I have got quite fed up with the way that 2025 is being described as the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. It isn’t. It is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea which produced a credal-like statement which was the basis for the work done at the Council of Constantinople in 381 to produce what we refer to today as the Nicene Creed. Does this matter? I think it does. Apart from anything else being historically accurate in relation to this issue helps us to realise that Creeds didn’t drop down ready made from heaven and the process… Read more »
I’m glad I am not the only one who is thinking the anniversary is being kept 56 years too soon. Ironically the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed is used far less in the Roman Catholic liturgy these days. I hope that is not the case in my former ecclesial home.
The Church is not great on history. An amusing example is the current exhibition to celebrate 950 yrs of Chi Cathedral which thinks that James II was the son of Charles II, and that his short reign was in the Sixteenth century.
that Christopher Luxmoore was the first bishop to be consecrated at Chichester Cathedral. Previously a canon residentiary of Chichester, he was consecrated Bishop of Bermuda in 1984. Would Peter B (or any other TA reader) like to confirm that?
Not sure of relevance to this theme, but does seem to be correct according to multiple sources. He was the Precentor at Chi, and only did short time in Bermuda.
I think he was Canon Precentor and Senior Residentiary Canon at Chichester. A lot of his time there was spent on post-ordination training. He was in Bermuda 4 to 5 years before returning to the Chichester diocese as an archdeacon.
It would appear to be the case. He returned to be Archdeacon of Lewes and Hastings around the time of my ordination. I remember him being around, but didn’t really know him.
In his earlier ministry he had eight years in Trinidad. He went from there to Headingley, Leeds.
Evan McWilliams
10 days ago
I notice the most recent work referenced by Revd Clatworthy is from 1991, when I was 5 years old. I’m not convinced being force-fed a diet of ‘Jesus the ethical teacher, Jesus the man in tune with the divine’ (with a dash of Bultmannian demythologising for flavour) for the past 70+ years has been at all good for the Church and I’m personally extremely grateful to Constantine for giving the Church opportunity to clarify who Jesus really was- the divine second person of the Trinity who died ‘for us and for our salvation’.
Was your shorter point @Revd Clatworthy, “OK Boomer”?
Nigel Goodwin
10 days ago
Re Charlie Bell. He says “They don’t actually want pop-concert-church, or whatever faddy nonsense is the most recent recipient of the magical money pot that will surely solve all our problems.”
It’s a shame he uses this as a primary example of views. Maybe a bias in his sample? Reactionary is certainly a word I would use for those who dislike a variety in styles of worship.
I won’t write an essay, but I think he exposed a flaw in his own thinking.
On the contrary. The pop-concert is not specifically Anglican and usually conveys the most reactionary views despite trying to be ‘trendy ‘. Dr Bell is right to describe today’s CofE as faddy nonsense.
I really wish people wouldn’t diss other Christians’ preferred style of worship and music. Intelligent and theologically informed critique is one thing, but only when combined with respect for others’ point of view. Neither ‘faddy nonsense’ nor ‘reactionary’ shows that respect.
I’m glad you raised this, Janet, as it troubled me also. Dr Bell criticises others for their dismissiveness and then promptly does likewise. Similarly his research for this piece caused my eyebrows to raise. Who are the ‘they’ who say these things? How was his sample selected? What questions were they asked? Is it coincidental that ‘they want’ the same kind of church as does Dr Bell? I dare say I could go and find a lot of people who aren’t C of E congregants who would like a very different kind of church, and find middle of the road… Read more »
Isn’t Charlie Bell simply re-discovering that conservative Anglicans are Protestants? After all, the reformation aimed at changing church structures to more fully reflect patterns discernible in the New Testament and early church. And so it was simultaneously conservative and radical. Obviously pop concerts can’t be traced back to the early church, but neither can Tallis, Palestrina, Byrd, Bach or Rutter. It is a considerable loss that evangelicals often spurn the vast historic resources available to them through the church. But those resources only exist because people centuries ago developed new forms of sacred music, liturgy and spirituality, rather than sticking… Read more »
You are right that Bach’s Mass in B minor can’t be traced back to the NT. But today’s pop concert church forgets that the Eucharist is central to the NT. Singing Cliff Richard-style ditties without the mass is perhaps what Dr Bell has in mind.
Is it? I thought the crucifixion and resurrection were central to the NT. How many centres can you have? My beef is with anybody who sticks with one particular style of liturgy or music. There is good and bad in every style of music. There is good pop music and bad pop music. Not a fan of Cliff Richard, but denigrating Cliff Richard-style ditties is unhelpful. My problem, if any, is with bad music in church, whatever the style. Some Victorian hymns are very tedious. ‘We three Kings….’ – after 15 verses I give up the will to live, particularly… Read more »
The Crucifixion and Resurrection are present in each mass. It seems odd that evangelicals ignore it in favour of trite pop songs to make them clap and be happy.
Agreed. And since Bach was a lutheran, you make a compelling point that theologically conservative protestants can write music of exceptional quality centred on the heart of our faith.
Rationales will vary, but I imagine most evangelicals use contemporary music to make the faith readily accessible. But to work well it needs spiritual depth. And using music from other eras is good for variety, quality, and drawing to mind the timelessness of Christianity.
That said, Cliff’s songs are pretty good: I don’t recall Bach managing anything as upbeat as ‘Living Doll’.
‘Preferred style of worship’ suggests that such differences are not of material significance. Oddly one might have expected conservatives to recognise that the worship leader and band-led kind of event involves subjection to the current styles and fashions of the contemporary music industry. As I said above: listen to Sam Howson.
And previous styles of worship were not subject to current fashions? Of course they were. Gregorian chant, polyphony and hymns were new and fashionable once.
