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creed | krēd | noun, a system of Christian or other religious belief; a faith. (origin: Old English creda, Latin credo, I believe)

 

In 1951, radio pioneer Edward R. Murrow asked hundreds of Americans—including former U.S. presidents, entrepreneurs, day laborers, actors, and homemakers—to summarize in a short essay their basic beliefs. These essays were then turned into five-minute radio pieces introduced by Murrow and read by the essayists themselves. The series, entitled This I Believe, reached 39 million radio listeners and appeared weekly in 85 leading newspapers. An initial book of the essays sold 300,000 copies, second only to the Bible that year.

 

Nearly every Sunday, onsite or online, we stand together in worship and state This I Believe about God. Most often we make this faith claim using what is known as the Apostles’ Creed, a “rule of faith” based on the “Old Roman Creed,” in use as early as the second century. From our 21st century perspective, the Apostles’ Creed is a statement affirming what the early church believed (intellectually) to be true. I dare say, many of us who recite the Apostles’ Creed in worship, do so from an intellectual perspective. What in the creed do I agree with? What makes sense to me? Do I really believe this? Such an approach is in keeping with how many of us understand faith. Many of us consider faith = belief.

 

But, there is another way by which we define faith, and that is as faith = trust. Belief, suggests a work of the head, the intellect.  Trust, on the other hand, seems to be a more lived expression proceeding from the heart. What if in the recitation of the creed we were not so much thinking about whether we intellectually believe in the words, as much as we were trusting them to be true for us, individually and corporately? It’s one thing for me to say I believe in God. It’s another thing altogether to actually act in my daily life in ways that embody the God in whom I trust. By how I live, how I use my time, spend my money, share my gifts, and ultimately place my trust, I show This I Believe.

 

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When it comes to the Apostles' Creed, what parts give you pause? What questions does the Creed raise for you? What parts do not describe the God in whom you trust?

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