Acreed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.
The earliest known creed in Christianity, "Jesus is Lord", originated in the writings of Paul the Apostle.[1] One of the most significant and widely used Christian creeds is the Nicene Creed, first formulated in AD 325 at the First Council of Nicaea[2] to affirm the deity of Christ and revised at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381 to affirm the trinity as a whole.[3] The creed was further affirmed in 431 by the Chalcedonian Definition, which clarified the doctrine of Christ.[3] Affirmation of this creed, which describes the Trinity, is often taken as a fundamental test of orthodoxy by many Christian denominations, and was historically purposed against Arianism.[4] The Apostles Creed, another early creed which concisely details the trinity, virgin birth, crucifixion, and resurrection, is most popular within western Christianity, and is widely used in Christian church services.
The word creed is particularly used for a concise statement which is recited as part of liturgy. The term is anglicized from Latin credo "I believe", the incipit of the Latin texts of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. A creed is sometimes referred to as a symbol in a specialized meaning of that word (which was first introduced to Late Middle English in this sense), after Latin symbolum "creed" (as in Symbolum Apostolorum = the "Apostles' Creed", a shorter version of the traditional Nicene Creed), after Greek symbolon "token, watchword".[6]
The term creed is sometimes extended to comparable concepts in non-Christian theologies; thus the Islamic concept of ʿaqīdah (literally "bond, tie") is often rendered as "creed".[who?]
Many Christian denominations did not try to be too exhaustive in their confessions of faith and thus allow different opinions on some secondary topics.[10] In addition, some churches are open to revising their confession of faith when necessary. Moreover, Baptist "confessions of faith" have often had a clause such as this from the First London Baptist Confession (Revised edition, 1646):[11]
Also we confess that we now know but in part and that are ignorant of many things which we desire to and seek to know: and if any shall do us that friendly part to show us from the Word of God that we see not, we shall have cause to be thankful to God and to them.
Excommunication is a practice of the Bible to exclude members who do not respect the Church's confession of faith and do not want to repent.[12] It is practiced by all Christian denominations and is intended to protect against the consequences of heretics' teachings and apostasy.[13]
The Religious Society of Friends, the group known as the Quakers, was founded in the 17th century and is similarly non-creedal. They believe that such formal structures, “be they written words, steeple-houses or a clerical hierarchy,” cannot take the place of communal relationships and a shared connection with God.[16]
1 Corinthians 15:3–7 includes an early creed about Jesus' death and resurrection which was probably received by Paul. The antiquity of the creed has been located by most biblical scholars to no more than five years after Jesus' death, probably originating from the Jerusalem apostolic community.[20]
The Old Roman Creed is an earlier and shorter version of the Apostles' Creed. It was based on the 2nd century Rules of Faith and the interrogatory declaration of faith for those receiving baptism, which by the 4th century was everywhere tripartite in structure, following Matthew 28:19.
The Chalcedonian Creed was adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 in Asia Minor. It defines that Christ is 'acknowledged in two natures', which 'come together into one person and hypostasis'.
The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque vult) is a Christian statement of belief focusing on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. It is the first creed in which the equality of the three persons of the Trinity is explicitly stated and differs from the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds in the inclusion of anathemas, or condemnations of those who disagree with the Creed.
The Maasai Creed is a creed composed in 1960 by the Maasai people of East Africa in collaboration with missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The creed attempts to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the Maasai culture.
The Credo of the People of God is a confession of faith that Pope Paul VI published with the motu proprioSolemni hac liturgia of 30 June 1968. Pope Paul VI spoke of it as "a creed which, without being strictly speaking a dogmatic definition, repeats in substance, with some developments called for by the spiritual condition of our time, the creed of Nicea, the creed of the immortal tradition of the holy Church of God."