It seems to me that to understand and get to the root of the divisions in the church we need to notice fundamentally different attitudes towards Scripture. (For example, Adrian states that any position requires “biblical foundations”. Such attitudes are taken for granted in parts of the church.) The real challenge to be levelled at what Charlie Bell calls “pop concert church” is not their musical or other culture but their frankly superstitious attitudes towards the status of the Bible, combined with a wildly excessive confidence about how it is to be interpreted. This combination means that they not only… Read more »
Thank you. As someone who has played most of Bach’s great works in church, and also Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus I am more than aware that they are a minority taste within and without the church, particularly the 2 hours of Messiaen. Banal ditties may be found in most church traditions. So let us separate our aesthetic tastes from the gospel. Tastes are a hindrance to the gospel, different tastes hinder different groups. On the matter of different attitudes towards scripture, it is again easy to be stereotypical. I disagree fundamentally on some RC traditions (moving statues, Marian idolatry,… Read more »
I don’t think there is any need to add a fourth pillar of experience. As a quasi-scientist/statistician, I believe that reason has to be driven by evidence/experience. Reason encloses experience. Reason is based on experience, in the same way that science depends on evidence.
Classical geometry is reason without experience. The square of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle doesn’t equal the sum of squares of the other sides because of experience (though experience confirms it) but from pure logic. One interesting aspect of theoretical physics derivations is to split the parts based on maths alone from the points at which empirical findings are added in. Similarly, elements of philosophy are based on logic alone, and some theological ideas can be rejected on the basis of reason. Where experience appears to conflict with reason, you can do two things: (I) re-interpret the experience; (ii)… Read more »
I think we can agree that experience is not orthogonal to reason! Reason without experience is a dangerous route. We can push these distinctions too far. Current debates about sexuality are driven by reason, but also by what we see around us and new knowledge and experience about sexuality. Do you like St Augustine’s views on science?
I don’t think you can split theoretical physics in the way you describe – thousands of theories are proposed, only those which fit with evidence survive.
Bottom line is I don’t think we need a 4th axis as Colin describes.
I’d got the split from a quantum field course John Taylor gave at DAMTP years ago, where after lengthy algebraic manipulations of equations he would add in something extra and say ‘this is the physics!’ It’s not between rival theories but the sometimes subtle distinction between writing equations in more compact or meaningful ways based on internal logic, and adding stuff that comes from observations – so not a bad metaphor for the reason/experience duality. I didn’t know anything about Augustine’s thoughts on science until I looked them up 10 minutes ago – really interesting, thank you for flagging them… Read more »
I take him to mean ‘science’ in the broadest sense. Hard and software science, and general knowledge about human behaviour and history. Reason and knowledge. I assume it influenced the anglican three legged tradition.
I did Pt III at DAMTP in elementary particles and quantum field theory after my BA in theoretical physics many years ago, so I know what you mean – maths can be beautiful in its own right. Nowadays I live in a data-driven world.
The musical dimension has been central to these insurgent forms of ‘church‘. I highly recommend the series of You tube video interviews and talks by Sam Howson, who speaks from personal experience of the role of music performance at Soul Survivor and similar congregations.
I don’t know why you put ‘church’ within inverted commas. Or why you call it ‘insurgent’. Fear? Let me check the videos. I doubt I will like them. I found one, about Soul Survivor. But one example of things going wrong does not mean anything concerning evangelicals in general, nor about any particular form of worship. Why do you say the musical dimension is central? I don’t see any evidence. This is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint, if not inspiring. https://youtu.be/glY14pgWIqg?si=v-C9JQEEUqPplCFp I would ask him about what he says at 0:40 – it could easily be misinterpreted. Salvation Army took music… Read more »
Insurgent: that may well have been intemperate on my part — though what I’ve heard about CNC appointments suggest a strategy is involved. My scare quotes were a failed attempt to represent (un)recognisability in Cof E contexts. THe worship band style with its worship leader seems to define a style as much as chinos and monosyllabic first names, to be ironic about it. Just as vestments and the big six might be definitive in a different tradition.
Yes, I often post in an intemperate mood, it livens up the debate! Just caught a bit of songs of praise earlier today. First a dreary traditional hymn with organ and congregation in a church, then a dreary song in a hall with guitars. I think they were both on the subject of ‘kingdom’, and had some alleluiahs. Bad poetry in both. Would much rather sing Leonard Cohen’s original Alleluiah. I once was asked to accompany Morning has Broken by Cat Stevens at a wedding on the organ, when it was popular. Nobody sang a word. Would have been better… Read more »
It is a sobering thought that, as a result of the promulgation of the Nicene Creed, more Christians were murdered by other Christians than ever were by arch-villains like Nero or Caligula. Let’s stop saying this. Which orthodoxy really, there are so many now.
I think this is the point Lorenzo was making. When compared to the destruction and killings carried out by Christians on other Christians, as well as on pagans and Jews, in the fourth to the sixth Century CE, then Caligula was a pussy-cat.
I find Charlie Bell’s piece fascinating. I come from a viewpoint that is polar opposite to his own but I think he is right. The traditional terminology just doesn’t work any more. Those who are fighting for traditionally conservative values are up against the entire establishment. People like this increasingly see themselves as radicals rather than conservatives. And those who pursue a progressive agenda are often in tune with most public institutions. Once gay pride was embraced by Highstreet banks it lost something of its revolutionary appeal and became boringly mainstream. So if a change of ‘vocab’ is what you… Read more »
Janet Fife
9 days ago
‘Most of [the Nicene Creed] is about Christ, from being eternally begotten of the Father to his future coming in glory. In the middle, very briefly, he was made man and then crucified, killed, buried and raised in short order. After that we are straight back to heaven. There is not a word of what he said and did that made people call him the Messiah or the Son of God.’ During the final General Synod debate on the Nicene Creed (c.1999), it was pointed out that in the Greek the Creed reads ‘he was made human’. This presumably refers… Read more »
Why does that puzzle you? The point about the Nicene Creed (i.e., the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is that it is mostly about settling controversial doctrinal points. That’s why it doesn’t include any of the teachings from Jesus’s ministry — the record of what he said and did already existed in the gospels.
