Will Creeds Stop the Drift of Christianity

In my decades of attending church I must have mumbled "the creed" hundreds of times. It never meant a thing to me. Since writing this blog I've learned how important the creeds are to some Christians.

The link laments the reality that individual people are assessing religion and those who remain in it make their own choices. Some church shop leaving one church and joining another that is different. Others drop church altogether but keep some kind of religious notions that make sense to them. Orthodoxy is present when the members of a church together recite a creed. When an entire denomination or several denominations recite the same creed we do not, theoretically, have every person picking and choosing what to believe. There is conformity, so this thinking goes.

I remember some decades ago reading a statement by the then head of the Episcopalian denomination. He was lamenting the disagreements within the denomination at the time. He said, paraphrasing, "OK, we can tolerate a lot of different ideas in our denomination about our faith. But I'm insisting we all do the same rituals." It was as if going through the motions of mumbling the creed or taking communion were very important. Of course they are important to some, but not important to all.

The link author believes the creeds are so important they will stop change in religion. Let's consider what may change people's ideas about religion and consider the role of creeds.

I recall the creed I resighted many times said approximately, "I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth." What if the origin of the earth was discovered, that work is in progress as we speak, and it turns out there is a science-based explanation as to how the earth came to be as well as how the entire universe came to be. That is, those who go to church learn the earth into being and God had nothing to do with it. Does mumbling the creed every Sunday convince one the creed is right and science is wrong? Not for most people.

Lots of churches market themselves as "Bible believing." The link author was churches to be "creed believing." These genies have left to bottle and cannot be returned.