From the vicar (20 September)

Dear St Giles’ and St Margaret’s church families,

You may have read that this year is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, from which the Nicene Creed gets its name (pedantic note: it wasn’t for another 56 years that the creed was established in its final form, meaning that (a) we can do all this again in 2081; and (b) it should really be called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which admittedly isn’t quite as catchy. And let’s not get started on the Filioque clause!).

I can remember when I was younger being asked how I could define such a nebulous concept as “a Christian”, a category that included everyone from fundamentalists to progressives, and from ritualists to charismatics. I suggested that a good starting point might be someone who could say the Nicene Creed on a Sunday without crossing their fingers behind their back.

Turns out, that was not a very good answer – and not one that I’d necessarily give today. Not least because in more recent renditions, it begins with “We believe…” which suggests that we can join in with reciting the Creed on Sunday because, even if we might struggle with a particular line, there would probably be someone in the congregation, and certainly plenty in the wider Church, who would not.

Indeed, in a more recent conversation with a devoted Christian, they were apparently surprised to discover that I could assent to all of the articles of the Creed. I admit that I felt very unsophisticated, and they went on to tell me about their preparation for confirmation, which including chopping up the creed and ranking it in order of how much they believed in it.

I’m not sure I could do that exercise very well, but I could certainly do a similar one based on how important I thought the various articles are. Because a creed is a funny old thing – almost always destined to be unsatisfactory as a summary of a faith. Even if you believe all the propositions in the Nicene Creed, it’s hard not to feel that it’s overly technical, lacking in joy, and inadequate in its job of summarising the faith.

Except, of course, that was never its intention. It is just the end product of a whole lot of theological debate, much of which is both exciting and of absolute relevance to our faith.

“True God from true God” – through the life and teachings and acts of loving service of Jesus, we see the nature of God himself. “Eternally begotten” – as John’s Prologue famously says in a more poetic form, Christ was there at the beginning of time. And yet “was made man” – fully human as well as fully God, because a Godly illusion of a human being couldn’t know our suffering and couldn’t save us. “For our sake he was crucified” – the total gift of love from Jesus to humanity, which we are called to reflect to each other in our daily lives.

We may struggle to believe some parts of the Creed, and that is fine: but every line, however arbitrary and hard-to-accept they may seem, represent the results of the struggles of the early Church to comprehend what it means to follow Jesus Christ, and the God who is three-in-one. Every line is full of relevance to our lives today, if we enter into the attempt to understand that mystery – an attempt that may be doomed to never be fully realised in this life, and yet a worthwhile attempt to draw closer to the God who is already closer than we can ever know.

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Churches Together in England have produced a whole set of resources and reflections from notable writers and thinkers across the denominations in relation to this anniversary, and are also hosting an online “webinar” on The Creed as Lived Reality: Doctrinal Formula and Spiritual Encounter on the evening of Wednesday 15 October.

Tap or click below for more information: