Apostles Creed Quotes

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dog And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girl And that's what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it "Absolutely Nothing" Because that's what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen.

Men still think the same things about us they have always thought, Ruth - I'm sure of it. A lot of them have learned to say the right things at the right times, but as my mother used to say, 'Even a cannibal can learn to recite the Apostles' Creed'.

Meaning springs from belonging.

Is the relationship between God and Jesus Christ not unique? Of course it is. But so is yours. The relationship between God and every human being is unique and irreplaceable—in ever-new variations of the Christ theme.

The dictator State has one great advantage over bourgeois reason: along with the individual it swallows up his religious forces. The State takes the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship. But the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevail trend towards mass-mindedness. […] The policy of the State is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demigod beyond good and evil, and his votaries are honoured as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and beside it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who, as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things. Only the party boss, who holds the political power in his hands, can interpret the State doctrine authentically, and he does so just as suits him.

How would that premise stand up if he examined it? That was probably why the Communists were always cracking down on Bohemiansism. When you were drunk or when you committed adultery you recognised your own personal fallability of that so mutable substitute for the apostles' creed, the party line. Down with Bohemianism, the sin of Majakowski.

central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and sound ethics.

After all, how could I be a person if Ultimate Reality were impersonal?

There were lots of early Christian groups. They all claimed to be right. They all had books to back up their claims, books allegedly written by the apostles and therefore representing the views of Jesus and his first disciples. The group that won out did not represent the teachings of Jesus or of his apostles. For example, none of the apostles claimed that Jesus was “fully God and fully man,” or that he was “begotten not made, of one substance with the Father,” as the fourth-century Nicene Creed maintained. The victorious group called itself orthodox. But it was not the original form of Christianity, and it won its victory only after many hard-fought battles.

The light of love shines “in the darkness” (John 1:5), in suffering, in confusion, in all that we will never understand. Love makes darkness itself shine. This opens altogether new possibilities for dealing creatively with the shadow side of reality. Words can only serve as pointers; we must put this to the test in our own dark hours. Those who have done so, those who have suffered lovingly, have discovered the transformative power of love.

At its most basic, Christianity is about a Father and his children.

But to call God “almighty” does cause problems for some. J.I. Packer says, “Men treat God’s sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is a matter of worship.

Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure that you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy. How would that premise stand up if he examined it? That was probably why the Communists were always cracking down on Bohemianism. When you were drunk or when you committed either fornication or adultery you recognized your own personal fallibility of that so mutable substitute for the apostles' creed, the party line. Down with Bohemianism, the sin of Mayakovsky.

The State has taken the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship. But the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevailing trend towards mass-mindedness. The result, as always in such cases, is overcompensation in the form of fanaticism, which in its turn is used as a weapon for stamping out the least flicker of opposition. Free opinion is stifled and moral decision ruthlessly suppressed, on the plea that the end justifies the means, even the vilest. The policy of the State is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demigod beyond good and evil, and his votaries are honored as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and beside it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who, as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things. Only the party boss, who holds the political power in his hands, can interpret the State doctrine authentically, and he does so just as suits him.

To lay the blame for Christ’s death on the Jews, or Pilate, or anyone else, is to miss the Bible’s point completely. The killing of Jesus reveals the fallen nature of every person on earth. Friends, you killed Jesus. Your sin did.

Nothing is more significant in Jesus’ parables than his appeal to Common Sense. What a pity that this term has been abused to mean no more than sweet reasonableness or, worse, public opinion. Rightly understood, it means the deep awareness that all have in common and from which anything sensible must flow. We could even say that Common Sense is God’s Holy Spirit in the human heart. And here Jesus differs from the prophets. They appealed to the authority of God as standing behind them—'Thus speaks the Lord God. …' Jesus, in contrast, appeals to Common Sense, to the authority of God in the hearts of his hearers. No wonder the people felt empowered. 'This man speaks with authority,' they said, and they added, 'not like the Scribes' (Mark 1:22), not like the authorities of cultural religion. ... As the very opposite to conventional thinking, Common Sense was, and still is, subversive to authoritarian structures and intolerable to their religious as well as political representatives.

The Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 22: Q. “What, then, must a Christian believe? A. All that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught us in the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, our universally acknowledged confession of faith.

He accused the venerable Zoellner of failing to appreciate the Nazi doctrine of Race, Blood and Soil, and clearly revealed the government’s hostility to both Protestant and Catholic churches. The party [Kerrl said] stands on the basis of Positive Christianity, and Positive Christianity is National Socialism… National Socialism is the doing of God’s will… God’s will reveals itself in German blood… Dr. Zoellner and Count Galen [the Catholic bishop of Muenster] have tried to make clear to me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the Son of God. That makes me laugh… No, Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle’s Creed… True Christianity is represented by the party, and the German people are now called by the party and especially by the Fuehrer to a real Christianity… The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation.

Let the Christian world forget or depart from this true gospel salvation; let anything else be trusted but the cross of Christ and the Spirit of Christ; and then, though churches and preachers and prayers and sacraments are everywhere in plenty, nothing can come of them but a Christian kingdom of pagan vices, along with a mouth-professed belief in the Apostles’ Creed and the communion of saints. To this sad truth all Christendom both at home and abroad bears full witness. Who need be told that no corruption or depravity of human nature, no kind of pride, wrath, envy, malice, and self-love; no sort of hypocrisy, falseness, cursing, gossip, perjury, and cheating; no wantonness of lust in every kind of debauchery, foolish jesting, and worldly entertainment, is any less common all over Christendom, both popish and Protestant, than towns and villages. What vanity, then, to count progress in terms of numbers of new and lofty cathedrals, chapels, sanctuaries, mission stations, and multiplied new membership lists, when there is no change in this undeniable departure of men’s hearts from the living God. Yea, let the whole world be converted to Christianity of this kind, and let every citizen be a member of some Protestant or Catholic church and mouth the creed every Lord’s day; and no more would have been accomplished toward bringing the kingdom of God among men than if they had all joined this or that philosophical society or social fraternity.

The Christian state religion was crowned by the dogma of the Trinity. Only now can this term be used, since the Second Ecumenical Council, of Constantinople, convened by Theodosius the Great in 381, defined the identity of substance of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. The creed supplemented by this council, and therefore called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, is still in use in the Catholic Church today—alongside the brief Apostles’ Creed. So much did it finally come to be taken for granted that centuries later it was to be turned into great music by the greatest composers of Christianity (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, in their settings of the mass). After this council, what the three Cappadocians (from Cappadocia,

You, dearly beloved, whom I address in no less earnest terms than those of the blessed apostle Peter, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,” built upon the impregnable rock, Christ, and joined to the Lord our Savior by His true assumption of our flesh, remain firm in the faith, which you have professed before many witnesses and in which you were reborn through water and the Holy Spirit, and received the anointing of salvation and the seal of eternal life. But “if anyone preaches to you anything besides that which you have learned, let him be anathema”; refuse to put wicked fables before the clearest truth, and what you may happen to read or hear contrary to the rule of the catholic and apostolic creed, judge it altogether deadly and diabolical… Indeed, they put on a cloak of piety and chastity, but under this deceit they conceal the filthiness of their acts, and from the recesses of their ungodly heart hurl shafts to wound the simple… A mighty bulwark is a sound faith, a true faith, to which nothing has to be added or taken away, because unless it is one, it is no faith, as the apostle says, “one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.” Cling to this unity, dearly beloved, with minds unshaken, and in it “follow after” all “holiness.” In it carry out the Lord’s commands, because “without faith it is impossible to please God,” and without it nothing is holy, nothing pure, nothing alive, “for the just lives by faith,” and he who by the devil’s deception loses it is dead though living, because as righteousness is gained by faith, so, too, by a true faith is eternal life gained, as our Lord and Savior says. And this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. May He make you to advance and persevere to the end, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.                —Leo the Great

Wardress in a prison,was she, that old hippopotamus? That is significant, perhaps." Sarah said: "You mean that that is the cause of her tyranny? It is the habit of her former profession." Gerard shook his head. "No, that is approaching it from the wrong angle. There is some deep underlying compulsion. She does not love tyranny because she has been a wardress. Let us rather say that she became a wardress because she loved tyranny. In my theory it was a secret desire for power over other human beings that led her to adopt that profession." His face was very grave. "There are such strange things buried down in the unconscious. A lust for power - a lust for cruelty - a savage desire to tear and rend - all the inheritance of our past racial memories...They are all there, Miss King, all the cruelty and savagery and lust...We shut the door on them and deny them conscious life, but sometimes - they are too strong." Sarah shivered. "I know." Gerard continued: "We see it all around us today - in political creeds, in the conduct of nations. A reaction from humanitarianism - from pity - from brotherly good-will. The creeds sound well sometimes - a wise régime - a beneficent government - but imposed by force - resting on a basis of cruelty and fear. They are opening the door, these apostles of violence, they are letting up the old savagery, the old delight in cruelty for its own sake! Oh, it is difficult - Man is an animal very delicately balanced. He has one prime necessity - to survive. To advance too quickly is as fatal as to lag behind. He must survive! He must, perhaps, retain some of the old savagery, but he must not - no definitely he must not - deify it!

never so happy in my whole life. Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Chops” because that was the name of his dog And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X’s and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Autumn” because that was the name of the season And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it “Innocence: A Question” because that was the question about his girl And that’s what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle’s Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it “Absolutely Nothing” Because that’s what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen.

Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus." (Ray Ortlund blog, Christ Is Deeper Still)

The church's theology bought into this ahistoricism in different ways: along a more liberal, post-Kantian trajectory, the historical particularities of Christian faith were reduced to atemporal moral teachings that were universal and unconditioned. Thus it turned out that what Jesus taught was something like Kant's categorical imperative - a universal ethics based on reason rather than a set of concrete practices related to a specific community. Liberal Christianity fostered ahistoricism by reducing Christianity to a universal, rational kernel of moral teaching. Along a more conservative, evangelical trajectory (and the Reformation is not wholly innocent here), it was recognized that Christians could not simply jettison the historical particularities of the Christian event: the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, there was still a quasi-Platonic, quasi-gnostic rejection of material history such that evangelicalism, while not devolving to a pure ahistoricism, become dominated by a modified ahistoricism we can call primitivism. Primitivism retains the most minimal commitment to God's action in history (in the life of Christ and usually in the first century of apostolic activity) and seeks to make only this first-century 'New Testament church' normative for contemporary practice. This is usually articulated by a rigid distinction between Scripture and tradition (the latter then usually castigated as 'the traditions of men' as opposed to the 'God-give' realities of Scripture). Such primitivism is thus anticreedal and anticatholic, rejecting any sense that what was unfolded by the church between the first and the twenty-first centuries is at all normative for current faith and practice (the question of the canon's formation being an interesting exception here). Ecumenical creeds and confessions - such as the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed - that unite the church across time and around the globe are not 'live' in primitivist worship practices, which enforce a sense of autonomy or even isolation, while at the same time claiming a direct connection to first-century apostolic practices.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Chops” because that was the name of his dog And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X’s and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Autumn” because that was the name of the season And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it “Innocence: A Question” because that was the question about his girl And that’s what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle’s Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it “Absolutely Nothing” Because that’s what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen.

