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I believe

  Creeds are for every Christian who looks at Christ and says, “I believe” (see Romans 10:9-10). Within Christianity, one can find various attitudes toward specific documents of faith. These documents might be called creeds, confessions (of faith), statements of faith, or just the “What We Believe” section of a church website.

  Some churches shy away from a structured approach to clarifying faith, but creeds are as inevitable as they are historical.

  Statements of faith come about naturally when there is confusion over what the Bible teaches on a certain issue. They say, “Of all the options proposed, here is what *I believe* the Bible teaches about [Jesus, the world, baptism, the end of the world, etc.].”

  The church has been doing this from the beginning. This month marks the 1700^th (yes, that’s the correct number of zeros) anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea. This gathering produced most of what we know as the Nicene Creed. And this isn’t even the oldest creed many churches use. Early forms of the Apostles’ Creed were used for Christian baptisms at least by the 200s. “Jesus is Lord” is found in the New Testament (Romans 10:9) and is most certainly a short creed. Creed-like passages are found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Philippians 2:6-11, and 1 Timothy 3:16; in other words, all over the New Testament. Early Christianity was creedal Christianity.

  Contrary to negative stereotypes, statements of faith and the denominations that use them don’t divide the church. They merely reflect already existing differences of belief without excluding the other side from the boundaries of Christianity. Those boundaries are generally set by the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, known as the Ecumenical Creeds. But notice that even clarifying who is and is not a Christian requires some kind of creed.

  Creeds are a form of transparency. Even if a church tries to avoid denominations or statements of faith entirely, the faith of that church’s pastor becomes by default their standard of faith. You could take that minister out for coffee, write down what he believes, and you'd have that church’s creed, however informal or unrecognized.

  Maybe a way to appreciate the historic creeds is to think of what their equivalent would be for us. What questions about human life and faith are being asked to which the church should give a clear answer? No doubt high on the list would be issues about our human nature: our role in creating or ending life, human sexuality, and human community on local, national, and global scales. If a certain church or denomination speaks clearly and biblically to those issues, people appreciate that clarity.

  Both the timeliness and the universality of Christian truth come together in confessions of faith. At Nicaea in 325, there was confusion about the person of Jesus; so imagine with what gusto Christians confessed that Jesus was "begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father.” This confession not only assured them of their own faith but also emboldened them to share Christ with their pagan neighbors. It should continue to assure and embolden us.

  June 25 marks the day in Lutheran history when in 1530 the Augsburg Confession was presented to Emperor Charles the Fifth of the Holy Roman Empire. The main purpose was to clarify what the Lutherans believed about how we are reconciled to God and saved. With the teaching of salvation in question, imagine the power of these clear words when they were read out in that Augsburg meeting hall: “We teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith” (AC IV).

  Our creeds are not primarily meant to be arrows shot at other Christians. They are claims of how best to craft arrows for invading Satan’s kingdom, the unbelieving heart. These arrows, because they are fashioned out of Scripture, break spiritual chains, release captives, conquer the tyrants of sin and death, and give Christ the glory. This is precisely what Jesus laid out when he said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32) and "everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32). Paul wrote, “We also believe, and so we also speak” for the purpose of extending grace to more people (2 Corinthians 4:13). Confessing the faith, whether it’s reciting a creed or discussing the Bible with a friend, is about anchoring yourself in the word of God, with the end result that you would “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).