I grew up in a church that frowned on creeds, so it was as a musician that I learned the Nicene Creed. And I learned it in the fractured, phrase by phrase way it appears in the great concert masses, with several minutes of music devoted to each segment.
I can still remember the first time I heard the creed sung as part of Bach's magnificent Mass in B-Minor. It was nearly 40 years ago at UCLA under the baton of Roger Wagner. The pain of Bach's descending line in the Crucifixus (He was crucified) nearly moved me to tears, and then I wept with joy at the giddy shock of the brilliantly ascending Et Resurrexit (And rose again).
Bach knew how to make theology sing. And the Nicene Creed still sings for me.
This issue of Christian History & Biography is about things eternal and things that change. At the Council of Nicaea the church affirmed the eternal equality of God the Son with God the Father. But at that same council, the church found itself coping with a brand new situation.
From the beginning, ...
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