Basic religious belief is a vote for some coherence, purpose, benevolence, and direction in the universe, and I suspect it emerges from all that we said in the last chapter about home, soul, and the homing device of Spirit. This belief is perhaps the same act of faith as that of Albert Einstein, who said before he discovered his unified field that he assumed just two things: that whatever reality is, it would show itself to be both “simple and beautiful.” I agree! Faith in any religion is always somehow saying that God is one and God is good, and if so, then all of reality must be that simple and beautiful too. The Jewish people made it their creed, wrote it on their hearts, and inscribed it on their doorways (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), so that they could not and would not forget it. I worry about “true believers” who cannot carry any doubt or anxiety at all, as Thomas the Apostle and Mother Teresa learned to do. People who are so certain always seem like Hamlet's queen “protesting too much” and trying too hard. To hold the full mystery of life is always to endure its other half, which is the equal mystery of death and doubt. To know anything fully is always to hold that part of it which is still mysterious and unknowable.

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll's funeral, quoted here} Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death. We, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his intellect dissented. Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh -- political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state, riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well- to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no less than did the martyrs of old. Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him, saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain, when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest man. He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake. The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of justice and love and charity and happiness. We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

For two millennia the church has focused on worshiping a Christ who saves, a Christ who forgives, a Christ who cleanses, a Christ who challenges us and changes us, a Christ who convicts us and converts us, and a Christ who is coming again. If, as the Apostles’ Creed tells us, Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead (Acts 17:31; Rev. 19:11–21); and if those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ will live forever with God in his new creation (Mark 1:15; Acts 17:30; Rev. 21:7; 21:1–27) through the atoning work of Christ on the cross (Isa. 53:1–12; Rom. 5:1–21); and if those who are not born again (John 3:5) and do not believe in Christ (John 3:18) and do not turn from their sinful practices (1 John 3:4–10) will face eternal punishment and the just wrath of God in hell (John 3:36; 5:29); and if among those in the lake of fire excluded from the heavenly garden are the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars (Rev. 21:8, 27)—then determining what constitutes sexual immorality in God’s mind has everything to do with the storyline of Scripture. Is homosexual activity a sin that must be repented of, forsaken, and forgiven, or, given the right context and commitment, can we consider same-sex sexual intimacy a blessing worth celebrating and solemnizing?

once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem and he called it "chops" because that was the name of his dog and thats what it was all about his teacher gave him an A and a gold star and his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts. that was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo and he let them sing on the bus and his little sister was born with tiny nails and no hair and his mother and father kissed a lot and the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant and his father always tucked him in bed at night and was always there to do it once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season and that's what it was all about and his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of the new paint and the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars and left butts on the pews and sometime they would burn holes that was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames and the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see santa claus and the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot and his father never tucked him in bed at night and his father got mad when he cried for him to do it once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem and he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girl and thats what it was all about and his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her that was the year Father Tracy died and he forgot how the end of the Apostles's Creed went and he caught his sister making out on the back porch and his mother and father never kissed or even talked and the girl around the corner wore too much make up that made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because it was the thing to do and at 3 am he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly that's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem and he called it "Absolutely Nothing" because that's what it was really all about and he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist and he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen

once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem and he called it "chops" because that was the name of his dog and that's what it was all about his teacher gave him an a and a gold star and his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts. that was the year father tracy took all the kids to the zoo and he let them sing on the bus and his little sister was born with tiny nails and no hair and his mother and father kissed a lot and the girl around the corner sent him a valentine signed with a row of x's and he had to ask his father what the x's meant and his father always tucked him in bed at night and was always there to do it once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem he called it "autumn" because that was the name of the season and that's what it was all about and his teacher gave him an a and asked him to write more clearly and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of the new paint and the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars and left butts on the pews and sometime they would burn holes that was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames and the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see santa claus and the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot and his father never tucked him in bed at night and his father got mad when he cried for him to do it once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem and he called it "innocence: a question" because that was the question about his girl and that's what it was all about and his professor gave him an a and a strange steady look and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her that was the year father tracy died and he forgot how the end of the apostles' creed went and he caught his sister making out on the back porch and his mother and father never kissed or even talked and the girl around the corner wore too much make up that made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because it was the thing to do and at 3 am he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly that's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem and he called it "absolutely nothing" because that's what it was really all about and he gave himself an a and a slash on each damned wrist and he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dog And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girl And that's what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it "Absolutely Nothing" Because that's what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Chops” because that was the name of his dog And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X’s and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it “Autumn” because that was the name of the season And that’s what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it “Innocence: A Question” because that was the question about his girl And that’s what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle’s Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it “Absolutely Nothing” Because that’s what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen. That was the poem I read for Patrick. Nobody knew who wrote it, but Bob said he heard it before, and he heard that it was some kid’s suicide note. I really hope it wasn’t because then I don’t know if I like the ending.

This is the mighty and branching tree called mythology which ramifies round the whole world whose remote branches under separate skies bear like colored birds the costly idols of Asia and the half-baked fetishes of Africa and the fairy kings and princesses of the folk-tales of the forest and buried amid vines and olives the Lares of the Latins, and carried on the clouds of Olympus the buoyant supremacy of the gods of Greece. These are the myths and he who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with men. But he who has most Sympathy with myths will most fully realize that they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality. But though they provide a man with a calendar they do not provide him with a creed. A man did not stand up and say 'I believe in Jupiter and Juno and Neptune,' etc., as he stands up and says 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' and the rest of the Apostles' Creed.... Polytheism fades away at its fringes into fairy-tales or barbaric memories; it is not a thing like monotheism as held by serious monotheists. Again it does satisfy the need to cry out on some uplifted name, or some noble memory in moments that are themselves noble and uplifted; such as the birth of a child or the saving of a city. But the name was so used by many to whom it was only a name. Finally it did satisfy, or rather it partially satisfied, a thing very deep in humanity indeed; the idea of surrendering something as the portion of the unknown powers; of pouring out wine upon the ground, of throwing a ring into the sea; in a word, of sacrifice....A child pretending there is a goblin in a hollow tree will do a crude and material thing like leaving a piece of cake for him. A poet might do a more dignified and elegant thing, like bringing to the god fruits as well as flowers. But the degree of seriousness in both acts may be the same or it may vary in almost any degree. The crude fancy is no more a creed than the ideal fancy is a creed. Certainly the pagan does not disbelieve like an atheist, any more than he believes like a Christian. He feels the presence of powers about which he guesses and invents. St. Paul said that the Greeks had one altar to an unknown god. But in truth all their gods were unknown gods. And the real break in history did come when St. Paul declared to them whom they had worshipped. The substance of all such paganism may be summarized thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone; in its own field reason does not restrain it at all..... There is nothing in Paganism whereby one may check his own exaggerations.... The only objection to Natural Religion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull’s blood, as did Julian the Apostate.

