The Genesis of a Contemporary Creed

Article by John Morris in The Church of England Newspaper 17 March 2006, pages 9,10, with three photographs of the young John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, acting as the lead in two plays produced in Uganda by the writer, one of them the televised premiere of James Ngugi’s The Black Hermit 1964.

Go into any Christian bookshop and you are surrounded by thousands of titles - abundant books at a time of diminishing churchgoers! Perhaps if we properly read and lived just a few good books we would be better Christians and churches would be packed! But Christian bookshops are frequented by only a fraction of the population. So somehow a credible gospel has to find its way onto the shelves of secular shops like Waterstones, Ottakers, Blackwells, and WHSmith. But few Christian titles manage that, despite a widespread interest in a spiritual dimension to life, with the majority of people in the UK still professing to believe in God and seeing themselves as Christian. How then is the church to reach this marketplace?

In part through its leaders. I would like to think that the church is finding its national voice, instead of talking largely to itself about often peripheral issues. Through the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent New Year message on television; instead of sophisticated talk above our heads, here was Rowan's plain speaking, the God sound-bite. Even more through our new Archbishop of York in his public disagreement with President Bush and Tony Blair over Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp. Straight talking that hits headlines and addresses the nation, making immediate moral and legal sense to the person in the street. I had no idea when I chose John Sentamu as the powerful lead in two school stage productions in Uganda that he would become a star on a different stage!

There is much valuable talk about Fresh Expressions of church, in order to reach those presently turned off. A C of E advertising campaign proclaimed "It isn't as churchy as you think". A Portsmouth church advertises itself with the motif "Changing the way people see Church". Useful as these may be, much of the talk is about method rather than message, about activites, liturgy, formats, music, congregational involvement and furniture moving. Whereas in the battle to win people's hearts and minds it is the content of our message that most needs retreading in today's terms. In our scientific and tragic world of cancer, the handicapped, tsunamis, and earthquakes, the loudest question is 'Why?'. There is a search after meaning, a need to make sense of life, in the spiritual heart of everyone, atheist or religious. Somehow the church has to tap into that spiritual vein in our secular society, where I worked as a layman until aged 58 when I was ordained as an NSM clergyman in the C of E.

As a freebie curate in three rural parishes, combined with being a school chaplain, I tried to say something relevant to the lives of pupils, parents and staff. The parents are all successful in their jobs and able to afford private education but few of them, I guess, feel the need to be churchgoers. Yet a good number of parents would choose to come to Saturday chapel to hear their children sing in the choir, and listen to another parent talking about his/her job and the values (moral if not religious) that underpin it. And at the same time, hear the contemporary gospel summed up by me, as chaplain. Over the years I asked myself 'Will my hearers remember this, will anything stick?’ Perhaps I could give them something durable on paper? So I set myself the task of composing my own contemporary creed in just one hundred words, using transparent English, to make sense today, marrying science and faith. The result was a bookmark, a memento of school life that parents and pupils could keep and recall, especially as they grow up and the hard times come, as they do, and each will ask 'Is there a God and where is he/she?" Here are my 100 words that begin my recent book Contemporary Creed (CC).

MY CREED

I believe in God, the Father of all,
who began and upholds a universe
that makes itself through evolving processes.
God is Love, granting to creation a freedom
that restricts his power.

Through his Son Jesus
this self-giving God rescued us and
showed us what he is like:
loving in life and death;
sharing our pain;
suffering the consequences of our sin;
offering forgiveness.

Jesus died for us but was raised by God
and now lives with us through his Spirit
to build God’s kingdom of unselfish love
and lead us, as our judge and Savior,
to eternity with him.

This finished version - with its American spelling of Saviour, as the British publishers use printers in the States - was two years in the making. Its various drafts benefited from criticism from those in the pews and from theologians with much more scholarship than I possess. But where it fails it is down to me: crucially, my creed had to be truthful to the world around me, not religious decoration or false piety, and not ducking the big issues: two Twyford parents and one member of staff dying young, a pupil of 16 who died of a brain tumour, African droughts, wars and earthquakes; and my 6 year old grandson, Daniel, whose brain did not grow in the womb, despite our prayers.

