I am not really sure how familiar my peers are with the Church of Christ aversion to creeds. They may be aware only as much as they’ve probably never read (or referenced) a creed in their congregations. Or they may, like most older generations, be almost too familiar with the Restoration slogan, “No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible.” In either case, I imagine most of us, young and old, are unaware of the current movement in Church of Christ scholarship to rediscover the value of creeds in our churches.
Last week I got to take a little break from the blog as I traveled with my brother to the Christian Scholars’ Conference, a gathering of professors and scholars within the Churches of Christ that meets annually. Religious scholars make up the bulk of the academics at this conference, and it’s always interesting in such a setting to gauge what topics seem to float to the surface for these men and women. One of those topics this year, one of the subjects that multiple scholars kept coming back to, was the need for creeds in the Churches of Christ.
Creeds have always interested me and have come up before in my writing—but something new in these discussions I heard from Dr. Scott Adair, a theology and ministry professor from Harding University. He made the claim that while the benefits of recouping the Nicene or Apostles’ Creeds may be undeniable, that our movement is so far from that liturgical move that it’s a near impossible request. Even if we could gain something from incorporating those documents into our services, they are too alien to our fellowship for that ever to become a reality. So, what he recommends is somewhere between training-wheels and a full replacement: the Churches of Christ must recognize they already have something akin to the creeds in the sacred practice of baptism.
The ancient ecumenical creeds of the Church offer concise definitions of the faith, encapsulating all that is important and identity-forming about the Christian religion. At their core is the doctrine of the Trinity and the confession that Jesus is Lord. They proclaim Jesus’s sacrifice, the forgiveness of sin, and the power of God all in a few short lines. And all of that, all of the richness of the creeds, according to Adair, can be found in the act of baptism. Adair has even constructed a five-finger exercise (much like the five steps of salvation) to demonstrate what is being proclaimed in Christian baptism (see below). In baptism, we take on a trinitarian God as we reenact the dramatic sacrifice of Christ.
The Churches of Christ have always been great about teaching the importance of baptism and emphasizing its central role in the faith. But, we haven’t always been the best about emphasizing its content. The ritual of baptism is not only our entry into the Church, some sort of mechanism by which we’re saved, but a sacrament: it is meant to symbolize and maintain Christian doctrine throughout time. So even if Churches of Christ aren’t interested in reclaiming creeds in their liturgy, we can still get a lot of the benefits of creeds if we can only begin to appreciate what is going on in baptism and what God wants us to know through that sacred act.
Addendum:
The five-finger exercise to encapsulate the faith is a little more complex than the original, but still fairly simple (and a great learning practice for children). I’ve only heard it the one time, but I believe it goes like this:
- Begin by giving a thumb-up, a universal sign of affirmation. With this finger, we proclaim that Jesus is Lord.
- Now, instead, raise the index finger. With this finger, we claim that there is one God. And at the risk of modalistic heresy, we also notice that there are three parts to our pointer finger, just as there are three members of the Trinity.
- Keeping the index finger up, next raise the middle finger, making a peace sign. With this “V” shape, we proclaim the trajectory of the divine life, that Jesus, being one with God, humbled himself unto death only to be raised and exalted by the Father.
- Next, look to the ring finger. This finger represents the covenant made by God to his children.
- The last finger is the pinky. By this finger, we are reminded of our inability to save ourselves.
Adair adds to these two more motions, involving exposing your palms and raising your hands. These motions signify our receiving of the Holy Spirit and our hope to be raised in the final resurrection.