“The Nicene Creed” with Ted Campbell
Show Notes:
Dr. Ted Campbell is a returning guest to The Weight, this time for an introduction into the Nicene Creed. 2025 marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which originally created the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that declares God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and affirms the divinity and humanity of Jesus. The Nicene Creed is one of the most widely used Christian creeds, and unites Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant denominations.
Ted is a church historian and a recently retired professor and pastor who served as the president of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary from 2001-2005, and then as the Associate Professor of Church History at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of several books about Wesleyan theology and history
Resources:
Learn more about Ted at his website, https://tedcampbell.com/
Listen to his previous episode on The Weight
Learn more about the Nicene Creed
Transcript:
Eddie Rester 00:00
I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 00:01
I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight. Today we're talking to Dr. Ted Campbell, who is one
of Eddie's church members.
Eddie Rester 00:10
Ted's one of our great church members, a Sunday school class teacher, but Ted is also a church
historian. He served as president of Garrett Evangelical Seminary back in the early 2000s. He
was a professor at Duke before that, and he served as an associate professor of church history
at Perkins School of Theology, and he is now joyfully retired. We'll talk a little bit about that
with him as well.
Eddie Rester 00:35
Today we're talking about the Nicene Creed. It's an important year. It's anniversary year for the
Nicene Creed. And so I think it's important for us to explore this, not just as an artifact of
church history, but as something significant that has given the church life now for 1700 years.
Chris McAlilly 00:52
Yeah, we're going to have a few of these conversations with folks around the Creed and get
some different perspectives on it, from some different theologians and maybe some pastors.
But I think it's helpful first to just kind of get oriented. This is kind of a nuts and bolts style
conversation, in some ways, just what is the creed? What is it for? Why should we care about
it? What are the implications of creeds within Christian communities? And a little bit of the
history about this particular creed.
Chris McAlilly 01:22
It's an important document and an important statement that has been widely used across the
world. We'll talk all about that. But it was a good conversation. It's always good to kind of come
back to fundamentals. And this is one of those, those conversations that kind of get back to the
basics.
Eddie Rester 01:42
And maybe, if you're thinking, well, I'm not... I don't like the creeds, or, you know, I'm not sure
I'm familiar with the creeds. One of the things we talked about is the church, before there was
scripture, was always a church of creeds, of statements of belief. And as the church grew and
people had questions, it developed additional creeds to help people learn to understand the
faith and to unite them in the faith. And so we're going to talk about a lot of different aspects of
that, pieces of that.
Eddie Rester 02:08
But I think for me, one of the things is that it just enlivened me to this deep connection to the
truth of our faith that exists and continues to exist and will exist long after us, because people
prayerfully put together statements like this one to help us consider who we are and why we
are and what the gift of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be for us.
Chris McAlilly 02:33
I remember going to--this is going to be a very short story, because we need to get to the get
to the actual conversation. But I remember going to Ruby Falls, descending this dark tunnel
into this cave, and at the center of it was this beautiful waterfall. And somebody had to
discover that cave and that waterfall and then create a path for the rest of us to find it. And I
feel like language of prayer and creeds helps us kind of discover and kind of share in the very
beauty and mystery, the life-giving dimension of God. And you know, it's not really about the
Creed, it's about getting us into the presence and the power of God. And I hope this helps to
kind of clear the way, so that you can find your way a little bit deeper into the life of God.
Thanks for being with us today on The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 03:23
[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to
navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and
unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.
Eddie Rester 03:41
As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all
carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
Chris McAlilly 03:52
But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of
wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
Eddie Rester 04:02
That's why The Weight exists: to create space for the conversations that challenge our
assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
Chris McAlilly 04:12
Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition,
and responsiveness to a changing world.
Eddie Rester 04:20
So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a
nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of
Christ-centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Eddie Rester 04:36
We're here today with Dr. Ted Campbell. Dr Campbell, I'm going to call you Ted, since you're a
church member with me here at Lovers Lane in Texas. Ted, it's great be back on the podcast
today.
Ted Campbell 04:46
Great to be back with y'all.
Eddie Rester 04:48
Yeah, since the last time we had you on the podcast, you have fully retired.
Ted Campbell 04:54
That's correct, and I'm delighted to say that I'm fully retired. I'm enjoying it.