In the Swiss Reformed Churches, there was a quarrel about the Apostles' Creed in the mid-19th century. As a result, most cantonal reformed churches stopped prescribing any particular creed.[31]
In 2005, Bishop John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark, has written that dogmas and creeds were merely "a stage in our development" and "part of our religious childhood." In his book, Sins of the Scripture, Spong wrote that "Jesus seemed to understand that no one can finally fit the holy God into his or her creeds or doctrines. That is idolatry."[32]
In Islamic theology, the term most closely corresponding to "creed" is ʿaqīdah (عقيدة).[who?] The first such creed was written as "a short answer to the pressing heresies of the time" is known as Al-Fiqh Al-Akbar and ascribed to Abū Ḥanīfa.[33][34] Two well known creeds were the Fiqh Akbar II[35] "representative" of the al-Ash'ari, and Fiqh Akbar III, "representative" of the Ash-Shafi'i.[33]
RabbiMilton Steinberg wrote that "By its nature Judaism is averse to formal creeds which of necessity limit and restrain thought"[38] and asserted in his book Basic Judaism (1947) that "Judaism has never arrived at a creed."[38] The 1976 Centenary Platform of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, an organization of Reform rabbis, agrees that "Judaism emphasizes action rather than creed as the primary expression of a religious life."[39]
Still, the opening lines of the prayer Shema Yisrael can be read as a creedal statement of strict monotheism: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" (Hebrew: שמע ישראל אדני אלהינו אדני אחד; transliteratedShema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad).[40][41][42]
Following a debate that lasted more than twenty years, the National Conference of the American Unitarian Association passed a resolution in 1894 that established the denomination as non-creedal.[44] The Unitarians later merged with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Instead of a creed, the UUA abides by a set of principles, such as “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning”.[45] It cites diverse sources of inspiration, including Christianity, Judaism, Humanism, and Earth-centered traditions.[46]
^Harn, Roger van (2004). Exploring and Proclaiming the Apostles' Creed. A&C Black. p. 58. ISBN9780819281166.
^Hanson, Richard Patrick Crosland; Hanson, R. P. (2005). The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 AD. London: A&C Black. ISBN978-0-567-03092-4.
^ abCone, Steven D.; Rea, Robert F. (2019). A Global Church History: The Great Tradition through Cultures, Continents and Centuries. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. lxxx. ISBN978-0-567-67305-3.
^Halverson, J. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. New York, NY: Springer. p. 39. ISBN978-1-349-28721-5.
^Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, p. 77.
^Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames, 2013, p. 418
^J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Infobase Publishing, USA, 2005, p. 170
^Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Baker Academic, USA, 2001, p. 286-289
^Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Baker Academic, USA, 2001, p. 289
^Barrington Raymond White, Pilgrim Pathways: Essays in Baptist History, Mercer University Press, USA, 1999, p. 275
^Ronald F. Youngblood, Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary: New and Enhanced Edition, Thomas Nelson Inc, USA, 2014, p. 378
^Chad Brand, Eric Mitchell, Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, B&H Publishing Group, USA, 2015, p. 521-522
^see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man translated Lewis Wilkins and Duane Pribe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968) p. 90; Oscar Cullmann, The Early church: Studies in Early Christian History and Theology, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966) p. 66; R. E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1973) p. 81; Thomas Sheehan, First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986) pp. 110, 118; Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection translated A. M. Stewart (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1977) p. 2; Hans Grass, Ostergeschen und Osterberichte, Second Edition (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1962) p. 96; Grass favors the origin in Damascus.
^ abChute, Anthony L.; Finn, Nathan A.; Haykin, Michael A. G. (2015). The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement. B&H Publishing Group. ISBN978-1-4336-8316-9.
^Coffey, John (29 May 2020). The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume I: The Post-Reformation Era, 1559-1689. Oxford University Press. p. 399. ISBN978-0-19-252098-2.
^A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Robert Barclay. Tract Association of the Society of Friends. 1827. p. 22.
Christian Confessions: a Historical Introduction, [by] Ted A. Campbell. First ed. xxi, 336 p. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996. ISBN0-664-25650-3
Creeds in the Making: a Short Introduction to the History of Christian Doctrine, [by] Alan Richardson. Reissued. London: S.C.M. Press, 1979, cop. 1935. 128 p. ISBN0-334-00264-8
Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: C.R.C. [i.e. Christian Reformed Church] Publications, 1987. 148 p. ISBN0-930265-34-3
The Three Forms of Unity (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, [and the] Canons of Dordrecht), and the Ecumenical Creeds (the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed, [and the] Creed of Chalcedon). Reprinted [ed.]. Mission Committee of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, 1991. 58 p. Without ISBN