Isn’t the problem that if it’s something we recite regularly in our worship we’d want it to reflect what we think is most important? Of the authorised alternatives, I prefer to use the “Affirmation of Faith” from Phil 2 which emphasises Jesus’ voluntarily taking the path of a servant, which all his followers are called to follow, and the exaltation that follows.
Precisely this. The whole point of Creeds is ‘right believing’ with respect to God. We have the gospels to tell us what Jesus taught and the epistles to help us towards ‘right doing.’ They work together to shape a faith that is intellectually sound, affective, and lived out by a good will and informed conscience.
It is also the case that behind each sentence of the creed were discussions/debates about exegetical faithfulness to scripture. Proverbs 8, Genesis 1 (where ‘beginning’ leaned in the direction of agency and not temporality only, so John 1) and kindred Psalms formed a network of interlocking defense of “of one substance, begotten not made,” and so forth. Because we are not tuned into this level of background exegetical debate, it then becomes the case that we have scripture over here, and “later doctrinal not this-but that” over here. My own seminary education worked in this manner. The theology and church… Read more »
As someone who was raised by a systematic theologian, I applaud this response. ‘Scripture’ and ‘doctrine’ are not separate categories and neither are disconnected from devotion and active piety.
Yes, the German university division of labour into ‘sub-disciplines’ has created some insuperable problems. The first commentary written on only one letter of Paul was the one by John Davenant in the 17th century. Before that the commentator deal with the Pauline Letter collection, the OT, the prior history of interpretation, theology, pastoral care and so forth. “I’m an Old Testament scholar” would have been an odd claim. In my own more recent professional lifetime, fortunately this model is being reevaluated. I ran a Scripture-Theology seminar at St Andrews with a brilliant historian, and we worked with grad students from… Read more »
The Early Church saw the Eucharistic Prayer as the affirmation of faith (and in Lent and Easter the Apostles’ Creed may be a better choice anyway), but will the CofE’s alternative ‘Authorized Affirmations of Faith’ ever inspire anything as sublime as the ‘et incarnatus est’ from Mozart’s C Minor Mass?
Regula Mühlemann sang this in Dresden’s Frauenkirche for their 2019 Adventskoncert. Weeks later our world was changed by COVID 19. Since when bowing low at the Incarnatus seems to make sense.
Thank you for pointing out the confusion, David. To think I had assumed that Charles Read’s uncharacteristically tart response was a result of my dangerously Catholic reference to bowing at the Incarnatus!
Well, yes, Simon. I did say ‘Another point made during the lengthy debate was that the Niceno-Constantinople Creed was formulated to closely define matters on which there was disagreement.’
But perhaps ‘frustrated’ or exasperated’ would have been a better word than ‘puzzled’. Why do we focus on matters where we disagree, rather than those we agree on? Why are we stuck with 3rd and 4th C controversies when we declare our faith? Why not us the ancient Apostles’ Creed as our default for most services? Or one or more of the really lovely modern alternatives?
I find this description of the articulation of the faith of the church simply wrong. The creed that emerged lifted up Jesus Christ, clarified his relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. It did this vis-a-vis accounts that misrepresented the truth as found “in accordance with scripture.” It is a strange late modern development that recites the creed and thinks it is just disagreeing with Mr X and Ms Y. How many people actually know what the church of Arius looked like when they recite the creed? It has never occurred to me that saying what the church catholic… Read more »
When the new English translation of the Roman rite came out, not without controversy, the Apostles creed appeared as an alternative to the Nicene creed. The result, as far as I can tell, has been a sharp decline in the use of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed in many Catholic parishes. Perhaps this needs to be suggested next time the Church of England does Liturgical revision, should this outcome be the desired one. Personally, I regret it.
The Roman rite suggests the Apostles’ Creed during Lent and Easter because it is the baptismal creed and Easter is the preeminent season for baptism.
The Liturgical Commission, with Michael Vasey to the fore, sought to recover a baptismal ecclesiology in which Easter would again be a principal season for initiation with Lent as a time of preparation. I’m not sure how well this has caught on, if at all – my parish church has a baptism this Sunday.
I concur with the principle of the Apostles Creed being especially appropriate in the Easter season. I followed that practice as an Anglican. The issue is that it is employed through the liturgical year, primarily, I suspect, because it is shorter and maybe simpler.
Indeed. I proposed that we use the ELLC version like other parts of the Communion do – this has the more accurate ‘became human’ translation. The bishop responding on behalf of he steering committee agreed this was a better translation but should not be adopted by the C of E as it ‘sounded a bit transatlantic’. I lost the vote. His comment was derogatory towards Americans (and Canadians?) and I wrote a letter of complaint about it afterwards, to which I never got a reply.
Or North-South. I get angry when people talk about americans as if they are a homogeous whole. I have lived and worked with them for periods on and off since the mid 1980’s, mainly in Texas. But I am a Londoner.
I miss a good tex-mex. Maybe I will cook one soon for the family, as weather improves. Lots of lime, beef, chicken, prawns, marinating spices, quacamole, big margheritas etc. The margherita alone is a skill. The best tequila gold. Some bitters.