Chris McAlilly 04:58
That's fantastic.
Eddie Rester 04:59
Are you... I know you've got a lot of projects going, but you're one of these people that you're
not missing all of the workload and the class load. You're actually enjoying.
Ted Campbell 05:09
No, I'm really enjoying it. We were in the Grand Canyon last week, our very first time to see it,
and we were there in late September, which we have never, ever, ever done before, because
we both were living on an academic schedule, you know. So.
Eddie Rester 05:24
Yeah, that's excellent, yeah. Well, good luck with all your travels. I know that I miss you when
you're not here, so.
Ted Campbell 05:33
Thank you, and we miss you, but we listen to you on Sunday morning, just driving through the
panhandle of Texas, going to a particular destination. We heard the whole service, Bruce and
everything.
Chris McAlilly 05:45
Yeah, this is great. This is a good plug. You can find Eddie any Sunday, wherever you are,
whether you're a member at Lovers Lane or not. And he's always bringing good news every
Sunday.
Eddie Rester 05:57
There you go.
Ted Campbell 05:58
That's right.
Eddie Rester 05:59
And Sunday, I got to make fun of LSU people. So that was even better for me.
Chris McAlilly 06:03
Eddie's an Ole Miss fan, and we're recording this a couple days after Ole Miss has beaten LSU,
and now they're number four in the country, and so Eddie has to gloat in every setting. So it is
what it is.
Eddie Rester 06:17
Yeah, because it won't last long. Disappointment... Probably by the time this releases, there will
be disappointment.
Chris McAlilly 06:20
There will be.
Eddie Rester 06:21
We're not here to talk college football, but Ted, we're here to talk about the Nicene Creed. And
we talked, we're leading up to All Saints. It's an important anniversary of the Nicene Creed this
year. You traveled and did some work, I think, around the Nicene Creed, not long after I got to
Lovers Lane. And so for folks who are listening, like, I don't... What's the Nicene Creed? What's
the Nicene Creed? Why is it important for us as Christians?
Ted Campbell 06:54
The Nicene Creed is the most widely used Christian creed in the world, hands down. No
question about it. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox churches, the older
Protestant churches, including Anglicans and Lutherans and some evangelical churches like one
down the street from us here in Dallas, utilize the Nicene Creed every Sunday. So in that sense,
that's one reason why it's a ton of definitively important creed.
Eddie Rester 07:27
When was the Creed written? I think when we talk about creed, sometimes people don't
understand how old they are, why they were important. We mentioned that it's an anniversary
of the Creed this year. So yeah...
Ted Campbell 07:42
I was actually in the town of Nicaea, İznik in Turkey, on the very date, the 1,700th anniversary
of the opening of the council that was on May 20. And the council went on for, actually, a
couple of months. But really, I think the important thing I'd have to say about this is that the
Nicene Creed is just a development of creedal statements that the early church had developed
for a long time. In First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses one to four, Paul talks about the basic
Christian message that he had received.
Ted Campbell 08:21
And in fact, I wear that on my arm bracelet. That's who I am. It says "traditi in vobis," "I handed
on to y'all," and that is exactly what the Greek New Testament actually says. It is not to you,
one person, it is to y'all, to a community. And the faith that he handed on was the simple
message about Jesus, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that
He was buried and that he rose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And he says,
that's what we've always spoken and preached.
Ted Campbell 08:56
Those words, I believe, are older than the gospels in the New Testament. They're from First
Corinthians, probably written in the 50s AD.
Eddie Rester 09:04
Yeah, probably.
Ted Campbell 09:05
And he says, "I'm handing on to you what I've already received." So there's something probably
come from around 20 years of Christ's death.
Eddie Rester 09:15
When I think what you're pointing out is a reminder to all of us that Scripture, the church,
thrived existed before Scripture came into play, the New Testament. What would we call the
New Testament? Scriptures came into play.
Ted Campbell 09:16
That's right. Yep.
Eddie Rester 09:17
And for Christians who often say, "Well, I'm not a creedal Christian, I'm not a creedal Christian."
Ted Campbell 09:33
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 09:34
It's disconnecting from our history, which was exactly what you're saying. The early church
grew and thrived because they were able to profess what was handed down concisely, not just
in Corinthians, but in Philippians and other places as well.
Ted Campbell 09:51
Yes.
