The Problem with the Creeds

I found out what the trouble with the creeds are for me.  A “creed” is when you take something that should be understood as a truth, as a vision, as high poetry about deep things, and treat it as a rule or a formula.

The trinity understood as a vision of the oneness but yet real separate identity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is beautiful like rain in the desert.  But as a vision, it doesn’t serve to turf your opponents’ out of their ecclesiastical offices and replace them with yours.

Our own beliefs are less susceptible to creedalization than the creeds are, but we still have the same human tendency to fall into treating them as creeds, as formulas, as rules.  Your average plan of salvation chart  has more in common with a superhero fandom wiki than it does with the way, the truth, and the life.

Well, no, I’m not being fair.   What I should say is your average plan of salvation chart is an invitation for you to learn some stuff so you can find the vision in it.  But if you don’t find the vision in it, all you have is a dorky graphical creed.

In Plato’s cave, it doesn’t much matter whether the shadows on the wall are shadows of real things or not.  Shadows are shadows.

There is a keyhole through a golden door into a golden country.  One man looks through it and sees a grave and solemn funeral procession winding down the road there.  He draws stick figures of the procession on the walls.  His followers pick up the graffiti and talk about how the secret of that country is their gravity, their encounter with the reality of death.  Another man at another times sees a man in his strength and goodness harvesting a field with clean sweeps of his scythe.  He draws stick figures, preaches the power of labor, and attracts his own followers.  A third man sees a kind of country festival with dancing and clapping and laughter.  He draws his own stick figures and preaches play.  All three have their followers.  The followers fight, devise apologetics, or have their ecumenical moments where they primly agree that properly understood funerals are a form of labor or play can be funereal.  But what they really need to do is look through the keyhole themselves.  What they really need to do is call at the door.