My 100-word creed was not written to replace the Nicene Creed (accepted at the Council of Chalcedon 451 AD, and possibly at Constantinople in 381 AD). But the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds omit two questions that need satisfactory answers if the church is to reverse its declining attendances. Is it credible to believe in a God of Love in our violent universe and suffering world? And is it still credible to call Jesus our contemporary Saviour? All I could do in 100 words is to hint at answers by reference to "freedom that restricts his power" and by listing four ways in which Jesus saves and helps today. But hints are clearly inadequate, so my springboard of 100 words changed into the spine of a book of systematic theology.

My twin aims in writing CC were ministry and mission - not money, as my royalties go to Equipment for Disabled Children. Ministry to build a more theologically literate church as a step towards reversing the “Dover Beach” tide of faith in the UK. That involves a more realistic faith, for some old views of God no longer hold contemporary water. So I began my book with “What is God?” and followed it with “Michelangelo” which ends this article. There I question the belief in an omnipotent and controlling God; his role could be more interactive than interventionist. That interaction places God constantly in the middle, faithful to the physical laws of his universe. Paul’s world view was different from ours but it is recorded that he said “In him we live and move, in him we exist”. Modern science is not earth-bound but probing space and reaching back to moments after the Big Bang so the cover of CC, seen on Amazon, shows a communications satellite in space above our earth. Our communication of the Christian vision has to expand to take account of our cosmic context and ancient evolutionary processes, not reducing Genesis to a literal timetable of scientific events. That view of God is too small for our contemporaries.

My second aim, mission, was to write popular theology for a mass market, turning heavy apologetics into lighter reading for the general readers who frequent secular bookshops. That aim has been only partially achieved, as Waterstones and others now stock the book in just some of their branches, thus my title has had only a small Heineken effect of reaching parts not often reached! Bookshops cannot easily sell a run-of-the-mill Christian book or a poetry anthology so I tried to write something original, by making CC different in four ways: in format, audience, flexibility for its readers, and language.

1. My format, which I am told is unique, has sixty sections, each with three ingredients, a problem, a poem, and a prose context. Each of the 60 units starts with an intellectual problem about a traditional Christian belief. That problem is 'solved' - or at least clarified - by my poem. The context develops the argument and gives the Biblical, philosophical and sometimes scientific evidence for the poem. The poetry is unusual: it does not express my sense impressions (those poems I keep at home, mostly unpublished!); rather, it is conceptual, each poem defining and solving only one concept. Clearly, my problem-solving cannot solve those problems above human understanding, so I offer no easy answers or cliches. But the poems do attempt to redefine the problems and offer a tentative resolution of at least some of the difficulties. The discipline of poetry can help to express Christian beliefs neatly. If a poem succeeds, it can be memorable, in its imaginative imagery, its rhythm, and its economy, compressing lengthier prose into fewer words. But my Introduction starts with a health warning: "This little book is not a poetry anthology! Rather, it is a structured journey in Christian thinking that uses verse as a vehicle to accelerate the reader’s interest and to carry the argument forward to discover an up-to-date and credible set of beliefs. My poems, which are only a quarter of this prose book, help animate old truths, giving them contemporary life and fresh meaning.” So here is a sample of the format:

PROBLEM: What was good about God’s “six days” of creation?

God saw that it was good

It’s easy to condemn this world of pain
But hard devising one that brings real gain:
Begin by listing what we most admire –
The qualities and values saints acquire;
Then ask what universe they need to thrive –
If made too bland will values come alive? Without adversity – a heavy price –
What chance for courage, love and sacrifice?
So Eden is our end, not starting place,
For greater good not bad will win the race.

CONTEXT OF “GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD”:
My son posted on his bedroom door: “Be reasonable, do it my way”! Yet if creation had been done our way, would our amendments have turned out to be long-term improvements? Our violent universe is one physical system, one pack or network. Everything is connected: change the world’s components and you change one of its products, humans, who would end up as different creatures or not be here at all. It is our present physical being that allows us to experience the highs and lows of life.
“God saw that it was good” (not “perfect”) is repeated in Genesis 1 at the end of most days – not 24 hours, more like geological ages. But good is drowned by bad in natural disasters which can undermine believers, especially those who expect God to make a perfect, safe world. The poem – which does not say a person’s pain is a good thing, even though good may result – assumes that values like love, personal responsibility and courage are good, and a desirable goal for the universe; but the reader may reject that premise. For cancer, see the poem “Mayday for a friend”.

