Monday, September 14, 2009

Do We Need a Creed?

For Systematic Theology I class, I enjoyed reading about the Creeds of the Church, for they are what I would call “Condensed Systematic Theologies”. I think that the formulation of a new creed would be helpful not just for catechesis, but for the sake of solidifying evangelical Christians together. In a way, the Evangelical Community does have a creed: the Gospel. The Gospel is really just a compact version of Systematic Theology, for it is basically Who God is, what He has done, what He will do, who we are, what we do, and what we need to do according to His Word. However, there is no clear, precise, smooth, and ubiquitous Creed for and of Evangelicals. In fact, if one could be synthesized from Scripture by the Community as a whole and then distributed, then it may help the spread of the Gospel, because believers will now have something in memory that contains the Gospel and the basics of what they need to share. For example, if someone has memorized a Scripturally based, Gospel-centered, true creed, then when his friend asks him what he believes he has a basic answer. Or, for another example, if a person asks what he has to do to be saved, then the believer can respond from the points of the creed. I am very tempted to try to get movement started to gather such a creed of the Gospel that we believe based of the Scriptures.