I have not been as faithful over the last month in my Thursday essays. We’ll chalk that up to leaving one congregation, moving, and then joining a new congregation. We are moved, partially unpacked, and getting back into the swing of things which means the Thursday essay is back. The first Thursday of each month is never behind a paywall.
In his book titled, Nicene Creed, theologian Phillip Cary wrote, “to confess the faith is to make what we believe into something shared, public, and recognizable, not just a fleeting thought in the heart.”
I think that is a good place to start with the Nicene Creed. I will leave the controversy to the politicians.
The place to start is with the claim that the Christian faith is not a private feeling tucked into a quiet place in our hearts. Our faith has words. It has grammar. It has wounds. The faith of the Church becomes recognizable when the Church opens its mouth and says, “We believe.”
That is what the Nicene Creed gives us.
Which is why the recent kerfuffle over Vice President JD Vance’s comments is worth mentioning but not the entire focus of my point. Vance referenced familiar yard signs that say, “In this house we believe…love is love…science is science….” You know the signs. Vance called the signs a “disgusting butchering of the Nicene Creed.”
Father James Martin, SJ responded to the Vice President by pointing out the irony: that the Nicene Creed confesses faith in “one Lord, Jesus Christ,” and “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,” and that Church has long taught love of neighbor and for the stranger. Don’t believe me or Martin? Check out Matthew 22 and Matthew 23.
The irony is spot on. Still, the danger in moments like this is that we start with the Creed and end ups with nothing but political noise. The Creed is too important for that. It does not exist to score points against a political opponent or against a pastor in a group text thread.
So, lets be clear: the Nicene Creed is not a progressive yard sign. It is also not a conservative manifesto. It is not a weapon to own the libs or rebuke the right.
The Nicene Creed is the Church declaring who God is.
That is already political in the deepest sense, but it is not partisan. It is political because to say, “one Lord, Jesus Christ,” is to say that Caesar is not Lord, nor is the stock market, nor the nation, nor the party, and certainly not me. The Creed begins by telling us which God has saved us.
The Nicene Creed came about because the Church was trying to tell the truth about Jesus.
The debates leading up the this Creed were messy, ecclesial, theological, and yes, even political. Eventually the Church confesses that the Son is homoousios (of the same essence) as the Father. That one word, homoousios, mattered.
Homoousios is not a theological ornament. It is the Church’s way of saying that Jesus Christ is not a lesser spiritual being. Jesus is not the assistant to the regional manager. He is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”
Or, to put it less elegantly: when we look at Jesus, we are not seeing a blurry photocopy of God. We are seeing God.
This is why the Creed is not abstract. If Jesus is not truly God, the God has not truly come to us. If Jesus is not truly human, then God has not come as one of us.
If the Spirit is not, “the Lord, the giver of life,” then the life of God has not truly been poured into the Church.
The creed is not a puzzle for confirmands or theologians to solve. it is a safeguard for the good news. It tells us that the God who creates is the God who saves, and the God who saves is the God who gives life.
“For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.”
That may be the most important line in the whole Creed.
Everything bends toward that announcement. The eternal Son is not confessed for the sake of theological trivia. The incarnation is not confessed so Christians can win arguments about orthodoxy on the internet. The cross is not a decorative religious symbol. The resurrection is not a vague metaphor for springtime optimism. All of this is “for us and for our salvation.”
The Creed tells the story of God’s movement toward us.
The Father creates. The Son comes down. The Spirit gives life. The Church is gathered. Baptism is acknowledged. Resurrection is awaited. The life of the world to come is promised.
That is the grammar of Christian hope.
When Christians take the Creed, given to the Church as a confession of the saving God, and turn it into a club for beating people who irritate us, we get into trouble. We use orthodoxy as a hiding place from obedience. We confess “one Lord, Jesus Christ” while reserving the right to ignore the people Jesus kept telling us to notice.
We confess “one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Catholic here means universal. Whole. The Church is bigger than my preferences, larger than my denomination, older than my opinions, and wider than whatever coalition currently feels safe to me.
Apostolic means the Church is tethered to the witness of the apostles. We do not get to invent a new Jesus every election cycle. We do not get to sand off the inconvenient edges of the gospel. We do not get to replace the Lord who was crucified under Pontius Pilate with a mascot who exists mainly to endorse our instincts.
But, and it is a big but so you know it does not lie, neither do we get to confess the Creed and then sneer at the mercy of the One we confess.
That is the theological problem with mocking love, dignity, and welcome while invoking the Creed. The issue is not that a yard sign is the Creed. It is not. The issue is that the Creed confesses the Lord whose ministry cannot be separated from love of neighbor, mercy for sinners, table fellowship with outsiders, and the command to welcome the stranger.
The Creed does not say, “No person is illegal.” That is true. The Creed also does not say, “Do not exploit workers,” “feed the hungry,” “forgive your enemies,” or “blessed are the poor.” The Creed is not a complete index of Christian ethics. It is not trying to be. But the Creed does identify the Lord whose life, death, and resurrection make those commands nonnegotiable for Christians.
That is the difference between letting politics drive the bus and letting theology do its proper work.
Politics asks, “Which side does this help?”
The Creed asks, “Who is Lord?”
Politics asks, “How can this be used?”
The Creed asks, “What has God done for us and for our salvation?”
This is why Christians should be careful about using the Creed as a culture-war prop. Once we confess that Jesus is Lord, we have said something that relativizes every other loyalty. The Creed does not make us less accountable to the needs of the world. It makes us more accountable, because the One through whom all things were made is the same One who became truly human for us and for our salvation.
There is also a Methodist wrinkle worth naming. The United Methodist Church does not include the creeds among its doctrinal standards, though the Nicene Creed is frequently used in our worship. That is very Methodist, in the best sense. We receive the Creed not as a substitute for Scripture, not as a replacement for discipleship, and not as a shortcut around holiness of heart and life, but as a gift from the wider Church.
It teaches us how to speak before it teaches us how to argue.
And maybe that is what we need most right now.
Not less conviction. Not less public faith. Not a Christianity so vague that it can be reduced to “be nice” with candles. But a faith whose public confession is disciplined by the actual Lord we confess.
The Creed is not a yard sign. Thank God.
A yard sign can be pulled up, knocked over, mocked, vandalized, or replaced when the next slogan arrives. The Creed has endured councils, empires, schisms, reformations, persecutions, translations, bored confirmands, monotone congregations, and pastors who announce, “Let us stand as we are able,” with the enthusiasm of someone reading a software update.
Still, the Church says it.
We believe in one God.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
That is not a fleeting thought in the heart. That is not a partisan slogan. That is not a private spiritual mood.
That is the Church making the faith shared, public, and recognizable.
And when we say it, we are not merely remembering an old argument. We are being handed the words by which the Church has learned to recognize the God who comes down, saves sinners, raises the dead, and gives life to the world.
Amen! Thank you!