2. CC is unusual in its audience: the theology is written for both believers and unbelievers. It addresses those believers like me whose faith is married to doubt,
lacking certainty – the wobblers in a war between head and heart. CC speaks to those unbelievers who prefer rational argument to dogmatic evangelism, so I offer reasons for suggesting that the Christian God is a rational hypothesis.
Sceptics cannot be expected to swallow the whole creed but to go as far as they can, holding on to essentials, and not to be put off by what they see as Christmas wrapping of heavenly choirs, shining stars, and some possibly legendary miracles. A contemporary creed needs to be open-ended where there is uncertainty, and undogmatic about scriptural difficulties.

3. CC is flexible in its multi-purpose uses for individuals or house groups. It can be read in any order. Some will want a straight read, ignoring all the references, and discover the “story” of an accumulating creed. Others will jump about between each of the 60 self-contained units, going to the Contents page to pick and choose as they wish. As a Lent book, meditation could focus on one unit per day. As an alternative to BRF or SU daily notes, each unit gives a manageable dose of Bible study. Students wanting a mini-course in middle-of-the-road theology will find the sections sequential: God and creation; the incarnation; the ministry of Jesus; the death of Jesus and the atonement; the resurrection of Jesus; the Trinity; the Scriptures; Christian living including worshipping, praying, forgiving, working, guidance, soul-making, ending. Inter-faith connections are made throughout but the last unit “Except by me” specially focuses on other faiths. For ordinands and Readers, CC condenses their long reading lists, covering the ground speedily and cheaply, without skirting the intellectual difficulties. For busy vicars, the 60 units can be reformulated into sermons: their house groups can operate without them, saving more of their time, by using CC's structured material for discussion purposes. Several public schools are beginning to use CC in confirmation. As for Religious Education, the book covers a good part of the secondary curriculum but in a novel way. My problem-solving method often leaves issues open-ended, giving space for mystery and the reader's own creative thinking. Teachers have 60 units of lesson material which they can adapt to suit their situation, to stimulate discussion, and to promote creative writing, using the writing frameworks /templates of the poems that vary in form, length, and tone. Barbara Wintersgill, specialist HMI for RE, writes of "weaknesses in teachers' subject knowledge", weaknesses that CC tries to rectify, particularly amongst trainee-teachers.

4. CC is different in its transparent language, free of jargon, to suit any thoughtful adult, from teenagers to pensioners, and filtered so that it can be understood overseas in a second language situation. One university department asked "Is your popular theology going to be of sufficient depth for academic purposes?" As with most books there are multiple levels of meaning. Some find it "easy to read" whereas an American PhD priest wrote: "It is not a book to be whizzed through but to be given the thought it clearly deserves. I find most interesting your wonderfully clear exposition of some pretty sophisticated theological and scriptural issues. For instance, your use of process theology early on."

This process can be illustrated by “Michelangelo” which started like this:

PROBLEM: Is creation predetermined by its Creator from start to finish or is there a degree of exploration and running repairs?

Michelangelo

God is the great Discoverer,
Of where creation leads,
With countless possibilities
To reach his chosen goal.

Between Creator and what’s made
A finger gap exists –
By definition something else,
With space to be itself.

So evil is no alien power,
In matter there’s no fault,
Life’s simply “other” than its source –
And there the problem lies.

Behind whatever comes-to-be
The one Inventive God,
Empowering all evolving things,
Brings consciousness to birth. .

He does not will life’s tragedies,
Nor sanction, nor permit –
They fall upon him as the cost
Of Love that makes things free.

