some comments on the creeds

On the Masai creed, a couple of comments:

The thing I like most about this creed is the paragraph about the life of Jesus. Jesus identifies with the most marginal of people. He was born poor, was a healer and a teacher. Jesus was a Jew, which is something that needs to be stated again and again and again. And this paragraph points out one of the biggest problems for me with the two main creeds, the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. Those two do not talk about the life of Jesus at all. They jump straight from born of the virgin Mary (as if) to persecuted by Pilate, died, and buried.

In my mind, Jesus's death is only important because of his life, and not the other way around. Too often in Christianity, we muck this bit up. I am thinking in particular right now of the Mel Gibson movie, which was grotesque in its depiction of the execution of Jesus. But the movie was utterly lacking in context. Given the social situation of the time, Jesus was probably one of 50 Jews crucified that day, and each execution was just as brutal and terrible as Jesus's. Jesus's death is important, but it is important in the context of his life. He said, "Love your enemies," and he personified that by forgiving the men driving nails into his wrists.

And so I really like the paragraph about the life of Jesus, and his connection to the common man. I also really like the characterization of the world as good. We need to be better stewards of this world - there was a Christian group a couple of years ago that was built around the slogan, What would Jesus drive? - and we should take better care of our resources and of the creatures we share this planet with. And we should do this precisely because we are Christians because we believe in a world in which God created all things GOOD.

The Canadian creed I like very much also. I like that it emphasizes the continued experience of God and Jesus. God is creating; Jesus is transforming lives right here and right now. I like that there is no mention of stumbling blocks. It seems like we could all rally around this standard, whether we believe Mary was a virgin or not, whether Jesus bodily exited the grave or not, etc. Creeds should bring us together, not define heresy. That is the beauty of both the Jewish and Moslem creeds; they are simple statements.

And now I must sleep.