these things weren't debated or discussed but they weren't as much of an 'issue' as they later became.
Nationalism, politics and a religion are a toxic mix and none of us are immune to that under the conditions that foster such things.
Historically it was about the Creeds and the authority of the Holy Catholic Church.
Amongst Protestants it’s amazing what folks get so upset about that they have to split.
Currently and for some time I think the major issue has been inclusiveness. Who’s in and who’s out? Are there gender restrictions on who can do what? What can the clergy do that the laity can’t?
And people do argue, endlessly, about the authority and inspiration of scripture!
It’s been said, correctly I think, that diversities of understanding have been a feature of Christian individuals and communities since the first century.
Why are we, both historically and currently, such an argumentative lot? It’s a good question!
I think it’s because we are by no means perfect in our understanding and practice of unselfish love, agape (Greek), charity.
One of the modern translations of probably the most famous passage in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13) says that love (agape) does not seek its own way. In practice, in the heat of some of our arguments, we seem to forget that.
There’s also the historical ordinance that we should speak the truth with love (agape again). I think that can get overlooked as well.
A passion for truth can sometimes produce a lack of charity.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3364853.Peter_Medawar
It is possible to derive a scientific 'creed' from these statements, but it would be as difficult as it was to formulate a creed from Christians' experiences down the ages. I guess he would say, 'test everything, what are the outcomes? try to let go of what doesn't work'. I'm sure he would add, 'Consistency is the sign of a feeble mind'. He was a splendid fellow!
Disputes about freewill and predestination don't hold much traction within Orthodox circles for instance but are a big deal in certain Protestant contexts.
Likewise daft territorial and jurisdictional spats or disputes over calendars aren't going to affect our Protestant and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters.
The Great Schism of 1054 was ostensibly over the wording of the Creed but there was a lot more to it than that and was ultimately about Papal authority and church politics.
Within Roman Catholicism current tensions seem to focus on conservative traditionalists versus liberals and 'progressives'.
In many settings, sadly, it's all about keeping the show on the road.
I recognise “keeping the show on the road”. But my contention was essentially moral. At the junction of moral and spiritual.
I told the story earlier of an Orthodox saint (can’t remember which one) who opined that if all of scripture had been lost apart from that assertion in the first letter of John, that “God is love” then the essence of Christian faith would be preserved. A conservative Protestant theologian (F F Bruce IIRC) described “agape” as the essential Christian word.
Perhaps we can agree that there ain’t enough of it about?
Her answer was 'When you die, you are dead.'
This was as much as she could surmise by herself.
Any further ideas have to be passed on by others.
All of us will have been told various stories by those who have been with us in our childhood.Some of these stories we will accept,some with our own personal modifications,and others we may reject.
It will often depend on how much trust and belief we have in those who by word of mouth or by the written word have influenced us.
For me personally I accept the words of the Nicene Creed - I believe in one God,the Father almighty,maker of Heaven and Earth and all things visible and visible.
From this I deduce that all human beings are children of that one God and that all are in some way members of the one holy ,catholic and apostolic church.,irrespective of what religious faith they may follow or indeed reject.
Within the human family,just as there are many languages,not all of them mutually intelligible,there are many different and differing versions of the 'truth' Each of us has our own version of the 'truth'
a word which can mean also 'faithful and 'loyal'.
Interesting!
Doesn’t truth mean more than just opinion of what is true?
(Personal declaration; I am not a postmodernist. Postmodernism is a metanarrative which is sceptical of all metanarratives but so far as I can see not its own metanarrarive.)
If we believe that our understanding of the 'truth' is the only 'truth' what do we say about the many,many people who believe just as firmly as we do that their version of the 'truth' is the only one.
We see here on earth through a glass darkly.While we should act according to our understanding of the 'truth' it is not wrong to try to understand and share as we can in other people's understanding of the 'truth'.
People who understand and try to practise agape don’t have to be Christian and are worth times of sharing. Not so much folks who are aggressive about their truth.