First, the Apostles’ Creed functions like the church’s pledge of allegiance.

In the same way, Christians today are often suspicious of creeds. Many churches are more comfortable with mission statements than with creeds. The thing about a mission statement is you always get to make it up for yourself. It’s like writing your own wedding vows. But here’s the paradox. It is the individualized confession, like the personalized wedding vow, that ends up sounding like an echo of the wider society.

In baptism nobody is invited to come up with their own personal statement of belief. All are invited to be immersed into a reality beyond themselves and to join their individual voices to a communal voice that transcends them all.

they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in the purity of God’s truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, the Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it to the tottering creeds of the world.

Because Jesus is the universal Lord, all worldly power is limited and provisional.

Origen pointed out that the way of Jesus doesn’t really need any defense. He wrote: Jesus is always being falsely accused, and there is never a time when he is not being accused.… He is still silent in the face of this and does not answer with his own voice. But he makes his defense in the lives of his genuine disciples, for their lives cry out the real facts and defeat all false charges.38

As Gregory says to the slave owner, “you have forgotten the limits of your authority.” The world has only one Lord—and this Lord “does not enslave,” but “calls us to freedom.

There is no greater sin than not to believe this article of “the forgiveness of sins” which we pray daily in the [Apostles’] Creed. And this sin is called the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Some early Christian teachers suggested that heaven and hell might in fact be the same place.

The same class can be a delight for one student and a torment for another. One is excited; the other is bored. Both students are in the same place, and both are listening to the same teacher. But one is in heaven and the other is in hell.

That is how Isaac the Syrian imagines the world to come: not as two different places but as two different ways of responding to the love of God. “Those who are punished in hell,” Isaac writes, “are scourged by the scourge of love. For what is so bitter and vehement as the punishment of love?

We believe that the spiritually strong and the spiritually weak are both sustained by the same forgiving grace. We believe that we rely solely on grace, not only in our worst failures but also in our best successes. We believe that if ever we should turn away from grace, if ever our hearts grow cold and we forget our Lord and become unfaithful to his way, he will not forget us. His faithfulness is deeper than our faithlessness. His yes is stronger than our no.

God’s plan of salvation all along has been to create one human society as the bearer of the divine image. In that sense, the church isn’t just the way people respond to salvation; the church is salvation. The church is what God has been doing in the world from the beginning. It is a representative microcosm of what God intends for the whole human family.

But Christianity is not belief in belief. It is belief in a propositional truth: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and savior of sinners.

To quote Irenaeus again, because Jesus has ascended we also “ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father.”32 In Jesus, our nature has taken up residence in the presence of God.

Only a God who is totally free and totally sovereign can relate to the world with total love, patience, and generosity.

The Son of God heals our nature by joining it to himself. Human nature is changed by this union. Mortality joins hands with immortality. The grave becomes the beginning of life.

We read the Gospels not only with our minds but also with our lives.

The Christian life is nothing if not challenging. It is not the fun life, nor the easy life. It is life.

For better or for worse, there are seasons when we hold our faith, and then there are seasons when our faith holds us. In those latter instances, I am more thankful than ever for all the saints, past and present, who said yes and whose faith sustains mine. They believe for me when I’m not sure I believe. They hold on to hope for me when I’ve run out of hope. They are the old lady next to me in the pew and the little kid behind me who recite the entirety of the Apostles’ Creed on my behalf on those Sundays when I cannot bring myself to say all those ancient words wholeheartedly—Is this what I really believe? They pray for me when the only words I have to say to God are words that I refuse to allow to be printed on this page, because they would make even my most foulmouthed friend blush.

188 In the Old Testament the word “hell” usually referred to sheol, or the abode of the dead. The Church teaches that after his Crucifixion, Christ preached to the spirits in sheol (1 Pet. 4:6), an event the Apostles’ Creed refers to as Christ’s “descent into hell.” Regarding this event, the Catechism clearly says, “Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him” (CCC 633).

when we say the Apostles’ Creed we are reminded that life itself is founded on trust. Christians in the ancient church went naked to the waters of baptism. The second birth is like the first. We are totally dependent. We bring nothing with us except life. The birth cry of baptism is the threefold “I believe” of the creed, a cry of total trust in the Triune God.

