Joshua Villines on “What do the Christians believe?”

Posted on April 6, 2010 by admin

Joshua Villines is a pastor as well as a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University in liturgics and homiletics. He lives with his family in Decatur just outside Atlanta. Thanks be to God I know him personally and have had to joy of visiting him and his family a few times when in the area.

He views are an interesting combination of theologically “conservative” and politically “progressive”. I know those are slippery terms but you get the idea. Trinity and incarnation and resurrection and Apostles’ Creed and so on on the one hand. Abortion rights universal health care full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in the life and leadership of the Christian church and so on on the other. Great guy.

I was impressed by his recent essay published at religion dispatches on the topic “What do ‘the Christians’ believe?”

Unfortunately, even if we were to turn the clock all the way back to first-century Jerusalem we find, as Acts 15 reminds us, that even the Apostles who knew Jesus personally were divided on how Christians should behave. This diversity of opinion continued into the fourth century, when the leaders of the Church gathered together to clarify what Christians actually believed.

Those meetings ultimately produced three documents that remain the only consensus writings on Christian identity. Two of them—the Apostles’ Creed, and the Nicene Creed—provided the theological logic that guided the selection of the writings for the third: the Bible. It is worth noting that, in a time of profound Christian diversity, leaders from Christian communities from around the known world did not include a single social, ethical, or moral issue in either creed. In addition, they were comfortable including in the canon of Scripture writings that offered a wide variety of ethical perspectives. When the early Christians got together and described the consensus of their beliefs, they did not talk about social issues.

So what, then, does it mean to be a Christian? In the hopes of standing in the tradition of the early Church, and limiting myself to where there is actual Christian consensus, my own answer follows the logic of the Apostle’s Creed.

Read the whole thing if you have a few minutes.

Oh sure one might quibble with a few points here or there. But I would rather focus on the strong positive value of his essay. It is also very well written. I say that as someone who for a year taught writing to first year undergraduate students as part of my graduate program.

This entry was posted in Christianity, Theology. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://www.villines.com Joshua Villines

    Rick,

    Thanks as always for being willing to read, repost, and respond to my stuff. I put a lot of work into this piece, and I am grateful for any attention it receives.

    You’re a good friend and colleague.

    Joshua

  • http://www.opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com jh

    At the risk of violating the Spirit of your post I wish to be a tad critical. Though I agree there are some good insights there and I agree it is well written.

    He makes some valid points in some of his thoughts on the articles.

    There is no doubt there is diversity now in Christian thought as it was then. In the early days there was a dispute over for instance Christians in the military. Today we have viewed as valid in the Same Church or faith communities devout RADICAL pacifist and military chaplains.

    Before I go too far I think looking at the Council it is a bit of an exaggeration that the Council was the cause of what books would or would not be excepted. Much of the main Corpus had already been accepted by the whole Church before Council. THe books still in dispute after Council would seem to me for the most part not be crucial to the theological issues they were discussing.

    Which brings us to the Council itself. The Council was convened largely for one purpose . To deal with the problems with disputes over the nature of Jesus Christ.

    In fact all the Creeds were formulated in particular cultural contexts in order to address potential misunderstandings about potential misunderstandings about the nature of Jesus Christ.

    Now the author, as well as the others, seem to be putting a lot of stuff under moral, political, and social issues. I have a feeling that if the Council of Nicea could have gone forward in time to the late 20th Century and saw that the Nicene Creed was being used as cover for Gay Marriage, abortion, and Euthuanasia they would have no doubt added it.

    Now what the guy from Vandy is doing is what I see occuring all the time more and more in lets say progressive congregations. LOOK WE ARE CHRISTIANS all that matters is the Creed. The Progressive Church may dump a lot of stuff but the Creed will not be it. It is the last shread of connection to the traditional Church they got.

    I saw this in the forward of the very interesting just released Episcopal Document where Same Sex Marriage was being debated. That is “Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church”

    In it is this mind blowing statement (or at least to me)
    “This group was convened to offer a distinctively theological approach to the controversy before us. We acknowledged that our church’s doctrinal foundations are the catholic creeds and we gave special attention to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that we recite at the celebration of the Eucharist. Further, we agreed that most of the doctrinal concerns raised by the controversy over same-sexuality cluster under the third article of the Creed on the identity and activities of the Holy Spirit. These include the sanctification of believers (“the Lord the giver of life), the authority of Scripture (“who has spoken through the prophets”), ecclesiology (“one holy, catholic and apostolic church”), and sacraments and sacramental rites.”

    OK SO FAR SO GOOD but then later

    “Perhaps more discussion on what constitutes a church-dividing issue is warranted. Marriage may not be a core doctrine of the faith—equal in honor with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, or even with the dominical sacraments—”

    What?

    In other words HEY IT AIN”T IN THE CREED so it is not a CORE DOCTRINE so live and let live. Well that is a lot of nonsense

    Now of course The Trinity is highlighted because one finds in a lot of Heresies we have seen that when th Trinity is misunderstood everything starts to go off the rails. However that is not the only thing.

    The question is is the Creed enough. Well in some ways it is but it has to be a full creed that in its own implicatiions include things outside the wording of the creed itself.