Some criminals in Boise were recently caught trying to break into a local business through the roof of the building. According to the Associated Press, the would-be burglars (I’m quoting this directly from the February 19 Missoulian) “had to be removed by firefighters with a ladder truck.” Now I don’t imagine that, in the thieving community, this would be considered a particularly glorious way to enter prison. The criminals could try to use it to enhance their street cred, but I doubt it would work: Yeah, we really had ‘em scared until we realized we were stuck on the roof and needed their freakin’ ladders to get down. But man, you should’a seen their faces BEFORE that! They were all like ‘holy cow, I sure hope those criminals don’t need any ladders, because if they planned this out well enough so that they can GET DOWN from the roof without us…well, we are TOTALLY SCREWED!’
Anyway, I feel a little like those criminals this week, caught up on the roof needing the long ladders of the law to help me get down. It’s a beautiful metaphor, except for the roof, and the firefighters, and the burglary attempt.
Actually, come to think of it, it really is a beautiful Christian metaphor in a larger sense. And I suppose it does in some loose way describe my feelings about the four-part series we’re currently in (of which this is the second post). Because during this series, I’m attempting the logically impossible task of denying what I originally said about the Creeds while simultaneously defending what I originally said about the Creeds. Well, let’s try to climb down off the roof together and forget the whole thing ever happened, ok? If you want to read the original post in question, click here. Otherwise, proceed with caution below.
(1) Did the Nicene bishops that wrote the Creed get everything right? Well, of course they weren’t perfect. Some of them seem at first glance to be real rotters. So I’m not saying God hung the fate of the universe on that one council. My own faith is not in the Nicene bishops, but in Christ Himself. All the same, I’m inclined to think God (who presumably, if He lived in Christ as I believe, did not die in the interim) had something to do with guiding His church’s beliefs, and as such am inclined to think that the Creeds are a pretty accurate summary of Christian belief.
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So while I do have faith that God guided the development of Christian doctrine that is independent of history, I think that’s not very compelling as an argument. But consider this. Many critics seem to make way too big a deal out of the disagreements, epistemologically speaking. Christians themselves have made way too big a deal out of the disagreements. The disagreements are generally (1) slight and petty, (2) about degrees of emphasis and not true contradictions, or (3) big and obvious (e.g., someone, Marcion I think, claiming that the Old Testament and New Testament Gods were literally different, one evil and the other good). One of the reasons I believe the Creed is because I can see with my own eyes and brain that it captures the New Testament nicely; one of the reasons I believe the New Testament is because it seems like it was written by folks that were a lot closer to the life of Jesus than anyone else who has written about it, and they seemed to try and capture his life accurately. Independent of what I believe about God in my own life, if I were just trying to “define” the life of Jesus and what he probably did and taught, I think it more reasonable to trust the New Testament and the Creeds than many of the other things people have said about Him.
(2) Relatedly: If you read history, you will of course discover that there are actually multiple Christian Creeds. I am not troubled by this, in part because the different Creeds themselves are very similar, and in part because it seems clear to me that there is little disagreement over the central set of Christian truths. Christianity in the ancient days proceeded something like this: Some heresy or disagreement arose; everyone met to discuss the issue; then the existing Creeds were expanded to deal with the new issue. (And often some dissenters were sent into exile afterwards; I’m aware that it wasn’t all peaches and cream. But that’s a little beside our current point). As a result, the Creeds tended to get longer and longer as time went on. The Apostle’s Creed I discussed in one of my earliest posts on this cite was a very early Creed — and one that pretty much all Christian Churches accept in principle, even if they don’t accept it formally — but the Creed I discussed in the post we’re considering here is an expansion from the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. After Nicaea, the Church seemed just as likely to split over doctrinal matters as it was to come to agreement, so modern Churches often disagree over the post-Nicene creeds.
