from adult formation conversation: creeds and faith

Adult Formation---“I believe/we believe…”


When have we had news so good that we ourselves could not keep it to ourselves?

Jesus did not preach “doctrine” or a creed as we understand it today. The content of Jesus’ teaching was the Reign/Kingdom of God, which was presented in images and metaphors, open images mostly without interpretation.

When have we been so full of Kingdom-news that we could not wait to share it? Have we ever? If not, then would we like to? Do we long to?

“Credo” in Latin, translated “I believe”, is not a matter of intellectual agreement to an array of ideas and concepts so much as it means “I give my heart.” To who or what do we give our heart?

Cf Marcus Borg in The Heart Of Christianity: forms of faith…
• “Assensus”, “assent”, agreement to a set of ideas or concepts often arrayed against others. Rose to prominence in Protestant Reformation and in scientific era where faith-claimed were seen as embattled. Perhaps not the most significant, not that to which people “give their hearts”…
• “Fiducia”, “trust”, like the experience of floating; “letting go” into the divine arms
• “Fidelitas”, “fidelity”, faithfulness, loyalty, allegiance, how you act in integrity, a way of life
• “Visio”, “vision”, a way of seeing the world, the cosmos, the self—as indifferent and even hostile, or as graced and loved and reconciled. The latter leads to a sense of liberation, compassion

Borg makes case for a “deep and humble and therefore imprecise” approach to assensus affirming the reality of God, the centrality of Jesus, and the centrality of the Bible, linking “assensus” with “visio”, a sense of a universe which is graced and inhabited and ruled by love.

Why Creeds, if not reflected in the proclamation of Jesus? Tribal or family narrative, encapsulation of our core story, sketching the parameters within which we find out if we will give our hearts?

Creed as inclusive: “deep and humble and therefore imprecise”?

Creed as exclusive, the “door-check”? Or rather, the “beautiful truth…” Older paradigm “Believe, behave, belong” gives way in many places to “belong, behave, believe”, especially in contemporary “emerging” communities. The hospitality of God is foremost today in our practice and thereby in our theology. Welcome comes first!