CONTEXT OF “MICHELANGELO”:
The opening and closing of Genesis and Revelation are usually seen as God’s planned start and end, making him the controlling designer and watchmaker. If that means God wills and guides the whole, and knows both the route and the precise outcome, good and evil become part of his permitted plan that he is ultimately responsible for. Isaiah 45.7 supports that view.
If, however, God endows all matter in our expanding universe with the
freedom to be and become, exploration, misadventure, and waste are introduced. So though God is still finally responsible, his role becomes more complex. In the continuing process of creation and recreation he is not only the inventor and repairer, he is also the undertaker and midwife engaged in the cremation and birth of stars and species. We are inside not a closed and clockwork universe but one that is mysteriously open. If it existed by chance, it would be pointless, but a loving Creator would give it purpose, so we may believe he is at work to influence everything towards greater potential, along unmapped routes, to reach his goal, namely “the good and the best”.
The book of Job is the classic expression of man’s outcry against unfair misfortune, asking who is to blame, the man who reaps reward for his conduct, or his maker.
Michelangelo’s fresco painting in the Sistine Chapel has a finger gap between the Creator’s outstretched arm and his creature, man. For creativity see Hebrews 11:3.

BATTLE FOR CONTEMPORARY MINDS
What is God?

A heavenly being he is not,
if just one finite object like
the others met in space and time.

No superhuman on a throne –
incredible to us today
all concepts of a God so small.

Unlimited existence, “He”,
who’s gender-free yet personal,
eternal Being, underived.

Supreme in value, Love complete,
external and yet everywhere,
reality that’s ultimate.

Creative Spirit, energy
The Father-Mother, source of all,
One Holy Lord, unique “I am”.

Misunderstanding theology

Article by John Morris in The Theology Page: The Church of England Newspaper Fri.13 Oct. 2006, page 29                                         
                       
With the rise in violence being linked to religion, do we need to think again about how we present Christian theology?

The three monotheistic religions are being bombed by some of their own followers, destroying part of the credibility of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, by making their God a less attractive idea.

It is true that Israel did not start the July war on Hezbollah and has a legitimate right of self-defence. So for a few hours it held the moral high ground. But it seems that Israel has hardly shifted in its turbulent 4000 years from seeing God as primarily the Lord of Hosts: it still believes that the way to win is by force not diplomacy. Its disproportionate response, that turned Lebanon into a bomb site and a graveyard for its civilians, lost hearts and minds worldwide, whereas Hezbollah seems more popular than ever. Israel has left them and others to clear up the mess, including the oil slick contaminating ancient Byblos.       

As a result, the God of Israel appears to be aggressive, and favouring Jew against Arab.  The voice of a different Jew two thousand years ago is unheeded: “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, with never a thought for the plank in your own?”, Luke 6:41.

Bush and Blair are churchgoers but are somewhat offputting adverts for God’s kingdom.  For over three weeks they did not call for an immediate ceasefire while they sought for a long-term peace, which Israel used as a virtual blank cheque to flatten Lebanon. In their declared war on terrorism – prompted by the atrocity of 9/11 – they marched into Afghanistan and Iraq, professing good intentions of liberating downtrodden Muslims, but the consequences have backfired, and they are now seen as imperialistic occupiers.  

It is naive for Bush and Blair to insist that their foreign policy does not inflame Muslim opinion. Their own intelligence agencies disagree with them, MI5, and the sixteen American Intelligence Agencies combined report, recently leaked. The Pope’s insensitive quotation and half-apology to Muslims adds to their feeling they are not being given the respect that their faith deserves and results in a backlash against churches. A Muslim might well generalise: “If this is how Christian leaders behave, I don’t think much of Christianity”, so the real Jesus Christ and his Father God are not taken seriously.

Our high esteem for Allah is being discredited by a minority who justify random terrorism in the name of Islam, and who believe that there is heavenly reward for the suicide bomber. Fortunately, there are mainstream Muslim leaders who read the Koran differently and believe that Allah has revealed a religion of peace.  After this August’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights from London, Muslim leaders said that Britain’s foreign policy contributed to the alienation felt by many young Muslims. But that alienation is shared by many British whites who feel equally impotent to change the mind of their government, yet they do not resort to bombs. Their only effective weapon is their vote at an election (three years away), so a democracy tries the patience of its citizens.     

God is losing out as some of his followers give ammunition to atheists like Richard Dawkins to write The God Delusion and argue that religion is the root of evil. Sadly, it can be a root if misused, for there is potential danger in all deeply held beliefs – including Dawkins’ – if  they insist on one single truth to explain a complex world. Religions become power structures, guarding orthodox boundaries. Christians and Moslems are commissioned to evangelise worldwide but that has to be by peaceful, intelligent debate, respecting each other's position, and acting together where possible - as in the massive march in Hyde Park on 15 Febuary 2003 against the Iraq war, in which one was alongside people of divergent faiths united in a common cause.     