When I survey the wondrous Cross, On which the prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it Lord that I should boast Save in the death of Christ my God; All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. See from his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down; Did e’re such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown? His dying crimson like a robe, Spreads o’er his body on the tree; Then am I dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me. Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, love so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.1

In the spring of 1519, the Bishop of Coventry received word that certain families were teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments in English. The bishop ordered the arrest of Mr. Hatchets, Mr. Archer, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Bond, Mr. Wrigsham, Mr. Landsdale and Mrs. Smith. While they were held at an abbey outside of town, their children were brought to Greyfriar’s Monastery in Coventry. The boys and girls were made to stand before Friar Stafford, the abbot. One by one, Stafford interrogated the children about their parents’ beliefs. “Now then,” he told them, “I charge you in the name of God to tell me the whole truth—you shall suffer severely for any lies you tell or secrets you conceal.” “What do you believe about the church and the way to heaven?” he asked them. “Do you go to the services of the parish church? Do you read the Scriptures in English? Do you memorize the Lord’s Prayer or other Scriptures in English?” After getting from the children’s own lips the information he needed to convict their parents, he warned them. “Your parents are heretics!” he bellowed. “They have led you away from the teachings of the church. You are never to meddle again with the Lord’s Prayer or the Ten Commandments or any other Scriptures in English. And if you do—rest assured you will burn at the stake for it!” The next day, the six fathers and Mrs. Smith stood before a panel of judges that included the bishop and Friar Stafford. After presenting the evidence against them—and because the men had been warned before by the bishop not to persist in their Lollard ways—the men were condemned to death by burning. But since this was Mrs. Smith’s first offense, the court dismissed her with a warning not to teach her children the Scriptures in English anymore under pain of death. It was late in the evening when the court dismissed, so the bishop’s assistant decided to see Mrs. Smith home in the dark. As they walked out into the night, he took her arm to lead her across the street. Hearing the rattling of papers within her sleeve, he stopped and said, “Well, what do you have here?” He grabbed her arm, reached into the sleeve and pulled out a little scroll. Under the light of a lantern, he read it and found that it contained handwritten in English the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostle’s Creed. “Well, well,” he said with a sneer. “Come now, this is as good a time as any!” He dragged her back again to the bishop. The panel quickly sentenced her to be burned with the six condemned men and sent her off to prison to await her fate. A few days later, guards led Mrs. Smith and the Lollard men to an open space in the center of Coventry known as Little Park. They tied them to a stake and burned them to death for the crime of teaching their children the Word of God in English.

The oral (agraphous) traditions of the papists, for they speak diversely of them. Sometimes tradition is used by them for the 'act of tradition' by which the sacred books were preserved by the church in an uninterrupted series of time (also a perpetual succession) and delivered to posterity. This is formal tradition and in this sense Origen says 'they learned by tradition that the four gospels were unquestioned in the church universal.' Second, it is often taken for the written doctrine which, being at first oral, was afterward committed to writing. Thus Cyprian says, 'Sacred tradition will preserve whatever is taught in the gospels or is found in the epistles of the apostles or in the Acts' (Epistle 74 'To Pompey'). Third, it is taken for a doctrine which does not exist in the Scriptures in so many words, but may be deduced thence by just and necessary consequence; in opposition to those who bound themselves to the express word of the Scriptures and would not admit the word homoousion because it did not occur verbatim there. Thus Basil denies that the profession of faith which we make in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be found in the Scriptures meaning the Apostles’ Creed, whose articles nevertheless are contained in the Scriptures as to sense (On the Spirit 8:41, 43). Fourth, it is taken for the doctrine of rites and ceremonies called 'ritual tradition.' Fifth, it is taken for the harmony of the old teachers of the church in the exposition of any passage of Scripture which, received from their ancestors, they retained out of a modest regard for antiquity because it agreed with the Scriptures. This may be called 'tradition of sense' or exegetical tradition (of which Irenaeus speaks, Against Heresies 3.3, and Tertullian often as well, Prescription Against Heretics 3:243–65). Sixth, they used the word tradition ad hominem in disputing with heretics who appealed to them not because all they approved of could not be found equally as well in the Scriptures, but because the heretics with whom they disputed did not admit the Scriptures; as Irenaeus says, 'When they perceived that they were confused by the Scriptures, they turned around to accuse them' (Against Heresies, 3.2). They dispute therefore at an advantage from the consent of tradition with the Scriptures, just as we now do from the fathers against the papists, but not because they acknowledged any doctrinal tradition besides the Scriptures. As Jerome testifies, 'The sword of God smites whatever they draw and forges from a pretended apostolic tradition, without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures' (Commentarii in prophetas: Aggaeum 1:11).

You remember the 'distinguished' poem that was quoted in the copy you lent to me? "They ordered bacon And eggs at seven. At eight o'clock, There was nobody down. Only the coffeepot Stood on the table." "Yes, but what possible ..." "Do you also remember what your 'distinguished' weekly said about it? 'The old-fashioned reader who would dismiss as insignificant this new and vital work (a striking example of the sharp-edged imagisme with which the more adventurous of our younger writers are experimenting today)'—you see, Basil, I have it by heart, words, tone, cadence and all—'forgets that every object, even the coffeepot on the table, has a perimeter which not only encloses that object, but also subtends a physical and metaphysical otherness that includes the whole of the rest of the universe. Such work, therefore, is more truly significant of ultimate reality than all the pantings after God of the Victorians.' ... you were squashing a perfectly genuine love of simple and true things in a perfectly genuine little woman, and that the words you borrowed for the purpose were muddle-headed and insincere drivel. ... They are not literary grounds. They are human grounds. Miss Bird, as I told you, is unlike your 'distinguished' anonymities in having a few quite genuine beliefs; and you used the cheap phrases of a pseudo-metaphysical charlatan, in a precious literary weekly, to snub her. I saw the hurt look on her face long after you had wiped your boots on her perfectly sincere love of certain perfectly true and simple things. ... I don't go to church to hear a high-brow Anglican curate quoting a Scandinavian lunatic, any more than I go to my hair-dresser's to hear a Christy minstrel reciting the Apostles' Creed. I know that it's all very noble and distinguished and broad-minded and generally newspaperish. You might have been brought up in a seminary for young ladies of fashion. ... He didn't know whether he was modern or antique. In either case, it appeared he was a fraud.

