The Nicene Creed: Unity in diversity

With the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea falling this year, I tried in my last piece to account for the Creed’s place in the Sunday Eucharist. Rather than a limiting explanation or definition of the mystery of God, it is instead a reliable pointer to the dimensions of that mystery as it has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

There is, of course, much more that can be said about the Creed. Even as it points to the mystery of God, so too it speaks about the Church. The Creed proclaims that the Church is “catholic.” That is, the Church is for all people. The Church itself is the symbol of what is going on in the creation as a whole. Both the Church and the whole of creation are directed to their fulfilment in the Kingdom of God. What we try to live in the Church is a sign of the destiny of the whole creation. Far from reducing everything and everyone to a bland, grey sameness, such wholeness affirms the genuine gifts and features of humanity. St. Paul proclaims that “in Christ” there is “neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28. He also tells us that “there are varieties of gifts…varieties of service…varieties of working” (1 Cor. 12:4-6). Once again, we encounter paradox: unity is held together with diversity. Both together constitute catholicity.

Catholicity also means authenticity. Authenticity of belief and practice follow because they depend on the consensus of the Church. We learn authentic faith by considering and following what Christians do and think. It is not always easy to discern just what authentic faith might entail in new circumstances. For this reason, we determine weighty matters by summoning a council and ascertaining the consensus of the Church. Anglicans are among those Christians who understand the universally recognized councils of the Church, such as those of Nicaea and Chalcedon, to have special authority as giving expression to the authentic faith under the guidance of the Spirit. As an expression of that faith, the Nicene Creed has become one of the structures of the Church in which its catholicity is embodied.

The Creeds, then, are catholic in both senses of the word. They set forth the authentic faith, but not as sets of propositions to be received intellectually. Faith is, instead, an entire attitude and direction of one’s whole life. When we join with other Christians in proclaiming the Creeds during worship, we are joining in a common attitude and orientation toward Christ

It is possible to become fixated on the letter of correct doctrine and lose sight of the universal character of the Church. When churches exclude from their membership or worship people of the wrong race, class, sexual orientation or whatever, they are refusing to be part of the ever-widening communion which cannot stop short of all creation. What

Christ has done is universal in scope. Indeed, to limit that scope to human beings alone is to fail to see that “the life of the world to come” includes all things (Col. 1:20). The royal and priestly task of the Church is to live that catholicity, treating all people and all things with the honour and love for they are creatures with an eternal destiny.