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Well, I’m back. Swine flu is mostly gone, and I’m finally feeling up for some posting. Sorry for the long delay.
While reading around on Wikipedia about creeds, I came across another creed more focused on ethics than metaphysics: the Social Creed of the United Methodist Church. According to the UMC website, it came into being in 1908 “to express Methodism’s outrage over the miserable lives of the millions of workers in factories, mines, mills, tenements and company towns”. The creed has been revised several times, but here it is in its current form:
We believe in God, Creator of the world; and in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of creation. We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom we acknowledge God’s gifts, and we repent of our sin in misusing these gifts to idolatrous ends.
We affirm the natural world as God’s handiwork and dedicate ourselves to its preservation, enhancement, and faithful use by humankind.
We joyfully receive for ourselves and others the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage, and the family.
We commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of all persons.
We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress.
We dedicate ourselves to peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom for all people of the world.
We believe in the present and final triumph of God’s Word in human affairs and gladly accept our commission to manifest the life of the gospel in the world. Amen.
A couple weeks ago I wrote about the “creed on health-care reform” published by Sojourners, which is similarly oriented around social/ethical concerns. However, in that post I expressed doubt about whether the “health-care creed” was genuinely a creed, or merely a political statement in creedal form. The Methodist document has no such ambiguity: it is both formally and functionally a creed, for it is actually used in UMC worship services (unlike the health-care creed, which has no liturgical function in any faith community, to my knowledge). In other words, the Social Creed is formative for the Methodist community in an important way.
Needless to say, this increases my growing interest in the United Methodist Church, especially as I have recently decided to permanently leave the Southern Baptist church I’ve been attending for the last couple years. In less than a month I head off to Yale; if anyone has any recommendations for good churches in the New Haven are (UMC or not), I’m all ears. More on that later.
In doing some “research” (i.e., reading Wikipedia) for the series on creeds that I’ve been writing, I stumbled across a rather interesting document, the existence of which I had completely forgotten about. It’s called “the American’s creed”, written by William Tyler Page and adopted by Congress in 1918. It reads thusly:
I believe in the United States of America, as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
Interestingly, this creed for the state religion of nationalism is reminiscent of the classic statement of Christian religion, the Nicene Creed. The phrase “of the people, by the people, for the people” is almost Trinitarian in its import; the language of “a democracy in a republic”, of “a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States”, and of “a perfect union, one and inseparable”, calls to mind the Nicene and Chalcedonian rhetoric of the ontology in the Trinity and of the person of Christ.
The explicit and intentional creedal form of the statement drives home the way that state nationalism can compete with Christian faith and identity in the Church. And indeed, though Page undoubtedly did not recognize this conflict of kingdoms, he himself did speak of the creed he had written in unabashedly religious terms. As he said: “The American’s Creed is a summing up, in one hundred words, of the basic principles of American political faith. … It is a summary of the fundamental principles of American political faith as set forth in its greatest documents, its worthiest traditions and by its greatest leaders.” Of course, an exactly analogous statement could be made about the Nicene Creed as it was intended to be understood: “The Nicene Creed is a summing up, in a few hundred words, of the basic principles of trinitarian Christian faith. … It is a summary of the fundamental principles of Christian faith as set forth in its greatest Scriptures, its worthiest traditions and by its greatest apostles and teachers.”
This creed goes beyond the philosophical, moving swiftly from the abstract principles of sovereignty and union into the apparent ethical imperatives of American citizenship. (Ethics is something that the classical Christian creeds, unfortunately, do not touch on.) The American’s Creed declares that the moral system by which Americans should order their lives is grounded in several duties, each of which has a parallel, but contrasting, analogue in Christian theology: love of country (love of God and neighbor), support of Constitution (reading of Scripture), obedience to law (living in grace), respect for flag (identification with the Cross), and defense against national enemies (praying for our enemies and blessing those who persecute us). Thus, the creed unifies in one document both an abstract set of philosophical beliefs that are representative of American nationalism’s “orthodoxy”, but also, and much more potently, a set of ethical guidelines assumed to be normative for citizens in their daily routine. In so doing, the American’s Creed arguably (and disturbingly) makes even broader claims upon personal identity and lifestyle than do the classical Christian creeds.