I personally find many of the issues Christians disagreed about to be completely irrelevant theological shenanigans, but that is quite another story. My point here is this: The Nicene Creed is currently accepted by virtually every Christian Church in the whole world, from whatever Christian tradition they came from, Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. This Creed I take as clarifying and summarizing the commonly accepted Christian truths; truths that are non-negotiable in Christian doctrine. Almost (but not quite) everything else is, in my view, open for reasonable debate. To use an analogy: Two astronomers may disagree over whether there once was life on Mars. But they both agree that Mars itself exists as a planet; and the fact that they disagree over the life on Mars issue does not invalidate their shared knowledge of Mars’ existence. Well, I think the same about Christianity: Christians have disagreed over lots and lots of things, and I think many of those things were speculative matters that need not have caused anyone alarm. Yet none of those disagreements invalidate the primary Christian truths on which everyone does agree…truths captured in the Nicene Creed.
I suppose it says something about human nature that Christians, happily agreed on the “primary Christian truths” succinctly expressed in the Creed, can find so much other stuff (or, as you eloquently put it, “completely irrelevant theological shenanigans”) to disagree about, and vehemently so. Given the multiplicity of Christian denominations throughout the centuries–beginning approximately, oh, ten minutes after Jesus’ death–we might conclude that Christians are one people divided by a common set of beliefs.
I do think you’re minimizing the depth and the extent of Christian controversies through the ages . They may seem to have been “slight and petty disagreements” from your perspective, but heresy was a serious business; lives and souls were thought to be at stake (so to speak), not to mention the authority of Rome (and then others).
I also think you’re minimizing the ferocity with which various Christian orthodoxies (not limited to, or by, the creed) were enforced. You do acknowledge that “it wasn’t all peaches and cream” when it came to doctrinal squabbles, but that’s a little like saying that, for German Jews, life under Hitler wasn’t exactly a bed of roses.
Finally, I don’t see how you can disassociate the Creed from its historic uses and abuses (maybe you’re saving that for a later post?). No amount of brutality and intolerance on the part of Christians invalidates the Creed, of course, any more than the myriad good works of myriad Christians throughout the centuries validate it; the credal statements have to stand on their own as far as the theolgical claims they make. But while the Creed can’t be held responsible for Christian misbehavior: still, “by their fruits you shall know them.” I just wish, I guess, that while God was guiding the various councils, he might have led them to add some sort of disclaimer along the lines of “Nothing in this creed shall be understood as giving license or authority to persecute, torture, or murder anyone–including, but not limited to, heretics, apostates, Jews, Mohametans, Lutherans, Zwinglians, or nonbelievers of any stripe–in God’s name. All those shall receive their just deserts eventually. In the meantime, judge not lest ye be judged.” Now that’s a creed even I could endorse.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments as always, Jack. Actually, I don’t disagree with you. I really don’t want to minimize the real persecutions and evils done in the name of “defending” Christian doctrine; I probably could have chosen a better phrase than “not all peaches and cream.”
My point wasn’t about the horror of history but about the actual differences that people fought about. After all, one can fight a war over which end of the egg to break first, and that war can be savage and horrifying…but really, you’re not fighting over very much. Well, I hear that Protestants and Catholics in parts of Ireland take their conflict pretty seriously these days…yet they actually mostly agree on almost everything, if you get down to brass tacks. (As an example, there is a sociological study showing that the closest religious group, in terms of actual beliefs, to Southern Baptists are…Catholics.)
That’s not to say that you’re wrong; I agree that there is a sense in which the things cannot be totally separated. But, to the degree they can, I was trying to focus on the content of the beliefs (and the importance of those contents to me personally) and not on the obvious failings of Christians in dealing with the conflicts. Even so, I recognize that this is partially a perceptual thing, and that many of the issues I personally find vital would appear as so much wind to someone else.
And I thought your addition to the Creed was awesome, and I would certainly vote in favor of it! (In fact, it sounds a lot like Jesus’ “love your enemies” teachings…wonder where that went during all the exilings and such?)