I’m proud to have been one of the 12 clergy who voted against the adoption of that version for Common Worship. It was not only that the steering committee’s decision to reject your proposal re. ‘became human’ was so wrongheaded; it became clear during that long and tedious debate that the Niceno-Constantinople Creed had been divisive from the beginning and always will be.
One of the great advantages of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is that it is perhaps the greatest expression of ecumenical unity in the Christian Church, accepted and recited by Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and most mainline Protestant groups. The Eastern churches do not use the Apostles Creed. The modern creeds have very limited use outside the particular churches that authorize them. Personally, I find it a great blessing when saying (or praying, as I feel I am doing) the Nicene(-Constantinopolitan) Creed at the Eucharist to realize that I am saying it with millions of people who have said… Read more »
The Nicene Creed didn’t begin with us and won’t end with us. As the faith of the Church it reminds us that there’s more than only ourselves and more than just the here and now. In affording us continuity with a past to which we are heirs, while pointing us forward to the life of the world to come, the catholic creeds – with the Scriptures – hold the memory of the Church. A memory that is past, present and future. A memory which reminds us that we are never alone.
But not, I think, by Baptist, Presbyterian, and many Free Church and Pentecostal denominations. At any rate, I had attended churches of many denominations since being taken in my pram, and I don’t recall encountering the Nicene Creed until joining the C of E in my late twenties. The Apostles’ or Athanasian creeds were usually used in the churches we attended. Until the Parish Communion Movement of the 50s, it would have been the Apostles’ Creed that was familiar to most Anglicans, too. Dorothy Sayers, in her 1940s series of radio plays ‘Man Born to Be King’, has Pilate’s wife… Read more »
By contrast, I grew up (in the 1990s) reciting the Nicene Creed every ‘communion Sunday’ in a Presbyterian church in the United States. The other three Sundays of the month we used the Apostles Creed. I had both off by heart before I could do my multiplication tables.
We sometimes attended a Florida Presbyterian church in the late 60s, and I don’t recall hearing the Nicene Creed there. But we weren’t members of that church – we usually attended a Christian & Missionary Alliance church, or a Baptist one – so it’s possible we may not have gone to the Presbyterians on a Communion Sunday.
Dr John Wallace
9 days ago
I often think that our preferred way of worship is often a matter of personal aesthetics rather than theology. I worship in an Anglo-Catholic church and when I am away seek out the same, irrespective of liberal / traditional. Some of the sermons I have heard in these contexts about Mary I just cannot accept, but fortunately the liturgy wins. Years ago I was in France and there was an ‘Anglican’ service on the campsite. Most of it I hated as banal with awful songs with compulsory actions – but at the moment of consecration, I was there.
Many years ago i was on a family holiday in mallorca with several generations. My dada asked my brother in law to conduct a communion in the hotel dining room
We all attended dutifully. However over the hotel loudspeakers was being played i want a dirty women by pink floyd from the wall. I think i was the only one who noticed.
One spring bank holiday in the 1970s, I was travelling with a group to Walsingham for the annual national pilgrimage. Part way into the journey the song from Mary Poppins ‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary’ came over the radio. The vehicle we travelled in, an ex-RAF minibus, had an appallingly noisy engine, but that did not impair our enjoyment of ‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary’ or lessen the significance we attached to it in the circumstances. I have never been one for hoarding photographs (or for taking them in the first place), but I am happy to say… Read more »
Donald Coggan had an anecdote about an English Bishop of a diocese in Africa. Once when he attended a church in his diocese for Sunday Communion it was decided by the congregation that as he walked out of the church at the end of the service he would do so to the accompaniment of a bugle. The bishop recognised the tune played by the bugler as ‘Come to the cookhouse door, boys’. I think that ‘Come to the cookhouse door, boys’ was a summons to men in the barracks to come and collect their allocation of food. Coronation Street’s Percy… Read more »
Pam Wilkinson
5 days ago
I’d be interested to hear more about what people here feel about the role of the Nicene Creed in 2025. What it means to “believe” it and how it is “taught” to those newcomers, those new bums on seats, which the Church is bent on recruiting. What are people supposed to do with “He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead”? From my recent reading and discussions there are many Anglicans (clergy and laity) who do not “believe” in any normal sense of the word in this, or many of the propositions of the… Read more »
Christians believe by faith in the promises of God. Two of these are to rise in glory when Jesus comes again as king to rule on a renewed earth and the forgiveness of sins through the loving sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, freeing from us from a debt we owe, cleansing by blood or as a scapegoat, whichever metaphor you relate to best.
I have got quite fed up with the way that 2025 is being described as the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. It isn’t. It is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea which produced a credal-like statement which was the basis for the work done at the Council of Constantinople in 381 to produce what we refer to today as the Nicene Creed. Does this matter? I think it does. Apart from anything else being historically accurate in relation to this issue helps us to realise that Creeds didn’t drop down ready made from heaven and the process… Read more »
I’m glad I am not the only one who is thinking the anniversary is being kept 56 years too soon. Ironically the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed is used far less in the Roman Catholic liturgy these days. I hope that is not the case in my former ecclesial home.
The Church is not great on history. An amusing example is the current exhibition to celebrate 950 yrs of Chi Cathedral which thinks that James II was the son of Charles II, and that his short reign was in the Sixteenth century.
As a History graduate who was ordained Deacon in Chichester Cathedral, I am truly appalled!
It is stated in:
https://www.royalgazette.com/other/news/article/20140225/tributes-paid-after-former-bishop-of-bermuda-luxmoore-dies-at-87/
that Christopher Luxmoore was the first bishop to be consecrated at Chichester Cathedral. Previously a canon residentiary of Chichester, he was consecrated Bishop of Bermuda in 1984. Would Peter B (or any other TA reader) like to confirm that?