Chris McAlilly 09:52
I even think in just that statement, "the faith that was handed down to me, I handed it on to
y'all," is perhaps a different way in which we would talk about faith than maybe we normally
would in a modern kind of American, 21st Century context. A lot of times when we talk about
faith, having faith, you know, "I believe," it's in terms of subjective experience that's authentic
to me.
Chris McAlilly 10:21
And this is a different way of describing faith. This is a faith that's outside of me, that is perhaps
pointing to some kind of objective, metaphysical content that's beyond me, that I receive and
then hand on. Would you talk about that distinction a little bit? But I think it's important to
understand the nature of what a creed is.
Ted Campbell 10:41
Yeah, I think that's a very good point. The Creed is something that we have received, that we
hand on. It's something that's outside of ourselves. It's not just something we make up. It's
something that reflects what we believe is true, what the Scriptures believed is true, and so
forth. But it's a thing in a community. It's something that a community does to say,
"This is what we believe together."
Ted Campbell 11:06
It's interesting. The Nicene Creed starts, the way we use it now with, "We believe." The
Apostles' Creed usually starts with, "I believe," because the Apostles Creed was used at
baptism for a person to profess their faith. "I believe this." But the Nicene Creed says what a
community believes. "We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty," etc.
Chris McAlilly 11:29
And what was the question that was emerging in the fourth century that needed clarification
that led to this particular Council? I know that there were political dynamics, but in terms of a
theological question that was emerging, what was that question?
Ted Campbell 11:44
That's a very good question, because we actually differ over that. And I want to tell you two
different points of view. And then, as Professor George Caird used to say in Oxford, "One of
these is right and the other is wrong." And the one that I would say first is very commonly said,
is that Arius was messed up with Greek philosophy, and Greek philosophy is always this dang
dong, this horrible thing, and that he sort of substituted Greek philosophy for true Christian
faith. That is what technically scholars call bullshit. It's bullshit because even now...
Eddie Rester 12:27
Is that Latin? Is that Greek?
Ted Campbell 12:28
No, that's Texan. That's just pure...
Eddie Rester 12:31
Texan, okay.
Ted Campbell 12:32
Yeah. So the question kind of behind this controversy between Arius and those who come to be
this kind of pro-Nicaea theology group, of which Athanasius is kind of the hero.
Ted Campbell 12:32
Or southern, maybe, I don't know. But the accusation is that it uses philosophical terms like
"substance." Well, the problem with saying that is that the word translated "substance" is a
simple, little five letter Greek word, "ousia," and I tell you, it means nothing more specific than
"stuff." Whatever the stuff of God the Father is, we're affirming that Christ is the same stuff. We
don't know what God's substance or stuff is, but we know whatever God the Father is, the Son
is the same stuff.
Ted Campbell 12:40
The champion.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
Yeah, he's kind of the champion of that narrative--is this question of the status of the son. So if
God is one in three and three in one. You have God, the Creator, God the Father Almighty, the
maker of heaven and earth. And then the question is, in what sense is Jesus as the Son related
to God the Father? Was he created? Was he generated? In what sense, how or not? You know
that becomes a major question. And Arius is a key figure that kind of has one point of view. Just
for the sake of clarity. Would you mind just kind of laying that out? What was Arius' basic
position?
Ted Campbell 12:40
First of all, Arius was one of the first Christian monks, and this is something that's not been
widely recognized. The ones who want to say, oh, "it's all about philosophy and so forth," I think
they just haven't looked carefully at the context. There's a book by two scholars, one Methodist
and one Anglican, Robert Gregg and Denny Groh, and it's called "Early Arianism: A View of
Salvation." What they show is that Arius was one of these very first Christian monks around
Alexandria in Egypt. And they, as monks, wanted to follow the example of Christ, very literally,
go out to the desert, fight the demons, have visions of God and so forth, like Jesus did, and be
single as Jesus was. The example that Christ set for us, of Christian singleness.
Ted Campbell 12:40
But they felt like they needed to emphasize the humanity of Christ, because that was what they
were struggling with. They couldn't be God, but they were struggling with their humanity, and
they wanted to say Christ was truly, truly human. No problem with that. The problem with it is
that if it sounds like he's not God in the same sense as God the Father, then it's like you've
created two gods.