Heh, maybe that's the rub.
Of course there isn't enough of it about...
I'm not sure what point you are making here beyond 'All you need is love ...'
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with F F Bruce or whichever Orthodox Saint it was who said that 'God is love' is the essence of the Christian faith.
Orthodox are 'maximalists' rather than 'minimalists' but that doesn't mean we are making definitive statements as to who is or isn't going to be 'saved' as it were nor are we reducing everything to 'just be nice to everyone and that's all that matters.' Of course it matters. But it ain't for us to judge who is 'in' or 'out' in the broader sense.
@Forthview - I'm not sure any of the historic Creeds set out to do anything more than 'define' or 'defend' or 'determine' what was considered to be core Christian belief. They weren't setting out to determine the truth or otherwise of conflicting or complementary truth claims.
Yes, of course if God is God then all of humanity bears the divine image in some way - however marred it may be by sin.
There isn't anything in the Creed to determine what anyone else should or shouldn't believe nor is it saying that humanity in general is beyond the scope of God's love and care nor that it's only Christians that God is bothered about and only then if they sign up to a particular statement or set of doctrinal propositions.
But you knew that...
That all religions in essence try to teach us how to live a better life and ultimately serve the same purpose in bringing us closer to God need not stop us trying to find that path through following the religion which we know best.
True
Here is the “Both is good” meme:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/both-both-both-both-is-good
Also the similar “Why not both?” meme:
https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/why-not-both-why-dont-we-have-both
C.S. Lewis’ “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer” seems to me relevant here:
https://www.cslewis.com/the-apologists-evening-prayer/
What am I getting at?
There's a lot to be said for practising what we preach. Particularly about agape. I think we forget.
I should have explained more clearly.
An often outspoken, sometimes angry, Jew who became the Apostle to the Gentiles said he would show them, and therefore us, “a most excellent way”.
And as is generally believed, he repeated a very early hymn. Sung by Christians within 20 years of Jesus’ climactic departure from this life. Sung before the gospels were written, before orthodox belief was hammered out 4 centuries later. It says, among other things, that no matter our gifts of insight into all mysteries, even if we have a faith that can move mountains, without this agape love we are nothing.
Don’t you think that just a little more than “being nice to everyone”? The imperative of agape love came before historical orthodoxy, before we had written records of the life of Jesus.
I say it still becomes before those things today. It has primacy over all our beliefs. It is the greatest value we know. It is central to being a follower of Christ. Without it we truly are nothing. I don’t think that is hyperbole. It is the mark, the shibboleth of who we are.
So that’s why it’s important to practise what we preach and teach.
It's axiomatic.
Nobody here is advocating orthodoxy without orthopraxy.
1 Corinthians 13 and so on.
The reason those who formulated the Creeds didn't add a clause saying, 'Oh, it's vital in all of this that we remember the royal law of love first and foremost...' is because that would have been accepted as a 'given'.
Not that they'd always have lived up to that any more than we do.
If they'd added an agape clause would the world now be a better place?
Or would we be here debating what they meant by it or trying to find loopholes or reasons why it might not apply to us?
'Things change. We can't allow formularies agreed centuries ago to apply today. This agape business for instance...'
Ok, I'm messing about to underline a point. Nobody's saying that the historic Creeds should 'replace' love and charity any more than anyone is saying that the Savoy Declaration or the Westminster Confession or an independent evangelical church's 'statement of faith' is a stand-alone thing that shouldn't be accompanied by appropriate behaviour.
On the credal thing, I'm reminded of a story - possibly apocryphal? - about an Orthodox parish in the US which decided to announce and advertise its Easter services on a local Christian radio station.
The radio station considered the request but not having heard of the parish before decided to ask for a 'statement of faith' to ensure they were 'kosher'.
The priest and deacon scratchec their heads. What did they mean by a statement of faith?
Eventually they faxed or sent over a copy of the Nicene Creed (this is an old story).
When the radio station staff received it, they then scratched their heads.
'What's this?'