Not sure of relevance to this theme, but does seem to be correct according to multiple sources. He was the Precentor at Chi, and only did short time in Bermuda.
I think he was Canon Precentor and Senior Residentiary Canon at Chichester. A lot of his time there was spent on post-ordination training. He was in Bermuda 4 to 5 years before returning to the Chichester diocese as an archdeacon.
It would appear to be the case. He returned to be Archdeacon of Lewes and Hastings around the time of my ordination. I remember him being around, but didn’t really know him.
In his earlier ministry he had eight years in Trinidad. He went from there to Headingley, Leeds.
I notice the most recent work referenced by Revd Clatworthy is from 1991, when I was 5 years old. I’m not convinced being force-fed a diet of ‘Jesus the ethical teacher, Jesus the man in tune with the divine’ (with a dash of Bultmannian demythologising for flavour) for the past 70+ years has been at all good for the Church and I’m personally extremely grateful to Constantine for giving the Church opportunity to clarify who Jesus really was- the divine second person of the Trinity who died ‘for us and for our salvation’.
*I missed the 2001 reference in the footnotes. Mea culpa.
Was your shorter point @Revd Clatworthy, “OK Boomer”?
Re Charlie Bell. He says “They don’t actually want pop-concert-church, or whatever faddy nonsense is the most recent recipient of the magical money pot that will surely solve all our problems.”
It’s a shame he uses this as a primary example of views. Maybe a bias in his sample? Reactionary is certainly a word I would use for those who dislike a variety in styles of worship.
I won’t write an essay, but I think he exposed a flaw in his own thinking.
It’s called building an inter-sectional bridge, but without biblical foundations
it doesn’t stand up.
On the contrary. The pop-concert is not specifically Anglican and usually conveys the most reactionary views despite trying to be ‘trendy ‘. Dr Bell is right to describe today’s CofE as faddy nonsense.
I really wish people wouldn’t diss other Christians’ preferred style of worship and music. Intelligent and theologically informed critique is one thing, but only when combined with respect for others’ point of view. Neither ‘faddy nonsense’ nor ‘reactionary’ shows that respect.
I’m glad you raised this, Janet, as it troubled me also. Dr Bell criticises others for their dismissiveness and then promptly does likewise. Similarly his research for this piece caused my eyebrows to raise. Who are the ‘they’ who say these things? How was his sample selected? What questions were they asked? Is it coincidental that ‘they want’ the same kind of church as does Dr Bell? I dare say I could go and find a lot of people who aren’t C of E congregants who would like a very different kind of church, and find middle of the road… Read more »
Thanks. That was the essay I would have written if I had had the time and ability!
Isn’t Charlie Bell simply re-discovering that conservative Anglicans are Protestants? After all, the reformation aimed at changing church structures to more fully reflect patterns discernible in the New Testament and early church. And so it was simultaneously conservative and radical. Obviously pop concerts can’t be traced back to the early church, but neither can Tallis, Palestrina, Byrd, Bach or Rutter. It is a considerable loss that evangelicals often spurn the vast historic resources available to them through the church. But those resources only exist because people centuries ago developed new forms of sacred music, liturgy and spirituality, rather than sticking… Read more »
You are right that Bach’s Mass in B minor can’t be traced back to the NT. But today’s pop concert church forgets that the Eucharist is central to the NT. Singing Cliff Richard-style ditties without the mass is perhaps what Dr Bell has in mind.
Is it? I thought the crucifixion and resurrection were central to the NT. How many centres can you have? My beef is with anybody who sticks with one particular style of liturgy or music. There is good and bad in every style of music. There is good pop music and bad pop music. Not a fan of Cliff Richard, but denigrating Cliff Richard-style ditties is unhelpful. My problem, if any, is with bad music in church, whatever the style. Some Victorian hymns are very tedious. ‘We three Kings….’ – after 15 verses I give up the will to live, particularly… Read more »
The Crucifixion and Resurrection are present in each mass. It seems odd that evangelicals ignore it in favour of trite pop songs to make them clap and be happy.
They don’t. Please stop digging.
Agreed. And since Bach was a lutheran, you make a compelling point that theologically conservative protestants can write music of exceptional quality centred on the heart of our faith.
Rationales will vary, but I imagine most evangelicals use contemporary music to make the faith readily accessible. But to work well it needs spiritual depth. And using music from other eras is good for variety, quality, and drawing to mind the timelessness of Christianity.
That said, Cliff’s songs are pretty good: I don’t recall Bach managing anything as upbeat as ‘Living Doll’.
Which, let us not forget, is now over 65 years old!
‘Preferred style of worship’ suggests that such differences are not of material significance. Oddly one might have expected conservatives to recognise that the worship leader and band-led kind of event involves subjection to the current styles and fashions of the contemporary music industry. As I said above: listen to Sam Howson.
And previous styles of worship were not subject to current fashions? Of course they were. Gregorian chant, polyphony and hymns were new and fashionable once.