Ted Campbell 12:40
John Wesley had a comment about that. He says, if you do something like that, you end up with
a big God and a little God. And he says, God doesn't allow of big and little. Either you're God or
you're not God. And they want to say in the Creed, he is God who comes from God. He is light
who comes from light. That's not the halogen bulbs or anything like that. That's like not when
you switch on a light bulb. It's when you light one candle from another candle, and that one
light comes from the other. He is true God who comes from true God. That's what they need to
say in response.
Eddie Rester 12:40
And I think sometimes we just assume that that's what everybody understood. But the early
church really struggled.
Ted Campbell 12:40
Yes.
Eddie Rester 12:40
With how do we understand Jesus, who says, "The Father and I are one," and then suddenly
Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit as well, as he departs, leaving the Advocate, the Paraclete.
And the early church really... I mean, they really... This worried them in a big way. And so talk a
little bit about that, kind of, that early church, kind of, "well, what are we doing here?" I mean,
when people...
Chris McAlilly 12:40
It's the implications, too. It's why. Why is this such a big deal?
Eddie Rester 12:40
Right, yeah.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
I think from this distance, sometimes folks will say, you know,
words here? "aren't we just kind of mincing
Eddie Rester 12:40
Splitting hairs.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
What was at stake?
Ted Campbell 12:40
Yeah. Well, first of all, the first year I started teaching was 1984 and I had a bunch of guys who
sat in the back. Later, I learned I always had a bunch of guys who sat in the back and sort of
poked fun at things. But I didn't know how to deal with this this first year. And so I came to the
part of the Creed about that says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, equal
to the Father and the Son and so forth. And these guys are laughing at the back of the room,
and they said, "Dr. Campbell, you know when you said that these people who were opposing
the full divinity of the Holy Spirit were spirit fighters," I think the Greek word was
"pneumatomachi." They said, and then they're all giggling. What's so funny about this? And
they said, "Could we translate that as Ghostbusters?" In 1984, you know, hahaha, yeah, very
funny.
Ted Campbell 12:40
But I think it comes around to this basic issue that what is God is God, and God isn't divisible.
God can't be... You can't have a lesser, a higher version of God. God is a kind of absolute, and
that's what the Church wants to stand on. But the problem really is to say, how can you say
Jesus Christ is really, truly human and at the same time, fully, completely God?
Chris McAlilly 12:40
And by saying...
Ted Campbell 12:40
Part of the answer to that, I think, is we don't know, really. We can't define it more than saying
this that we have with the words that we've got.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
Yeah, and I think that part of what the Creed... The Creed, I think it's important to say, is, you
know, it's very important. It helps kind of carry us into the mystery of God. At the end of the
day, God is a mystery, and we're kind of grasping to understand it. But I think you know, one of
the things that Rowan Williams has said about Arius that I find really interesting, Rowan
Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, is that Arius was really a dedicated theological
conservative. He was motivated by a desire to safeguard the freedom and transcendence of
God the Father, preserving older biblical language in the face of new philosophical concepts.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
I just think that's fascinating, that really what he wants to do is to preserve the absolute priority
of the Father, and the Church wouldn't stand for that, in part because salvation was at stake,
the healing power of Jesus' ministry was at stake. You know, the power, the power of Jesus, for
Jesus to be one with the Father in energy, power, you know, co equal, unbegotten, that the
same power that is in God the Father is in God the Son is a very different claim than saying,
you know, Jesus is a creature that was created by the Father. Jesus was adopted a certain point
into the life of God. Those are very different kinds of metaphysical claims that, really...
Eddie Rester 12:40
There were a lot of different claims through the years, a lot of different heresies. They
eventually were declared heretics, as people are trying to sort this out. Yeah, I'm sorry I
interrupted you.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
No, but I just think, I mean, I think it comes down to, like, how do we pray? I mean, really, really
basic things. Like, is God really present with us in the liturgy? In what sense is God capable,
through Jesus, of offering anything to us of significance or value? I mean, it seems like those
are some of the things that are at stake for the early Church. I mean, how would you describe
it, Ted?