Though the Creed itself is not particularly well-known in the modern United States, the ideas it expresses are formative for much of the American community, just as the ideas expressed by the classical Christian creeds are formative for much of the Christian community (even in those churches that do not regularly recite them). If it is true, as Marshall McLuhan writes, that “the medium is a message”, then the import of the American’s Creed is significant indeed. The medium is a religious one, as is, therefore, the message: and thus the American’s Creed exemplifies the way that American nationalism has become a functional religion in its own right, in competition with Christian faith.
A couple months ago I wrote and posted a “narrative creed” designed to foster a greater emphasis on ethics within the context of narrative faith. Last week I posted a “creed for community” written by guest author Joey Fuson. Today, I encountered an even more explicitly ethical (even political), and much more narrowly-focused, creed.
It’s called “A Christian Creed for Health-Care Reform”, produced by the Christian social justice magazine Sojourners. The online page containing the creed includes an invitation to sign it; apparently a copy is to be sent to Congress.
As one of God’s children, I believe that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith.
I believe God created each person in the divine image to be spiritually and physically healthy. I feel the pain of sickness and disease in our broken world (Genesis 1:27, Romans 8:22).
I believe life and healing are core tenets of the Christian life. Christ’s ministry included physical healing, and we are called to participate in God’s new creation as instruments of healing and redemption (Matthew 4:23, Luke 9:1-6; Mark 7:32-35, Acts 10:38). Our nation should strive to ensure all people have access to life-giving treatments and care.
I believe, as taught by the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, that the measure of a society is seen in how it treats the most vulnerable. The current discussion about health-care reform is important for the United States to move toward a more just system of providing care to all people (Isaiah 1:16-17, Jeremiah 7:5-7, Matthew 25:31-45).
I believe that all people have a moral obligation to tell the truth. To serve the common good of our entire nation, all parties debating reform should tell the truth and refrain from distorting facts or using fear-based messaging (Leviticus 19:11; Ephesians 4:14-15, 25; Proverbs 6:16-19).
I believe that Christians should seek to bring health and well-being (shalom) to the society into which God has placed us, for a healthy society benefits all members (Jeremiah 29:7).
I believe in a time when all will live long and healthy lives, from infancy to old age (Isaiah 65:20), and “mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). My heart breaks for my brothers and sisters who watch their loved ones suffer, or who suffer themselves, because they cannot afford a trip to the doctor. I stand with them in their suffering.
I believe health-care reform must rest on a foundation of values that affirm each and every life as a sacred gift from the Creator (Genesis 2:7).
Amen.
My gut reaction is that the creed could be improved were the last paragraph (the one explicitly referencing “health-care reform”) removed, as it seems to overly particularlize the otherwise general tone of the statement. On the other hand, the last part does have the effect of emphasizing the creed’s contextual origin and nature, rather than making it into a “universally orthodox” statement of faith/ethics which it cannot hope to be (and which, I would argue, no creed can hope to be). So I suppose my feelings are mixed.
The statement as a whole, regardless, is an interesting one. It certainly contains a number of valid theological and ethical ideas that are relevant to the current health-care debates. However, the creed departs from the more or less standard conception of the purpose of a creed: rather than being intended as a formative statement for a particular community of faith, this “health-care creed” is explicitly designed to double as a “petition” and to be submitted to Congress as such!
Thus, this creed not only goes beyond the standard sort of content that historical creeds comprise, but also challenges traditional notions of what function creeds are supposed to serve and what sort of communities or organizations in which they are to be put to use. Arguably, it would be more appropriate to regard the present document not as a creed at all, properly speaking, but rather as a call to action that takes the form of a creed as a rhetorical strategy. Again, I have mixed feelings on the matter, though I would tend to regard it as a legitimate creed, albeit an unusual and perhaps boundary-pushing one.
I would be interested to know, first, whether other people regard this document as really being a creed, and second, whether or not other similar petitions-via-creed-rhetoric exist.
Also posted here.
