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This fully accessible exploration of the creed, the list of beliefs central to the Christian faith, delves into its origins and illuminates the contemporary significance of why it still matters. During services in Christian communities, the members of the congregation stand together to recite the creed, professing in unison the beliefs they share. For most Christians, the creed functions as a sort of 'ABC' of what it means to be a Christian and to be part of a worldwide movement. Few people, however, know the source of this litany of beliefs, a topic that is further confused by the fact that there are two different versions: the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed. In The creed, Luke Timothy Johnson, a New Testament scholar and Catholic theologian, clarifies the history of the creed, discussing its evolution from the first decades of the Christian Church to the present day. By connecting the deep theological conflicts of the early Church with the conflicts and questions facing Christians today, Johnson shows that faith is a dynamic process, not based on a static set of rules.… (more)
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On almost every page I wanted to shout my amens from the roof top. LT Johnson has always hung tenaciously to an orthodox but not conservative or narrow faith, and this is no exception. Working from the premise that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed sets 'boundaries not barriers' (amen!) he works line by line through its affirmations, interpreting them for a thoroughly contemporary world, finding in them boundaries to give faith shape, but simultaneously permissions to engage intellectual and spiritual and indeed robust active missiological exploration of their implications. I could give example after example, but the review would approach the book in length. Suffice it to say he finds only in the filioque a short-coming in the creed. In all its other machinations he finds challenge, encouragement, and affirmation of a credible, challenging, extending faith that will not be limited by the myopia of post-Enlightment reason.
I cannot agree with the previous reviewer that Johnson's extrapolations from the creedal text for questions of the ordination of women are in any way a divergence from the main game. The subject appears, tangentially, only twice, and Johnson makes no more than a simple plea for ecclesiastical justice.
Johnson refuses to bestow on his Roman Catholic tradition any claims to superiority over other traditions, and indeed when addressing pneumatological questions affords the charismatic/pentecostal tradition integrity that I confess I for one have long been reluctant to grant it. As a result of his affirmation I am forced to review my own negativity, rather than to assume the tradition's inferiority! That can only be a good outcome from a truly ecumenical scholar's efforts (even if the non-liturgical traditions pay little enough attention to the creed).
This is an outstanding work that should be in the library of every faith community, and on the reading list of ever priest and pastor.