Belief (be and lyan, to hold dear). That state of the mind by which it assents to propositions, not by reason of their intrinsic evidence, but because of authority.
Creed (Latin credo, I believe). In general, a form of belief…the entire body of beliefs held by the adherents of a given religion.
I’m nearly finished my tour of two gospels—Matthew and John—and their two vastly different approaches to the Christian faith. Matthew is all about inner transformation and the practical living out of God’s kingdom; John focuses on believing in Jesus as Messiah.
What really amazes me, though, is what I haven’t seen: a requirement to “assent to propositions.” So why does the church require it?
Church leaders have spent millennia defining “legitimate” belief and rooting out variations of thought that fell outside its bounds. In many churches, we recite the creeds that sprang from this process. Some Christian traditions require assent not only to those creeds, but to a fairly specific list of propositions. In contrast, one of the towering strengths of the Anglican/Episcopal tradition—a strength that is very much in peril right now—is the latitude it gives to living the questions; we’re asked to believe the creeds, and everything else is open for discussion.
But why have creeds at all?
I suppose there’s a point at which, for purposes of sheer institutional cohesion, we all have to be on the same page. It might be difficult to build a functioning community in which one of us worships Jesus, another Vishnu, still another prays to the bodhisattvas, etc. Moreover, it may be that there’s a certain depth of wisdom in each faith tradition that can only be plumbed by communities of people in that tradition. So, although all faith traditions deserve respect and honor, there’s a place in the universe for communities of like-minded people.
But how like-minded do you really have to be in order to build community?
Perhaps I’ll find some mention of this in
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