Recently I’ve been reading J. Denny Weaver’s The Nonviolent Atonement, an exploration of atonement from an Anabaptist perspective that assumes the nonviolence of God. Weaver discards both traditional Anselmian substitutionary atonement and Abelardian Moral Influence atonement, embracing instead the earlier conception of atonment (popular with the church fathers) “Christus Victor“. In Christus Victor, Christ’s death is seen as a ransom to the Devil; Weaver reformulates this theory as “narrative Christus Victor”, explains the death of Christ not as a desirable facet of God’s plan for humanity or as instance of “divinely-sanctioned violence”, but rather as the inevitable result of a life lived in opposition to the violent powers of oppression in the world. The Resurrection thus demonstrates that the rule of these powers is shattered forever, and that the Kingdom of God is breaking into the world. Narrative Christus Victor emphasizes the entire life and work of Christ as central to the concept of atonement — not just the crucifixion and resurrection, which are here viewed as the natural result and final victory, respectively, of Christ’s message.
In three consecutive chapters of the book, Weaver examines the challenges to traditional substititonary atonement made by black theology, feminist theology, and womanist theology. Contextual theologies are especially valuable in considering the nature of Christ’s work becuase all three grow out of the historical situations of oppressed groups — exactly the sorts of group that Jesus himself focused on (Luke 4.18f). These examples of what might be termed “theology from the margins” all deal significant blows not just to traditional atonement, but also to traditional conceptions Christology.
Black, feminist, and womanist theologies stand largely outside of the doctrinal tradition of the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds, and a central point that Weaver makes is that these creeds are just as contextualized and just as much a product of specific historical circumstances as are the theologies of various oppressed groups. In other words, the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition is not a definition of “universal orthodoxy” any more than, say, the writings of James Cone, but the white European church has long assumed that this tradition is normative because of its status as the church of the privileged. All three of the contextual theologies that Weaver discusses note that the Christology embodied in the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition de-emphasizes the ethical character of the Incarnation in favor of abstract metaphysical definitions (hypostasis, etc.). Indeed, the portion of the Nicene Creed that talks about Jesus skips straight from his birth to the crucifixion, without so much as a mention of his ministry. Black theology in particular notes that the philosophical abstraction of traditional orthodoxy allowed slave owners and other oppressors to be “good Christians” while systematically ignoring Christ’s ethical message.
All this is not to say that the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds lack value in seeking to understand the person of Christ. But I believe that the Christology embodied in these statements is incomplete, and indeed is rather unimportant when compared to the things that are left out — especially ethics. Those of us who don’t hail from marginalized groups (i.e., those of us who are born into privilege) must recognize that our theological tradition is contextual too, and that its defects (especially its separation of metaphysical Christology from ethics) have been used to inflict oppression and injustice against others, including other Christians. We must supplement our philosophical Christology with what I would term a “narrative Christology”, a doctrine of Jesus that focuses on his ministry and life, which embodied a particular ethical message that should be normative for all Christians. A properly-formulated narrative Christology would reflect the insights of the contextual theologies of the oppressed and would help return the privileged segments of the Church to a fuller knowledge of what it means to be Christian.
Narrative Christology could very well be non-creedal, drawing from the Gospels alone rather than from “standardized” statements. But if a creed were needed (either for liturgical purposes or to help elevate narrative Christology to the status of the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition), I would suggest one like this:
We confess Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born of Mary in the lowliest of places and amidst the oppression of Empire. We confess his message, a proclamation of good news to the poor, of liberty to captives, of sight to the blind, of freedom to the oppressed.
We confess that Jesus Christ of Nazareth resisted the temptations of the systems of the world. He healed the sick, cast out demons, fed the hungry, and preached to the poor. He brought a message of peace into a world of violence and a message of love into a world of legalism.
We confess that Jesus Christ of Nazareth challenged the hypocrisy, corruption, and oppression of the religious and political leaders of his day, and that he announced a new Kingdom in the midst of the old. We confess that for this, he was arrested, brought to trial, and crucified, the death of a criminal or insurrectionist.
We confess that Jesus Christ of Nazareth arose from death. We confess that in his resurrection he triumphed over the powers of oppression and evil that had killed him, and that in his resurrection he demonstrated the final efficacy of the message he proclaimed.
In the life and the resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth we place our faith. Amen.
Narrative Christology, whether in creedal or non-creedal form, thus fills a critical gap in the most emphasized parts of traditional Christology. It is my hope that methods of Christological exploration like the one I describe here can be used to bridge the gaps between the theology of the church of privilege and the theologies of the oppressed. Vox victimarum, vox Dei.