Ted Campbell 12:40
Well, I think the concern that Arius had was to say Jesus was really, truly, fully, completely
human, 100% human, at the same time as he's fully divine. Except the problem was that when
he started trying to express this in hymns and prayers that he wrote and that we have
recorded, Arius didn't always put the same emphasis on the humanity. Well, scratch that. Arius
didn't put the same emphasis on the divinity of Christ that he had put on the divinity of God the
Father. He emphasized the difference, because as a monk, he was experiencing the kind of
temptation, the kind of demons and angels and things that monks and religious people like that
experience. And I think that's what, in the end, became problematic.
Ted Campbell 12:40
He just, he was so emphatic about the humanity of Christ that he couldn't fully express, he
couldn't say that Christ was fully, completely God in the same sense as God the Father. And
that's what the church found problematic. And I think what it comes down to is an issue of
worship. Worship tells what we value above everything else. Can you worship God the Father?
Yes. Can you worship Jesus Christ if Christ is truly human? And that's where we have to say
Christ is truly human, but God who has become truly human. That's the difficulty in it, I think.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
And so the specific word that gets used to conjoin the divinity of the Son to the divinity of the
Father is this philosophical term, "homoousios," "of one substance."
Ted Campbell 12:40
No.
Chris McAlilly 12:40
No?
Ted Campbell 12:40
It's not a philosophical term. It's the simplest Greek possible. "Ousia" means "stuff." We all
know what it is. It can mean any kind of stuff whatsoever. Just like S-T-U-F-F is five words,
"ousia," it's three, five Greek letters, but it's the same. It's a little short, simple word. And
"omo," "homo" means "the same." So it just means the same stuff. But I warn you against
thinking that it means we know what God's substance or stuff is. We don't. All we're affirming is
whatever God's stuff or substance is, Jesus is the same stuff.
Ted Campbell 13:24
And that just, kind of pushing through that point to the next point. What Athanasius and the
pro-Nicaean crowd were claiming is that the stuff of God, you know, whatever God is, God the
Father, God the Son also has the same stuff. But the stuff of God is capable, powerful enough
to save us. It really comes down to issues of salvation, correct?
Ted Campbell 23:48
Yep. Yep.
Chris McAlilly 23:48
I mean, it's this, you know... So the line that Athanasius ends up claiming is that Christ
becomes as we are that we might become as Christ is.
Chris McAlilly 23:59
It's a famous way of thinking about salvation, this idea of us participating in the divine life, or
this process that we undergo of deification. That really is what's at... It's safeguarding the grace
of Christ to save us, essentially.
Ted Campbell 23:59
Right.
Ted Campbell 24:16
And you know, that's a famous, old Methodist thing, to talk about our sanctification, our
becoming holy as God is holy. And we can't. We as Christians, we want to say we can't do that
apart from Christ, because Christ is God for us as humans. Now, one of the interesting issues
related to this, I think, is the question of how... Well, the question of how we relate to... No.
Scratch that. It's the question of whether Christ is a kind of universal, cosmic being who
represents all of created beings or humanity. And I'm going to come down on the side of saying
just humanity. I don't know how God is going to say Klingons or Wookies or lizards or whatever.
What we know is that God became human, truly human, in Christ, and God makes that way of
salvation available to us. But how God is going to save Wookies? I'm going to leave that to God.
Eddie Rester 25:27
Well, and the Creed really spells out, I'm glad you're talking about this, because the Creed
really spells out, what is it talks about Jesus, the same substance, that he became incarnate. He
became enfleshed for us from the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary became truly human. So it's
guarding again, what Arius would have said, the true humanity. Because you can't have
salvation unless Jesus becomes fully human. But where Arius was sliding the other way was
without being fully divine, Jesus doesn't have the power for salvation.
Ted Campbell 26:09
That's right. It's going to take full divinity to empower us and, in the belief of Athanasius and I
think, the bishops who met in the council, but it also takes becoming fully human like us.
Chris McAlilly 26:24
Yeah. So...
Ted Campbell 26:25
Back in the... Sorry.
Chris McAlilly 26:27
No, you're fine. The language of the Creed, "I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ." So claiming
that Jesus is Lord in addition to God the Father, "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..." Yeah.
Ted Campbell 27:10
Those words are exactly from First Corinthians 15, "in accordance."
Chris McAlilly 27:13
"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." So it doesn't tell the
whole story of Jesus, but the essential bits.
Ted Campbell 27:26
Right.
