Who put the "Nice" in the Nicene Creed? 


A reflection on saying the Nicene Creed 

If you were born in the 40's or early 50's, or even earlier, as I was, you may remember that 1961 hit, Who Put the Bomp (in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?) by Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin. The singer is telling us that when his baby heard them singing "Bomp bah-bah bomp, bay bomp bah bomp bah bomp bomp," every word went right into her heart. And then when she heard the part about the "Rama lama ding dong," she told him that they'd never have to part. The singer is eternally grateful for this, and he wants to know who wrote that song, so he can shake his hand.

You're wondering how I'm going to connect this to the Nicene Creed, aren't you, and you're probably afraid that I actually am going to do it.

There is a connection. Of course, if you just look at the words of the song in isolation from its genre, they look totally stupid. Even more hard to swallow is the idea that anyone could solidify a commitment from hearing these stupid words. But that's not what the song is about, really. In context, the song is about feeling good about and through rock and roll. This is exactly what I would say about the Nicene Creed, and so I will say it. In context, the Nicene Creed is about feeling good about and through our Christian faith. It IS the Bomp Sha Bomp Sha Bomp of Christianity. If you don't do Christianity, then you are going to think it sounds stupid.

There was a time when I referred to this affirmation of our faith as "The Not-So-Nicene Creed." That was back before I had studied the matter thoroughly, but when I was at a stage in my faith where I felt obligated to take the Creed seriously. I had some points of irritation. For example, I didn't think that the Creator of the Universe had a penis, at least not necessarily. I worried about the implied Christian chauvinism and arrogance in the phrase "ONLY son of God." I wondered, as they did 1700 years ago, was Mary theodokos—was she the bearer of God? Were we talking about a virgin birth, God in human form, and was there a body left after Easter. Could I hope for eternal life? My mind wasn't settled about those things, so every time I would say the Creed, I had to address my uncertainties.

However, I have been studying the Bible for the last 2 1/2 years, first the Hebrew Scriptures, then the New Testament, and now the early history of the Church. I've been taking the Education for Ministry course offered by the University of the South. Through these lessons, I got a really good, close-up look at Yahweh. Yahweh was the hope of the Jews. Yahweh promised the Jews that they would be an example for all the nations, that a messiah would come to lead them to the promised land. I also learned that a strain of prophetic Hebrew thought strongly condemned the Jews for their lack of compassion for the poor, the sick and the unfortunate. When I got to the New Testament, I learned that, in fact, there was NOT a harmony of the gospels, but rather an evolution of them. Mark, the earliest gospel, puts down a simple story of the life and teaching of the man, Jesus, and of his Passion. Matthew and Luke, written down later, added details about the Divine nature of Christ, such as the virgin birth and the visitation of the Magi. Finally, John, written down still later, has Christ in the beginning as the Word with God.

Now for the past few months, I have been studying the evolution of the Nicene Creed. I have learned that it was written to sort out the heretics from the true believers, who wanted an equation between Jesus Christ and the Creator. For example, the Arians, walking more in the footsteps of the Jews and of Aristotelianism, thought Christ was more human and probably not completely one with the Creator. The Apollonians, writing in the Neo-Platonic tradition and more in the Hellenistic mode, gave the human part of Christ short shrift in their zeal to deify Jesus. Orthodox Christianity would have no part of either of these extremes of the continuum. Rather, they insisted on two given articles of faith: 1) Jesus Christ is God and 2) Jesus Christ is fully human. On the one hand, Christ had to be Divine, or the cycle of human sin could not be broken. On the other hand, Christ had to be human, or we could have no part of His victory over death. The Church really wanted to offer salvation for sin and they didn't see how this was possible unless Jesus Christ had both these characteristics.

This orthodox commitment to Jesus both as divine and as human did then, and does now, stand in need of considerable explanation. We could get into the history of philosophy here, but the explanation that the Church gave boils down to this: two persons, one being. When you say the Nicene Creed, you'll notice that a LOT of time is spent on the SECOND person of the Holy Trinity:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
The only Son of God.
Eternally begotten of the Father.
God from God, light from light,
True God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
for our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

Just to focus on the big problem of how these two persons can be one being, you can see that this section really does focus on Christ as divine and Christ as human. For my own part, I've come to understand that this is not so much an explanation as an articulation of a mystery.

The date was 325 C.E. Emperor Constantine had convened a council of 300+ bishops to resolve the controversy which raged between Arius (represented at the Council by Eusebius) and Alexander. Arius claimed that Jesus Christ was created, and backed his claim up with many scriptural passages, e.g. Colossians 1:15. After much frankly political negotiating, the conservative bishops attending landed on a greek word homoousia (homo-oo-SEE-a) which various political factions at the Council could accept. It was used to counteract the polythestic implications of the three persons of the Holy Trinity by saying that they were all homoousia, of one "substance." Many at the Council were nervous about this Greek reinterpretation of Tertullian's formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, but they went along with it just to see the Arian denial of Christ's divinity declared heretical.

Now how many people know even one-tenth of this background when they say the Nicene Creed, or even know that they are celebrating an early Church condemnation of a whole line of thinking about Jesus Christ? And do they need to know this? Do we need to know that Barry Mann put the Bomp in the Bomp Bah Bah Bomp Bomp?

Well, not if we understand that listening to Who Put the Bomp? and saying the Nicene Creed are simply ways to affirm our faith in rock and roll and Christianity, respectively.

But could we have a more meaningful Creed?
 

Posted: Fri - March 24, 2006 at 12:35 PM          

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