Churches of St Fagan, St Luke & St James, Aberdare

Here is the second in the series of magazine articles on the Nicene Creed. This one was originally published in November 2019. In this article we begin looking at the second, and largest, section, which considers God the Son, Jesus Christ. The lines of the Creed I’m looking at are as follows:   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.   Whenever we read or say these lines of the Creed, it is as though we are going back in time to the controversies that raged within the Church in the 300s AD. I said in the introductory article in September that a key reason for the writing of the Nicene Creed was to combat the heresy of Arius. He taught that Jesus was begotten (or created) by God in the beginning. The teaching made Jesus a created being (the most pre-eminent being, to be sure, but still a ...

As promised, here is the first in my series of articles on the Nicene Creed, first published in the parish magazine in September 2019. This month I begin a new series of monthly articles for the parish magazine. In the past, I have looked at the letters of the New Testament and the Lord’s Prayer. Now my attention turns to the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that we recite every Sunday during the Eucharist. Clearly the Creed is important, as it sets out what we as Christians believe. But how often (if ever) do we stop to actually consider what it is we are saying, what the words mean, and why they are important? It will be my aim to do this in this series of articles, as we examine the Creed section by section.   In this first article, I want to set the scene by considering why we have a Creed in the first place. Who wrote it, and when? Who decided what should be in it? Why do we recite it during the Eucharist?    In the early days of the Church, there was a lot ...