It seems to me that to understand and get to the root of the divisions in the church we need to notice fundamentally different attitudes towards Scripture. (For example, Adrian states that any position requires “biblical foundations”. Such attitudes are taken for granted in parts of the church.) The real challenge to be levelled at what Charlie Bell calls “pop concert church” is not their musical or other culture but their frankly superstitious attitudes towards the status of the Bible, combined with a wildly excessive confidence about how it is to be interpreted. This combination means that they not only… Read more »
Thank you. As someone who has played most of Bach’s great works in church, and also Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus I am more than aware that they are a minority taste within and without the church, particularly the 2 hours of Messiaen. Banal ditties may be found in most church traditions. So let us separate our aesthetic tastes from the gospel. Tastes are a hindrance to the gospel, different tastes hinder different groups. On the matter of different attitudes towards scripture, it is again easy to be stereotypical. I disagree fundamentally on some RC traditions (moving statues, Marian idolatry,… Read more »
Just found this. No doubt well known to many of you.
http://www.unadulteratedlove.net/blog/2017/8/11/the-growing-conflict-between-scripture-tradition-reason-and-experience
I don’t think there is any need to add a fourth pillar of experience. As a quasi-scientist/statistician, I believe that reason has to be driven by evidence/experience. Reason encloses experience. Reason is based on experience, in the same way that science depends on evidence.
Reason without experience is merely opinion.
Classical geometry is reason without experience. The square of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle doesn’t equal the sum of squares of the other sides because of experience (though experience confirms it) but from pure logic. One interesting aspect of theoretical physics derivations is to split the parts based on maths alone from the points at which empirical findings are added in. Similarly, elements of philosophy are based on logic alone, and some theological ideas can be rejected on the basis of reason. Where experience appears to conflict with reason, you can do two things: (I) re-interpret the experience; (ii)… Read more »
I think we can agree that experience is not orthogonal to reason! Reason without experience is a dangerous route. We can push these distinctions too far. Current debates about sexuality are driven by reason, but also by what we see around us and new knowledge and experience about sexuality. Do you like St Augustine’s views on science?
I don’t think you can split theoretical physics in the way you describe – thousands of theories are proposed, only those which fit with evidence survive.
Bottom line is I don’t think we need a 4th axis as Colin describes.
I’d got the split from a quantum field course John Taylor gave at DAMTP years ago, where after lengthy algebraic manipulations of equations he would add in something extra and say ‘this is the physics!’ It’s not between rival theories but the sometimes subtle distinction between writing equations in more compact or meaningful ways based on internal logic, and adding stuff that comes from observations – so not a bad metaphor for the reason/experience duality. I didn’t know anything about Augustine’s thoughts on science until I looked them up 10 minutes ago – really interesting, thank you for flagging them… Read more »
I have posted this link re. St Augustine, but it deserves as much exposure as it deserves.
https://harvardichthus.org/2010/09/augustine-on-faith-and-science/
I take him to mean ‘science’ in the broadest sense. Hard and software science, and general knowledge about human behaviour and history. Reason and knowledge. I assume it influenced the anglican three legged tradition.
I did Pt III at DAMTP in elementary particles and quantum field theory after my BA in theoretical physics many years ago, so I know what you mean – maths can be beautiful in its own right. Nowadays I live in a data-driven world.
The Methodists added “Experience”: I liked it. But I was told, in response, that the Anglican/Episcopalian definition of Reason included experience.
The musical dimension has been central to these insurgent forms of ‘church‘. I highly recommend the series of You tube video interviews and talks by Sam Howson, who speaks from personal experience of the role of music performance at Soul Survivor and similar congregations.
I don’t know why you put ‘church’ within inverted commas. Fear? Let me check the videos. I doubt I will like them.
I don’t know why you put ‘church’ within inverted commas. Or why you call it ‘insurgent’. Fear? Let me check the videos. I doubt I will like them. I found one, about Soul Survivor. But one example of things going wrong does not mean anything concerning evangelicals in general, nor about any particular form of worship. Why do you say the musical dimension is central? I don’t see any evidence. This is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint, if not inspiring. https://youtu.be/glY14pgWIqg?si=v-C9JQEEUqPplCFp I would ask him about what he says at 0:40 – it could easily be misinterpreted. Salvation Army took music… Read more »
Insurgent: that may well have been intemperate on my part — though what I’ve heard about CNC appointments suggest a strategy is involved. My scare quotes were a failed attempt to represent (un)recognisability in Cof E contexts. THe worship band style with its worship leader seems to define a style as much as chinos and monosyllabic first names, to be ironic about it. Just as vestments and the big six might be definitive in a different tradition.
Yes, I often post in an intemperate mood, it livens up the debate! Just caught a bit of songs of praise earlier today. First a dreary traditional hymn with organ and congregation in a church, then a dreary song in a hall with guitars. I think they were both on the subject of ‘kingdom’, and had some alleluiahs. Bad poetry in both. Would much rather sing Leonard Cohen’s original Alleluiah. I once was asked to accompany Morning has Broken by Cat Stevens at a wedding on the organ, when it was popular. Nobody sang a word. Would have been better… Read more »
Your mention of Sam Howson led me to this, which is also inspiring and insightful.
https://youtu.be/p4EUAZnfVy8?si=eOXARkA_-NcYuaqV
I can’t reach this behind the ads.
It is a sobering thought that, as a result of the promulgation of the Nicene Creed, more Christians were murdered by other Christians than ever were by arch-villains like Nero or Caligula. Let’s stop saying this. Which orthodoxy really, there are so many now.
Caligula reigned from AD 37 to 41. Unlikely to have murdered any Christians in that time scale.
I think this is the point Lorenzo was making. When compared to the destruction and killings carried out by Christians on other Christians, as well as on pagans and Jews, in the fourth to the sixth Century CE, then Caligula was a pussy-cat.
The idea of Caligula as a pussy cat is a novel interpretation of Roman history!
