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Every Sunday millions of Christians recite the creed. Some sleepwalk through it thinking of other things, some puzzle over the strange language, some find offense in what it seems to say. Perhaps few of them fully appreciate what a remarkable thing they are doing. Would they keep on doing it if they grasped how different it made them in today's world? Would they keep on saying these words if they really knew what they implied?

In a world that celebrates individuality, they are actually doing something together. In an age that avoids commitment, they pledge themselves to a set of convictions and thereby to each other. In a culture that rewards novelty and creativity, they use words written by others long ago. In a society where accepted wisdom changes by the minute, they claim that some truths are so critical that they must be repeated over and over again. In a throwaway, consumerist world, they accept, preserve, and continue tradition. Reciting the creed at worship is thus a countercultural act.

This quietly dramatic behavior deserves our attention. It is worthwhile pondering what sort of thing the creed is and what Christians are doing when they say it. Four terms have been used for the creed, each pointing to a distinctive aspect. The profession of faith points to the way the creed provides a statement of personal and communal commitment. The rule of faith points to the way the creed provides a statement of measure or norm for Christian identity, particularly how Christians should read their sacred writings and how they should live. The definition of faith points to the way the creed provides the boundaries of Christian belief and therefore of the Christian community. Finally, the symbol of faith points to the way the creed provides a sign of reception and membership, and a way of affirming the community's shared story. (Each of these terms is examined in much greater detail in my book.)

But the creed is more than a set of propositions to be analyzed. It is, above all, a script that is performed every week by millions of Christians throughout the world, as a part of worship. What the creed is goes with what it does as an element in worship. The creed performs five distinct but interrelated functions for the Christian community in worship and in its life beyond that context: it narrates the Christian myth, interprets Scripture, constructs a world, guides Christian practices, and prepares the Christian people for worship.

The Creed Narrates the Christian Myth
The creed does not propose a philosophy of life but tells a story with characters and a plot. It is a story about God and the world, about God's investment in humans and their future. The fact that Christian belief is embedded in the story says more than any philosophy could about the Christian commitment to the world—visible and invisible—as created by God.

It starts with God's creation and ends in the future life. But the heart of the story is the birth, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the Son of God, who shared our humanity and transformed it by that sharing. When Christians recite the creed on Sunday morning, they tell themselves and each other a story that they already know but that bears such constant repetition, for it is a story unlike any other, a story that we must speak to each other because so much of what we experience in the world seems to deny the reality or the power of that story.

The story told by the creed is not myth in the sense of "made up" or "untrue." Myth is language seeking to express a truth about the world and humans that lies beyond what we can test and prove. It tells how God has entered the human story, or, perhaps better, how God has enabled humans to enter God's own community of life. Because Christians tell this story over and over, they know at a very deep level the answers to the three questions asked by every religion and philosophy of life: Where do you come from? We come from God, are created by God. Who are you? We are God's children through Jesus his Son. Where are you going? We hope to share in God's eternal life.

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October (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47