It has been said, indeed, that the faith of the primitive Church was extremely simple, — that it was ‘a life rather than a creed,’ — that few, if any, of the doctrines of Scripture had as yet been developed and defined, — and that Theology had not then assumed a systematic form. This statement is true, so far as it is meant merely to affirm, that the articles of faith were less rigorously reasoned out, and often more vaguely stated, before they were subjected to the ordeal of controversial discussion; for this holds good of every age; but it is not true, if it be understood to imply, either that the primitive Church did not believe, in substance, the self-same doctrines which were afterwards defined, or that her members were incapable of giving a sufficient reason for the hope that was in them. The primitive Church was instructed by the ministry of the Apostles, and continued to be nourished by the Gospels and Epistles; she was the aggregate of all those individual churches, — at Rome, at Ephesus, at Corinth, at Philippi, at Colossae, at Thessalonica, — to whom Paul addressed his profound arguments, in the confident persuasion that they would be understood by those to whom he wrote; and the controversies with false teachers, which were expounded in his writings, were surely sufficient to give them clear and definite views of the doctrines of Grace. The doctrine of Justification, in particular, was so thoroughly discussed in the writings of the Apostles, and that, too, in the way of controversy both with Jews and Gentiles, that their immediate successors had no occasion to treat it as an undecided question; — they found it an established and unquestioned article of the common faith, and they assumed and applied it in all their writings, without thinking it necessary to enter into any formal explanation or proof of it.

When the early Church recited the Apostles Creed, it was simultaneously their greatest act of rebellion, and their greatest act of submission.

All creation has come to existence because of God and continues existing because of God. Were God's sustaining power suddenly removed from creation, it would immediately vanish into nothingness. This includes the soul, which - precisely because it is a creature and not the Creator - cannot subsist without God's sustaining power. It is not that we live because we have a soul, but rather that we have a soul and we live thanks to God's sustaining grace.

I was able to confess the Apostles' Creed, but only with deep ambiguity. But I stumbled over "he arose from the dead." I had to demythologize it and could say it only symbolically. I could not inwardly confess the resurrection as a factual historical event. I was assigned the task of teaching theology, but when I came to the resurrection, I honestly had to say at that stage that is was not about an actual event of a bodily resurrection but a community memory of an unexplained event. I could talk about the writings of the people who were remembering and proclaiming it as the saving event, but I could not explain to myself or to others how Christianity could be built on an event that never happened...That was my credo in my early thirties. It was new birth without bodily resurrections and forgiveness without atonement. Resurrection and atonement were words i choked on . That mean that the gospel was not about an event of divine salvation but about a human psychological experience of trust and freedom from anxiety, guilt and boredom

The passages which appear most confirmatory of Christ's Deity, or Divine nature, are, in the first place, the narratives of the Incarnation and of the Miraculous Conception, as given by Matthew and Luke. Now, the two narratives do not harmonize with each other; they neutralize and negative the genealogies on which depend so large a portion of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah—the marvellous statement they contain is not referred to in any subsequent portion of the two Gospels, and is tacitly but positively negatived by several passages—it is never mentioned in the Acts or in the Epistles, and was evidently unknown to all the Apostles—and, finally, the tone of the narrative, especially in Luke, is poetical and legendary, and bears a marked similarity to the stories contained in the Apocryphal Gospels." (W. R. Greg: The Creed of Christendom, p. 229.)

Sitting there, I remembered two things about going to mass with my father: he never took Communion because of his and my mother's divorce, and he always tapped his heart three times, with solemn insistence, after the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. I asked him about his ritual once. His eyes filled with such alarm that I instantly knew his heart tapping had something to do with a loss or devastation: his parents' early death, his divorce, his wounding in Vietnam. There was no reason for me to invade that space. Maybe that was the best simple explanation for religion: it filled our spaces.

First, we have to remember that the gospel itself is implicitly Trinitarian. The gospel points to a God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The salvation that the gospel promises portrays the Father as choosing, Christ as redeeming, and the Spirit as renewing—all in a unified work by distinct persons in a single godhead.

Evangelism is not about asking people to try Jesus the way they might try a new decaf mochachino latte from Starbucks. It is more like declaring the victory of the Lord Jesus over sin and death, warning of the judgment to be made by the Lord Jesus over all rebellion, and inviting people to find joy and satisfaction in the life and love that come from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The view that because our one aim is to proclaim “Christ Crucified” the story of His life does not actually belong to the Gospel, is equally mistaken. The Early Church, rightly, held the opposite opinion, when she called the four books which tell the story of the life of Jesus, “the Four Gospels.” As the life of Jesus can only be rightly understood from the point of view of the cross—the object of the Fourth Gospel is to show this—so, conversely, the Cross of Jesus can only be understood in light of His life, as its culmination.3

the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “What comfort is there that Christ shall come to judge?” Answer: “That the one who comes to judge is the very same person who previously came to be judged for my sake and has removed all curse from me.”8

It is truly amazing to think that Jesus lived on this earth for thirty-three years, but He has been interceding for His Church for more than 2,000 years.

summaries of Christian teaching, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Heidelberg Catechism, and has informed the shape of historic Christian worship.

Expressing reverence for Reagan has been almost a requirement for Republican presidential candidates since 1988, but Mr. Walker has taken to it like an apostle to his creed.

what benefit does retaining the clause, He descended into hell, bring to us? In a word, this clause is an essential part of the doctrine of the Christian church as well as the experience of its members. John Calvin spoke of its essential nature for doctrine when he said what this clause asserts in the Apostles’ Creed is “a matter of no small moment in bringing about redemption.” He continued to say that, “a place must be given to it, as it contains the useful and not-to-be-despised mystery of a most important matter.” To those with scruples about this clause, Calvin said, “It will soon be made plain how important it is to the sum of our redemption: if it is left out, much of the benefit of Christ’s death will be lost.”1

This is the spiritual truth contained in the phrase from the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell.” He has come to get us out of prison and out of the tombs. There is no place he would not go to retrieve us. David prayed, “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Psalm 139:8). Indeed, even when we are hell-bent on running from God and create all manner of hell for ourselves and our loved ones, Jesus goes to the depths with us. He can get us out and bring us home. Even when others open up a can of living hell all over us, when they release the hounds of their madness into our lives, when they empty their evil onto us, Jesus is not daunted nor defeated. He has been to hell and he reigns even there.

wrong. . . .[Some] people merely take the modern mood . . . and then require any creed to be cut down to fit that mood. But

An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. . . . What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century. If a man believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he can believe in any miracle in any age.

