Introduction

As indicated in my last post, I feel led to do a brief survey on the Creeds of the Kehillah. As some of you already know, kehillah is Hebrew for “community.” I prefer that term to “church” in describing the gathering of Believers of the faith. We are not a building!

As stated in my About the Author page, my mom always took me to church as far back as I can remember. We were Episcopalians, and I developed a deep sense of respect for the church. I loved the liturgy and always asked to stay in the big people’s service rather than Sunday School. Consequently, I became very familiar with reciting the Apostles’ Creed at Morning Prayer services and the Nicene Creed at Holy Eucharist (Communion) services.

No longer attending those services and doing some “church-shopping” whenever we have moved has led me to believe that not many current Believers are even familiar with the ancient creeds. It seems that most Kelillahs are now content with posting Mission Statements or What We Believe position papers on their websites.

So, what is a creed? It has been defined as the written body of teachings of a religious group that that group generally accepts. Creeds are intentionally catholic. [1] They may bear the marks of their particularity and a specific perspective and place. However, the primary intention is to state the faith of a partisan group and the one holy catholic church.^[2]

The following is a list of the ancient creeds and confessions of faith. This series will only explore the creeds because the confessions are generally tied to specific denominations.

Historic Creeds

The Apostles’ Creed

The Nicene Creed

The Symbol of Chalcedon

The Athanasian Creed

Historic Confessions and Statements of Faith

The Belgic Confession

The Heidelberg Catechism

The Canons of Dordt

In my next post, we will begin to examine the Apostles’ Creed.

Click here for the PDF version.

[1] Remember that lower case “catholic” means universal and not Roman.

^[2] Leith, J. H. (1992). Creeds, Early Christian. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Vol. 1, p. 1204). New York: Doubleday.