Violent demonstrations and medieval crusades are counter-productive. So are some Christian hymns, that require some editing today:  "Fight the good fight with all thy might" can easily be misunderstood as an endorsement of coercion from a conquering, militant God.  

Humility is appropriate as we recognise that we may not have the answer. We cannot be sure if Jesus was a pacifist. For centuries, honourable people have believed that to do nothing allows injustice to win. In WW1 and 2, the Christian West was at war with itself, both sides claiming right on their side. But now the global battle is becoming misconstrued as Christian against Muslim.  

Wise analysis is not that easy: can the historic Afghanistan conflict be resolved, so are more troops the answer? Often we are faced with a choice of evils so the lesser of two evils has to be adopted, in matters more grey than clearcut. Besides humility, a consequentialist approach helps, as we ask what are the likely consequences of what we are about to say or do? Did the Pope's advisers properly weigh up the consequences beforehand or the White House pause before coming up with the divisive slogan "the war against terror"? We are all good at scoring own goals.

Perhaps a majority of Muslims and Jews have a greater knowledge of their scriptures than the average Christian has of the Bible. Greater theological literacy  might prevent us sometimes using our scriptures as battering rams of dogmatic truth – as if “What the Bible says” is always straightforward. The authority of all scriptures is best discovered in the round, balancing one quotation against another, not as proof texts out of context.

Dogma about the afterlife has become dangerous. Certainty about a heavenly reward is recruiting martyrs to the Islamic cause, who can go out with a bang and influence the course of history. Their motivation could be weakened if they could be persuaded that God is greater than our imaginations. The fair Judge of all the Earth would surely not condone the random slaughter of innocent civilians and soldiers alike. In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to “Love your enemies and…your heavenly Father, who causes the sun to rise on good and bad alike”, Matthew 5: 45. Here is theology worth fighting for in a peaceful battle for minds, unlike our escalating military conflicts.   

Admittedly, the New Testament does speak of rewards, not only in the Beatitudes but in the epistles with their prize-winning metaphors from Greek and Roman games. But unlike the Olympics where only one wins, Paul says all “win a garland that never fades”, I Corinthians 9:25, Philippians 3: 12-14. “Eternal life” is the reward Jesus offered his disciples, Mark 10:30. He advocated self-denial that discouraged the mercenary, and disappointed those who wanted marital relations to continue beyond death, so he stops us constructing our own heaven to suit ourselves. Though Christ’s resurrection opens up eternity, it remains a mystery. If we do not know what happens we can still have faith in who receives us into a heaven where God is the centre and prize, not ourselves and our wishes. There it is Good that reigns. 

The biggest question facing all religions is "What is the nature and activity of God?"  There is no concensus amongst Christians. A report from Baylor University in Texas saw America as one nation under four different faces of God, authoritarian, benevolent, critical or distant. The cosmos operates on physical laws that allow tectonic plates to collide and tsunamis to wipe out Muslims and Christians alike. Yet in this violent universe, life benefits from the sun’s incessant nuclear bombs. Where is God in all this? Is he/she/it sitting on his hands while Rome burns or North Korea explodes its nuclear bomb? Is God in control, the almighty, all-knowing one?  

Answers cannot be simple but subtle and honest attempts to explain our precarious and mysterious existence. An occasionally interventionist God is less believable than one who is constantly interactive along the grain of his natural world and within human minds, and in Palestine allowed Jesus to travel the way of the cross.   

Religions deserve to survive only if they are a credit to God, true to that One ultimate Reality, and promoting a more compassionate world, with better stewardship of our threatened habitat. What is good about the past needs to be preserved but what is misleading or unreasonable may need fresh expression, of the sort I have tried to offer in my own Contemporary Creed.

The Revd Dr John Morris is author of Contemporary Creed (£5.99, ISBN 1905047371).   It may be read for free online at www.contemporarycreed.org.uk.    Prof. Alister McGrath reviews Prof. Dawkins’ book on page 22.                            
 

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