Yes, meant Diocletian
I find Charlie Bell’s piece fascinating. I come from a viewpoint that is polar opposite to his own but I think he is right. The traditional terminology just doesn’t work any more. Those who are fighting for traditionally conservative values are up against the entire establishment. People like this increasingly see themselves as radicals rather than conservatives. And those who pursue a progressive agenda are often in tune with most public institutions. Once gay pride was embraced by Highstreet banks it lost something of its revolutionary appeal and became boringly mainstream. So if a change of ‘vocab’ is what you… Read more »
‘Most of [the Nicene Creed] is about Christ, from being eternally begotten of the Father to his future coming in glory. In the middle, very briefly, he was made man and then crucified, killed, buried and raised in short order. After that we are straight back to heaven. There is not a word of what he said and did that made people call him the Messiah or the Son of God.’ During the final General Synod debate on the Nicene Creed (c.1999), it was pointed out that in the Greek the Creed reads ‘he was made human’. This presumably refers… Read more »
Why does that puzzle you? The point about the Nicene Creed (i.e., the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is that it is mostly about settling controversial doctrinal points. That’s why it doesn’t include any of the teachings from Jesus’s ministry — the record of what he said and did already existed in the gospels.
Isn’t the problem that if it’s something we recite regularly in our worship we’d want it to reflect what we think is most important? Of the authorised alternatives, I prefer to use the “Affirmation of Faith” from Phil 2 which emphasises Jesus’ voluntarily taking the path of a servant, which all his followers are called to follow, and the exaltation that follows.
Precisely this. The whole point of Creeds is ‘right believing’ with respect to God. We have the gospels to tell us what Jesus taught and the epistles to help us towards ‘right doing.’ They work together to shape a faith that is intellectually sound, affective, and lived out by a good will and informed conscience.
It is also the case that behind each sentence of the creed were discussions/debates about exegetical faithfulness to scripture. Proverbs 8, Genesis 1 (where ‘beginning’ leaned in the direction of agency and not temporality only, so John 1) and kindred Psalms formed a network of interlocking defense of “of one substance, begotten not made,” and so forth. Because we are not tuned into this level of background exegetical debate, it then becomes the case that we have scripture over here, and “later doctrinal not this-but that” over here. My own seminary education worked in this manner. The theology and church… Read more »
As someone who was raised by a systematic theologian, I applaud this response. ‘Scripture’ and ‘doctrine’ are not separate categories and neither are disconnected from devotion and active piety.
Yes, the German university division of labour into ‘sub-disciplines’ has created some insuperable problems. The first commentary written on only one letter of Paul was the one by John Davenant in the 17th century. Before that the commentator deal with the Pauline Letter collection, the OT, the prior history of interpretation, theology, pastoral care and so forth. “I’m an Old Testament scholar” would have been an odd claim. In my own more recent professional lifetime, fortunately this model is being reevaluated. I ran a Scripture-Theology seminar at St Andrews with a brilliant historian, and we worked with grad students from… Read more »
The Early Church saw the Eucharistic Prayer as the affirmation of faith (and in Lent and Easter the Apostles’ Creed may be a better choice anyway), but will the CofE’s alternative ‘Authorized Affirmations of Faith’ ever inspire anything as sublime as the ‘et incarnatus est’ from Mozart’s C Minor Mass?
Regula Mühlemann sang this in Dresden’s Frauenkirche for their 2019 Adventskoncert. Weeks later our world was changed by COVID 19. Since when bowing low at the Incarnatus seems to make sense.
Which eucharistic prayer and when? There was no fixed eucharistic prayer early on and then several of them.
Did I say there was?
Like Charles I found this at least implied by your reference to “the Eucharistic Prayer’ in the Early Church. (my italic your caps).
Thank you for pointing out the confusion, David. To think I had assumed that Charles Read’s uncharacteristically tart response was a result of my dangerously Catholic reference to bowing at the Incarnatus!
Well, yes, Simon. I did say ‘Another point made during the lengthy debate was that the Niceno-Constantinople Creed was formulated to closely define matters on which there was disagreement.’
But perhaps ‘frustrated’ or exasperated’ would have been a better word than ‘puzzled’. Why do we focus on matters where we disagree, rather than those we agree on? Why are we stuck with 3rd and 4th C controversies when we declare our faith? Why not us the ancient Apostles’ Creed as our default for most services? Or one or more of the really lovely modern alternatives?
I find this description of the articulation of the faith of the church simply wrong. The creed that emerged lifted up Jesus Christ, clarified his relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. It did this vis-a-vis accounts that misrepresented the truth as found “in accordance with scripture.” It is a strange late modern development that recites the creed and thinks it is just disagreeing with Mr X and Ms Y. How many people actually know what the church of Arius looked like when they recite the creed? It has never occurred to me that saying what the church catholic… Read more »
When the new English translation of the Roman rite came out, not without controversy, the Apostles creed appeared as an alternative to the Nicene creed. The result, as far as I can tell, has been a sharp decline in the use of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed in many Catholic parishes. Perhaps this needs to be suggested next time the Church of England does Liturgical revision, should this outcome be the desired one. Personally, I regret it.
The Roman rite suggests the Apostles’ Creed during Lent and Easter because it is the baptismal creed and Easter is the preeminent season for baptism.
The Liturgical Commission, with Michael Vasey to the fore, sought to recover a baptismal ecclesiology in which Easter would again be a principal season for initiation with Lent as a time of preparation. I’m not sure how well this has caught on, if at all – my parish church has a baptism this Sunday.
I concur with the principle of the Apostles Creed being especially appropriate in the Easter season. I followed that practice as an Anglican. The issue is that it is employed through the liturgical year, primarily, I suspect, because it is shorter and maybe simpler.
The Apostles creed likewise jumps from birth to death. The differences seem mostly to clarify who Jesus is as theology advanced.
I have just written an article for the WCC on precisely that point viz ‘Love’ as the missing word in the Creeds. It will appear later this year.
