Creed comes from a Latin word credo meaning ‘I believe’

We need a creed because we have to proclaim ‘orthodox’ faith

Orthodoxy means ‘right glory’ so in the Creeds we are giving God the glory that is rightfully his by stating what is ‘true’ about God

Before there is a creed there is usually ‘wrong’ belief, so a creed emerges to correct this wrong – we use the word ‘heresy’ and the opposite of orthodox is heterodox

To begin with NT creeds are very simple as followers of the Way gather to worship and experience God as the risen Jesus. eg ‘Jesus is Lord’ 1 Cor 12, 3

Other portions of the Letters indicate an already well know formula of belief eg Philippians 2; Colossian1,15;  or 1 Cor 15, 3 following

Right belief is handed on – see 1 Cor 15. The word for that handing on is the word we get ‘tradition’ from. So the creeds are the instrument of handing on the tradition of the church ie its orthodox historical faith.

Even in the letters of Paul we get passages explaining who Jesus is

Equally early we have groups/individuals  who are saying different things about Jesus and the Way. The church still had to work through belief in a man (carpenter of Nazareth, Mary’s son) and the way they experienced him after his death and resurrection – right through to John’s statement that ‘the Word became flesh’, and the words of Thomas (John 20) ‘My Lord and my God’.

There were challenges to this development – easily done as there was no written down sources guarding the truth

One of the earliest threats was called Gnosticism – a disparate group with different beliefs who claimed some source of secret additional ‘inside’ knowledge about Jesus. Gnostic (gnosis in Greek) means knowledge.

Basically Gnosticism was a spritualising tendency, with an emphasis on mysticism. They found it difficult to belief that God could be man, and so they did not abandon Jesus, but rather claimed that he was divine, but never fully a human

This basic view lies at the heart of many later more sophisticated heresies, in particular one called Ariansism (after Arius, its main exponent)

A study of heresies is very complicated and beyond the brief of this session but it is enough to say that usually a formally agreed Creed of the church was the result of an argument about what ‘right glory’ is. The bishops of the ancient church would be brought together into Council (called at times Ecumenical Councils) to battle out what the truth is, then proclaim it in the Creeds. So the Creeds state what proper belief says about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Church etc

Creeds are corporate documents ie they belong to the whole church and proclaim what our corporate belief is. Nowadays we begin the Nicene Creed (324AD) with the words ‘We believe…’

Main Creeds – Baptismal (Trinitarian simple formula); Apostles; Nicene (filioque differences – see earlier session); and then there is one called the Athanasian Creed. Athanasius was the main opposition to Arius, and in the debate Athanasius won the day in defending orthodoxy. In our new liturgies we have Credal hymns and Credal statements, but they do not have the authority of the Creeds.

Christianity is not just about making the right statements (Creeds) but living a way of life that is appropriate to our faith. St. Paul is just as keen to talk to the Corinthians, for example, about how they live their lives as he is about helping them understand who Jesus is.

Christianity ,remember, is a continuity (of sorts) of Judaism, so the Jewish social customs (Latin word mores from which we get the word morality) to a large extent carried on into the new faith

We belong therefore to a Judeao/Christian tradition, and many of the things we take for granted – behaviour, relationships, social cohesion, justice, expectations, are rooted in that tradition

Probably the first foundation for this goes back to Moses, when God gives him the 10 commandments (Exodus 20). From this we have inherited basic morality – not murdering, not stealing, honouring your parents, not envying, not lying, not committing adultery etc. All of this carries on into the Christian tradition, and thus into our own lives in the UK

Remember too that God’s justice (righteousness) was as simple as not moving your boundary posts so that you could snatch another foot of land from your neighbour; or a certain amount of grain in your field should be left ungathered so that the poor could glean your land.

Moral issues arise in our own time and for many we can look to the bible to see what the expected normal response was then. However as time moves on some things are not answered directly by looking at  a sentence in the bible, but rather through an overall sense of the bible ie the message is there, even if the exact words aren’t. So Jesus says nothing at all about nuclear weapons; abortion; but there is a cumulative sense that a Christian response is peace, and that all life is to be respected (look at Psalm 139 for example to inform you about when life begins)

Present day situations sometimes arise that do not sit comfortably with the times of the bible or with Jesus. Some people will quote the bible and for them ‘black is black’ – others will find it more difficult to be dictated to by a sentence of the bible. We have to balance up so many goods versus ills to arrive at the right common sense decision. The more definite you hold a view, the more likely you are to fall foul of it if something happens to you that challenges it.

So many parts of the church will re-marry divorcees, even though Jesus DOES express views about adultery, divorce and remarriage. A keen understanding of what he is reacting to will be needed here – he is against divorce in his particular culture where a woman just received a note of dismissal! Only women could commit adultery! And so on. The big debate is whether the bible has the final say in an absolute way on issues of morality. One thing we don’t have as an option is to ignore the bible on issues!!!

On issues of justice the bible has a massive cumulative argument, so the morality of Fair Trade is undisputed

On issues of peace, the bible is full of warfare and violence – even Jesus says he comes to bring a sword. But somehow the teaching about the Kingdom means that only peace is the Christian option

The big text for us from Jesus is the Beatitudes (Matthew Chapter 5) From this we deduce a lot of our Christian morality

On slavery – the OT takes slavery for granted. So does the NT. - even talks freely about the relationship between Christian slaves and their masters. It is only Wilberforce 200 years ago who, as a Chirstian, fights for its abolition, even though his bible supported it (or at least took it for granted)

On human sexuality – the OT has a couple of texts about this. Homosexuality was not acceptable in Jewish culture. It was very common in the Greek culture where St. Paul writes to condemn it. It is difficult to know exactly what Paul is condemning because homosexuality was so much part of the Greek world (not so much in the Roman world). Paul certainly is against all forms of promiscuity – is a loving, lasting, faithful same sex relationship promiscuity? Some Christians would say so on the basis of about three texts in the bible. Others would not come to the same conclusion – most promiscuity in our culture (and sexual exploitation) is heterosexual.

So there are big moral issues about which we need to be informed, and we need to know what the bible says, and we need to work out what our view is based on this.

Anglicans have tended to use four pillars for working out theology and ethics – scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. This is a variant of the earlier Lambeth ‘Quadrilateral’ of Scripture, Tradition, Episcopacy, and Sacraments (though the former has not cancelled the latter)

Jesus says nothing about homosexuality

As Anglicans we do not look so much to a rule book about morality, but rather look to processes of discernment and real situations, as well as having a regard for the tradition of the church.