THE NICENE CREED

I don’t really like saying it, and usually when the time to recite it comes, I’m not inside of the church, I’m in the vestibule writing in my journal. Today I was in a pew, with several other people. I chose not to say it. I don’t care for the Nicene Creed. I’ve never felt right about a whole house full of people muttering a pat statement of things they believe in—amazing, incredulous things—as if this matters.

Around the fourth century, which is to say when Christianity had bee around for a good three hundred years—several things. It became first acceptable, then fashionable, then crucial (if you wanted to escape death) to become a Christian. Every bishop and every church began fighting—in a most un-Christian manner—about whose Jesus was the right one, those who lost were killed or denounced, the scrolls and holy books powerful people didn’t like were banned, the ones that were liked became the Bible and any jackass could be a Christian.
And now any jackass is.
And after that , to make it nice and simple, so that no one could disagree, a bunch of disagreeable bishops got together and drew up the Nicene Creed. If everyone could agree to this, everyone would be a Christian. Simple as that.
And yet, for three hundred years before this, Christians raised the dead, worked miracles, witnessed the power of God and were held in awe (often mixed with fear and repugnance) by the people around them. For three hundred years before anyone mouthed the words “I believe” or had a definite doctrine or dogma there was something that definitely held Christians doggedly together. They gave their lives for something. They loved something more than the world, and it is not contained in the cold lines of the creed recited every Sunday. Belief is not enough.
And over fifteen hundred years later we have Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, just to name a few, who all agree to this Creed and yet don’t seem to agree with each other (let alone love each other) at all. The Catholics split from the Orthodox over a single word in it, but the Orthodox have this creed too.
As we progress into the twenty-first century anyone who ever thought Jesus meant anything to them might want to concentrate less on “I believe, I believe” and more on, “I love, I love, I dedicate, I am dedicated. I know. I know.”