Profession of a “lord” is not merely religious language for adoration on some spiritual plane; it is also a matter of social and political allegiance. When it came to who was running the show, the Christians knew that there were only two options, either the son of Augustus or the son of David. By singing and preaching about Jesus as Lord, they were opting for the latter, a claim regarded by political authorities as seditious. As N. T. Wright suggests, “For Paul, Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

It was necessary that Christ should be God. There must be a proportion between the sin of man and the punishment of sin. Now the sin of man in respect to the offence of the majesty of God is infinite, in that he is infinitely displeased with man for the breach of his law: therefore the punishment of sin must be infinite: and hence it follows, that he which suffers the punishment being man, must be God, that the manhood by the power of the Godhead may be supported, that in suffering it may vanquish death, and make a sufficient satisfaction.

14. We now come to another and most fruitful cause of the evils which at present afflict the Church, and which We so bitterly deplore; We mean indifferentism, or that fatal opinion everywhere diffused by the craft of the wicked, that men can by the profession of any faith obtain the eternal salvation of souls, provided their life conforms to justice and probity. But in a question so clear and evident it will undoubtedly be easy for Us to pluck up from amid the people confided to your care so pernicious an error. The apostle warns us of it: "One God, one faith, one baptism." Let them tremble then who imagine that every creed leads by an easy path to the part of felicity; and reflect seriously on the testimony of our Saviour Himself, that those are against Christ who are not with Christ, and that they miserably scatter by the fact that they gather not with Him, and that consequently they will perish eternally without any doubt if they do not hold to the Catholic Faith, and preserve it entire and without alternations. Let them hear Saint Jerome himself, relating that, at the epoch when the Church was divided into three parties, he, faithful to what had been decided, incessantly repeated to all who endeavored to win him over: "Whoso is united to the chair of Peter is with me." In vain did they attempt to create an illusion by saying that he himself was regenerated in water; for Saint Augustine answers precisely: "The branch lopped off has the shape of the vine; but what avails the form if it have not the root?

The Apostles’ Creed itself locates Jesus in time, in the historical reign of Pontius Pilate. The church is not a people gathered by abstract ideas or teachings or ideals; it is a people gathered to the historical person Jesus Christ. The church is a Messiah-people who worship a God who broke into and inhabited time, who suffered at the hands of historical regimes, and who rose “on the third day.” They are gathered as a people to worship the Messiah, who does not float in some esoteric, ahistorical heaven, but who made a dent on the calendar—and will again.

Gnosticism was the most comprehensive intolerance imaginable. It was intolerance of the universe and of life and of whatever it means to be human.

The name of Pontius Pilate is a historical anchor. It prevents us from turning the Christian faith into a set of general truths about the world. It reminds us that the gospel is not an idea but a fact.

Gregory says to the slave owner, “you have forgotten the limits of your authority.

That is how it goes in the Old Testament: at the great turning points of history, we find a woman, pregnant, and an infant child brought into the world by the powerful promise of God. Israel’s story is a story of miraculous births.

Pontius Pilate is there to remind us that God has acted at a particular moment in human history. The salvation of the world can be dated. Certain people were there when it happened.

Jesus is always being falsely accused, and there is never a time when he is not being accused.… He is still silent in the face of this and does not answer with his own voice. But he makes his defense in the lives of his genuine disciples, for their lives cry out the real facts and defeat all false charges.

Is there anyone who never feels a flicker of doubt when they contemplate the mysteries of faith? Can anyone really say the amen with all their heart? Isn’t it really here, at the last word of the creed, that we ought to cross our fingers? Shouldn’t we end the creed by saying: “Oh boy, I hope so!” How can anyone have the audacity to say “Amen”?

during a theological conference in the mid-1990s, which Peter Kreeft recalled in 1998 as “the most memorable moment of the most memorable conference I ever attended.” Attending the meeting, says Kreeft, were “dozens of high-octane Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Evangelicals,” who, despite their noted theological differences, converged near the end of the conference in a crescendo of agreement. Kreeft continues: In the concluding session Father Fessio got up and proposed [tongue in cheek] that we issue a joint statement of theological agreement among all the historic, orthodox branches of Christendom saying that what united us was Scripture, the Apostles’ Creed, the first six ecumenical councils and the collected works of C. S. Lewis. The proposal was universally cheered.

One of the more notable features of the life of our Lord, as recorded in Scripture, is the fact that references to the outside world are overwhelmingly political. When Jesus was born, Augustus was Caesar (Luke 2:1) and Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). Herod the Great was ruler in Judea (Luke 1:5) and wielded his power to the grief of many mothers in Bethlehem. Tiberius was Caesar when John the Baptist began his ministry (Luke 3:1–2), and Luke includes a number of interesting names when he dates the arrival of the forerunner of the Messiah. Tiberius was still emperor when Jesus died, and this political orientation is sealed by the fact that Pontius Pilate was included in the Apostles’ Creed. The New Testament is silent when it comes to the other outside celebrities. We are told very little about their poets, their actors, their singers. We know little of their architects from the pages of the New Testament, even though they had magnificent architects. No, Scripture focuses on the political rulers, and this is because it is where the fundamental challenge was mounted.