Indeed. I proposed that we use the ELLC version like other parts of the Communion do – this has the more accurate ‘became human’ translation. The bishop responding on behalf of he steering committee agreed this was a better translation but should not be adopted by the C of E as it ‘sounded a bit transatlantic’. I lost the vote. His comment was derogatory towards Americans (and Canadians?) and I wrote a letter of complaint about it afterwards, to which I never got a reply.
‘transatlantic’ is an accusation used by those who have never crossed the atlantic. Pathetic.
East-west or west-east? Just checking 🙂
Or North-South. I get angry when people talk about americans as if they are a homogeous whole. I have lived and worked with them for periods on and off since the mid 1980’s, mainly in Texas. But I am a Londoner.
I miss a good tex-mex. Maybe I will cook one soon for the family, as weather improves. Lots of lime, beef, chicken, prawns, marinating spices, quacamole, big margheritas etc. The margherita alone is a skill. The best tequila gold. Some bitters.
I’m proud to have been one of the 12 clergy who voted against the adoption of that version for Common Worship. It was not only that the steering committee’s decision to reject your proposal re. ‘became human’ was so wrongheaded; it became clear during that long and tedious debate that the Niceno-Constantinople Creed had been divisive from the beginning and always will be.
“Transatlantic”? How odd.
“Was made man” remains the text in the 1979 BCP of The Episcopal Church.
One of the great advantages of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is that it is perhaps the greatest expression of ecumenical unity in the Christian Church, accepted and recited by Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and most mainline Protestant groups. The Eastern churches do not use the Apostles Creed. The modern creeds have very limited use outside the particular churches that authorize them. Personally, I find it a great blessing when saying (or praying, as I feel I am doing) the Nicene(-Constantinopolitan) Creed at the Eucharist to realize that I am saying it with millions of people who have said… Read more »
The Nicene Creed didn’t begin with us and won’t end with us. As the faith of the Church it reminds us that there’s more than only ourselves and more than just the here and now. In affording us continuity with a past to which we are heirs, while pointing us forward to the life of the world to come, the catholic creeds – with the Scriptures – hold the memory of the Church. A memory that is past, present and future. A memory which reminds us that we are never alone.
But not, I think, by Baptist, Presbyterian, and many Free Church and Pentecostal denominations. At any rate, I had attended churches of many denominations since being taken in my pram, and I don’t recall encountering the Nicene Creed until joining the C of E in my late twenties. The Apostles’ or Athanasian creeds were usually used in the churches we attended. Until the Parish Communion Movement of the 50s, it would have been the Apostles’ Creed that was familiar to most Anglicans, too. Dorothy Sayers, in her 1940s series of radio plays ‘Man Born to Be King’, has Pilate’s wife… Read more »
By contrast, I grew up (in the 1990s) reciting the Nicene Creed every ‘communion Sunday’ in a Presbyterian church in the United States. The other three Sundays of the month we used the Apostles Creed. I had both off by heart before I could do my multiplication tables.
We sometimes attended a Florida Presbyterian church in the late 60s, and I don’t recall hearing the Nicene Creed there. But we weren’t members of that church – we usually attended a Christian & Missionary Alliance church, or a Baptist one – so it’s possible we may not have gone to the Presbyterians on a Communion Sunday.
I often think that our preferred way of worship is often a matter of personal aesthetics rather than theology. I worship in an Anglo-Catholic church and when I am away seek out the same, irrespective of liberal / traditional. Some of the sermons I have heard in these contexts about Mary I just cannot accept, but fortunately the liturgy wins. Years ago I was in France and there was an ‘Anglican’ service on the campsite. Most of it I hated as banal with awful songs with compulsory actions – but at the moment of consecration, I was there.
Many years ago i was on a family holiday in mallorca with several generations. My dada asked my brother in law to conduct a communion in the hotel dining room
We all attended dutifully. However over the hotel loudspeakers was being played i want a dirty women by pink floyd from the wall. I think i was the only one who noticed.
One spring bank holiday in the 1970s, I was travelling with a group to Walsingham for the annual national pilgrimage. Part way into the journey the song from Mary Poppins ‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary’ came over the radio. The vehicle we travelled in, an ex-RAF minibus, had an appallingly noisy engine, but that did not impair our enjoyment of ‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary’ or lessen the significance we attached to it in the circumstances. I have never been one for hoarding photographs (or for taking them in the first place), but I am happy to say… Read more »
I think the song you are talking about is a bit different to the one I referenced!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGmIL2gtieU
It is followed by
https://youtu.be/1SmCTDgBHyw
A story of alienship, loneliness, wandering around a continent as a salesman.
Plus of course, natural desires as given by God, but not directed aright.
Donald Coggan had an anecdote about an English Bishop of a diocese in Africa. Once when he attended a church in his diocese for Sunday Communion it was decided by the congregation that as he walked out of the church at the end of the service he would do so to the accompaniment of a bugle. The bishop recognised the tune played by the bugler as ‘Come to the cookhouse door, boys’. I think that ‘Come to the cookhouse door, boys’ was a summons to men in the barracks to come and collect their allocation of food. Coronation Street’s Percy… Read more »
I’d be interested to hear more about what people here feel about the role of the Nicene Creed in 2025. What it means to “believe” it and how it is “taught” to those newcomers, those new bums on seats, which the Church is bent on recruiting. What are people supposed to do with “He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead”? From my recent reading and discussions there are many Anglicans (clergy and laity) who do not “believe” in any normal sense of the word in this, or many of the propositions of the… Read more »
Christians believe by faith in the promises of God. Two of these are to rise in glory when Jesus comes again as king to rule on a renewed earth and the forgiveness of sins through the loving sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, freeing from us from a debt we owe, cleansing by blood or as a scapegoat, whichever metaphor you relate to best.