Over at
Theolog, they have posted a short piece I wrote. They edited it some. Below you will find the piece as I originally wrote it:
Floating on a Cloud of Creedlessness
God is “greater than our creeds rehearse.” So sang the chorus at our recent United Methodist Annual Conference. “As I get older and wiser, I find that I have less articles in my creed, but more faith in God,” said another speaker, to several shouts of “Amen” from the congregation. It seems popular now to kick the creeds, those relics of an ancient past that try to limit the limitless God. A United Methodist annual conference is sure to hear several people say, “well, after all, we have never been a creedal church.”
Besides ignoring the fact that the Apostles’ Creed is part of our baptismal liturgy and that our Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith are binding on all, this anti-creedalism has other problems associated with it. Take for example the statement, “God is greater than our creeds rehearse.” Such statements beg the question of what we mean by “greater.” Without any creedal context, we are at a loss to say what ‘greater’ means, except perhaps to say that it means more and more abstract, less and less concrete. (An odd claim for people of the incarnation to make). Such a vague theology would not have been sufficient to sustain the Confessing Church in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, and I doubt it would be sufficient to sustain any resistance to the totalitarian powers of today, whether they be manifest in the church growth movement, or idolatrous nationalism.
Putting aside the creeds in order to affirm God’s greatness leaves us at a loss to understand greatness as anything but more and more detached, free from any concrete specifications. Where are people standing when they make such statements? On an island of theological neutrality, a cloud of creedlessness? No, my guess is that they are firmly rooted in protestant liberalism, seemingly unaware of how that creed is shaping their anti-creedalism.
The irony is that I do believe God is greater than all our creeds. But that is itself a creedal statement. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds teach us that God is the great “creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” Paradoxically, once we have trivialized the creeds, we have also robbed ourselves of the very means to proclaim a truly grand and glorious God, leaving us instead with the vague god of inclusivism and tolerance, a god that cannot save.
Read the complete post at http://theivybush.blogspot.com/2007/06/floating-on-cloud-of-creedlessness.html