This world is a slippery place, and the Scriptures are a rock on which to stand. This world is a dark place, and the Scriptures are the light with which we may make our way. This world is a corrupt place, and the Scriptures outline the true way of purity for us. The world is a false place, and the Scriptures tell us the truth—about God, about man, about sin, about salvation, and about revelation. The world is a seductive place, and the Scriptures speak to us in a way that reveals the vanity of it. The world is a blurry place, and the Scriptures bring everything into singular focus. The world is a distracting place, and the Scriptures bring all the right priorities together. The world is an evil place, and the Scriptures testify to us of all that is holy, righteous, and good. The world is a lost place, and the Scriptures show us how we might be used to lead the world home.

Although I’m indeed an old doctor,” he said, “I never move on from the childish doctrine of the Ten Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. I still daily learn and pray them with my little Hans and my little Lena.” He had just as much to learn about the Lord as his children.

. The only difference between the kingdom today and the kingdom that we will know in the future is its visibility. Jesus is King right now. He holds the highest governmental office in the universe because He has been elevated to that position by God, which is at the heart of the Apostles’ Creed: “[He] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried…. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” To be at the right hand of God is to be in the position of authority, by which He rules not just the church but also the world. That is why the church cries, “Hallelujah!” Our Messiah is not only our Prophet and Priest but also our King.

Their moral philosophy is but a description of their own passions. Leviathan, Chapter 46 The origins of what has come to be called the woke movement are in the decay of liberalism. The movement is most powerful in English-speaking countries – tellingly, the countries where classical liberalism was strongest. Beyond the Anglosphere, in China, the Middle East, India, Africa and most of continental Europe, it is regarded with indifference, bemusement or contempt. While its apostles regard it as a universal movement of human emancipation, it is recognized in much of the world as a symptom of Western decline – a hyperbolic version of the liberalism the West professed during its brief period of seeming hegemony after the Cold War. Hyper-liberal ideology plays a number of roles. It operates as a rationale for a failing variety of capitalism, and a vehicle through which surplus elites struggle to secure a position of power in society. Insofar as it expresses a coherent system of ideas, it is the anti-Western creed of an antinomian intelligentsia that is ineffably Western. Psychologically, it provides an ersatz faith for those who cannot live without the hope of universal salvation inculcated by Christianity. Contrary to its right-wing critics, woke thinking is not a variant of Marxism. No woke ideologue comes anywhere close to Karl Marx in rigour, breadth and depth of thought. One function of woke movements is to deflect attention from the destructive impact on society of market capitalism. Once questions of identity become central in politics, conflicts of economic interests can be disregarded. Idle chatter of micro-aggression screens out class hierarchy and the abandonment of large sections of society to idleness and destitution. Flattering those who protest against slights to their well-cultivated self-image, identity politics consigns to obloquy and oblivion those whose lives are blighted by an economic system that discards them as useless. Neither is woke thinking a version of ‘post-modernism’. There is nothing in it of Jacques Derrida’s playful subtlety or Michel Foucault’s mordant wit. Derrida never suggested every idea should be deconstructed, nor did Foucault suppose society could do without power structures. Just as fascism debased Nietzsche’s thinking, hyper-liberalism vulgarizes post-modern philosophy. In their economic

This essential truth explains why we do not speak of the Holy Spirit with the same language and knowledge we do about the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit comes to bear witness and testify to the person and work of Christ. The Holy Spirit, therefore, exalts the Son and testifies to his accomplished work at Calvary. This amounts to an important reality check for churches across the world: Where you find the Spirit of God present, you do not find so much testimony about the Holy Spirit as you find a testimony about Christ. Where you find, therefore, a bold, biblical, urgent, accurate, enthusiastic, joyful, and life-changing testimony of Christ, you can rest assured that the Holy Spirit is vibrantly at work. This

Christians through the centuries have confessed the faith of Jesus Christ—the faith Jesus taught his disciples, the faith the apostles taught the early church, the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The Apostles’ Creed is just one treasured summary of the Christian faith, but it is the most commonly confessed doctrinal statement in Christian history. Martyrs have confessed this creed. It is named for the apostles because the creed can be traced back to the faith and doctrines the apostles received from Christ and taught to the church. It was honored by the Reformers and is found in and behind virtually every orthodox statement of Christian belief.

The Bible is very clear that on the last day Christ will separate the sheep from the goats. Christ’s sheep will go into everlasting blessedness in heaven, and the goats will suffer everlasting torment in hell. We are living in a day in which there are many people trying to “air-condition hell.” Even some evangelicals are attempting to minimize Scripture’s teaching on hell—suggesting that it is not eternal torment; merely the annihilation of existence. This idea, however, does not fit with the biblical text.

A wonderful mystery surrounds this passage as Jesus revealed an order of authority in the Trinity. The order of authority in no way postulates a hierarchy of divinity and power within the Trinity. Each member of the Trinity is consubstantial, equal in divinity and power, very God of very God. The Bible, however, also presents us with the mystery of the triune God, a glorious mystery in which all in Christ will glory forever and ever. In these verses from John, Jesus revealed that the Spirit will come and not bear witness of himself, but of Christ.

This essential truth explains why we do not speak of the Holy Spirit with the same language and knowledge we do about the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit comes to bear witness and testify to the person and work of Christ. The Holy Spirit, therefore, exalts the Son and testifies to his accomplished work at Calvary. This amounts to an important reality check for churches across the world: Where you find the Spirit of God present, you do not find so much testimony about the Holy Spirit as you find a testimony about Christ. Where you find, therefore, a bold, biblical, urgent, accurate, enthusiastic, joyful, and life-changing testimony of Christ, you can rest assured that the Holy Spirit is vibrantly at work.

This truth protects us from the errors that plague so many churches that place an unbiblical emphasis on the Holy Spirit. The Spirit becomes the center of their faith. The Spirit consumes their thoughts as they try to arouse manifestations of the Spirit in their own lives and congregations. Jesus, however, reminded his disciples what the testimony the Spirit will bring: a testimony about Jesus, exalting Christ, and pointing us to the hope we have in union with him.