'I don't know,' said the producer, 'But it looks pretty orthodox ...'
I agree. It’s axiomatic. No need to add it to the Creeds.
The irony to me, Gamaliel, and probably to you, is that there didn’t appear to be a whole lot of love in the fierce and (has been said) political debates leading to the formation of the Creeds!
In John’s gospel, which I think we both see as a later reflection (certainly later than Paul) on the life of Jesus, he reflects that Jesus gave his disciples to love one another as he loved them.
And in 1 John 4, he observed that whoever claimed to love God but hated a brother or sister was a liar.
I’m suggesting that there are some very important lessons from history that the passion to get things right has on several occasions got in the way of the imperative to love one another. Even in the formation of the Creeds and Orthodoxy.
The fragmentation of the church, compounded by continuing lack of love in the fragments, is a very sad state of affairs. In early days the insight was “see how these Christians love one another”. A huge evangelistic aid. Folks outside the church can hardly be blamed for wondering where love has gone.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that the early Church Councils operated in a way that was all 'sweetness and light' any more than Baptist 'church meetings' are always amicable or straightforward or any other 'collegial' enterprise.
As far as I can gather, Judaism was marked by often fierce and contentious debates between Rabbis. The early Christians carried on in the same vein.
It's easy to romanticise these things. I'm sure there was a lot of arm-twisting, brinkmanship and gerry-mandering going on at the great Church Councils just as there probably has been at Synods and small c councils since.
To use your own very helpful language, orthopraxy through time has fallen well short of the the axiomatic central value which governs that orthopraxy.
It suggests to me that the fragmented church would have done better to focus more on orthopraxy than orthodoxy. I appreciate that is a dissident view, but, ironically, I think it is a very orthodox one.
If anything I'm tilting at my own constituency as we can take a very unnuanced and romantic view of the Councils, the pre-Schism Church and much else besides.
Many of those who have formed ultra conservative schismatic groups post Vatican 2 quote being nice to non Catholics and Jews among the reasons (dressed up as diluting the faith.) They wanted a council about doctrine and got one about practice.
Maybe it's like the shift from geometry to calculus.
Or from geometry to architecture.
@Basketactortale as a minor correction, there were anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe for a lot longer than your post suggests - hence the large Jewish communities in 19th century London for example.
I think if fragmented Christendom is ever to heal its lamentable divisions then there'll need to be more orthopraxy and generosity on all sides.
I think @Alan29's observation about Vatican 2 is a pertinent and salutory one. The Ecumenical Patriarch is coming in for some stick from virulent anti-ecumenists within Orthodoxy at the moment.
I'm meeting up with an Anglican chap next week try and rebuild bridges damaged by zealous converts on our parish FB page who'd picked up on this toxic vibe and saw it as a badge of Orthodoxy.
Patriarch Bartholomew had prayed with the Pope. 'We are told to pray for our enemies not with them,' this numpty opined. When an RC friend posted a mild challenge she was greeted with a tirade of abuse. The convert got a well-deserved kick up the backside but the damage was done.
I'm no great shakes and make lots of mistakes but if I can try to put things like that right I will do.
Thanks so much.
Me too.
People can wear whatever vestments and have the same theology, and love one another just as much. I’m Anglo-Catholic in terms of sacramental theology, but not in terms of the style (liturgy and the words used, yes, depending on what they are—some things change the meaning or leave out important stuff) but not the number of candles on the altar, etc.
Something about needing something to hold onto, perhaps. I do think of some converts from Episcopalianism to Catholicism who wanted more "objective" rules and discipline. And I think now they're frustrated that the Pope is more liberal.
There's some kind of paradox in wanting a religion with more external discipline and being frustrated when the external discipline isn't lining up with what your internal "disciplinarian" says that discipline should be doing. Can't take the Protestant our of the Protestants, I suppose. It's one reason that even if I'm sometimes tempted to hop the Tiber, to the point of making jokes about it, I think I'll safely stay on this side. It feels more honest. For me, it's a way of showing respect.