Chris McAlilly 27:26
Pertaining to salvation. And so it's not the end all be all, but it does, I think, for someone who's
trying to kind of get a handle on what's the buy in? I mean, it becomes a lens through which
you can view some of these sticky points within the scriptures. It becomes a condensed version
of the story that can be transferable through time and space.
Chris McAlilly 27:49
I think that's one of the ways in which creeds function, it seems to me. What do you think are
some of the other uses? I mean, certainly you've talked about the function of worship, and
we've been talking about some of the metaphysical content that the Creed is trying to work
out. How else are creeds utilized in the church's history?
Ted Campbell 28:08
They're a basic teaching thing. They're basically used for catechesis. What you did, I think, in
the earliest Christian churches, was you simply memorized the Creed, like the Apostles' Creed.
Really, maybe a simpler format of that, where you say "I believe," so that at the time when
you're baptized, you can profess the faith on your own.
Ted Campbell 28:30
There's an interesting story told by Augustine. He talks about this rock star philosopher who
decides to become a Christian. And the interesting thing is that when he comes into the church
in Rome, we're presuming this is St. John Lateran, which is the congregation that claims to be
the inheritor of the first Christian community in Rome, that when he comes into the church, this
rock star philosopher, Marius Victorinus, the priests want to make a deal with him. It's like they
say, "Dude, we know this is going to be problematic, so if you want to, we can just go back in a
corner. You can make your profession of faith to us, not a big deal, and it will all be cool." Well,
Marius Victorinus, by this point, is so convinced that he says, "If I deny Christ in front of human
beings, Christ will deny me before the Father. And so I've got to make this profession public."
Ted Campbell 29:31
And so he stands up in front of the whole congregation and he recites. It says he recites a set
form of words. That's that creed. Except, I think that's really the apostles' Creed, or some
Roman version of it, very much like that. And then once he says this, it says the whole crowd
just embraces him. They just, they just grab him and sort of say, "Okay, you're our guy now."
Eddie Rester 29:56
Yeah. One of the parts of the creed that we haven't talked about much yet is about the Holy Spirit.
Ted Campbell 30:04
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 30:05
And I remember that this is part of the Creed, as it developed later, it became contentious
between the eastern and the western parts of the church. I had Dr. Jeffrey Wainwright, Dr.
Wainwright, but we learned about filioque, "and of the Son." And what's interesting to me is
that the Creed, although as much as it brought unity later in its history, it also brought the very
first significant division of the church, into the Eastern Church, which became the Orthodox
Church, and the Western Church, which became the Roman Catholic Church. Talk a little bit
about that, because we've been talking about how it brought the church together, but in some
ways, it also split the church.
Ted Campbell 30:52
Creeds can be divisive. There's no doubt about that. Yes, and Jeffrey is quite right. There were
really two stages of development. There was the Creed as it was, developed in the summer of
325, but that creed simply ended "and in the Holy Spirit." Period. That's all they said about the
Holy Spirit. So within a few decades, they had come around to adding these words "in the Holy
Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the
Son is worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets," and so forth.
Ted Campbell 31:31
Well, later on, the Western Church, acting just by itself, decides that it's not good enough to
say "he proceeds from the Father," that they should say "he proceeds from the Father and the
Son." And there's huge debates about this. You know what version of the doctrine of the Trinity
is more balanced and so forth. The good news about this, as Jeffrey Wainwright, I'm sure would
have told you, is that there's almost complete agreement now that the original form without
the words "and the Son" is just as valid as the form that the Western Church came to use, and
oddly enough, that most Protestant churches used when they used the Nicene Creed.
Chris McAlilly 32:16
Do you think that, as a matter of, yeah, I don't know, a pragmatic matter of... You know, for the
sake of church unity, is we should go with one over the other. You know, should we, as
Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants around the world, should we favor one over the other for the
sake of bringing the church back together?
Ted Campbell 32:41
Yeah, but it's not a big deal, I think. I favor leaving out the words "and the Son," just because
that's not the way the Council of Bishops agreed upon it. And I prefer to say, I prefer to believe
what a group of Bishops said, rather than what one bishop, the bishop of Rome, decreed about
that. And the Catholic belief is more grounded in the teaching of one bishop, as I see it, rather
than the council that adopted the initial words.
Ted Campbell 33:18
But as I say, Catholics and Orthodox are not divided on this point now. They both agree that
either form is valid. I would prefer, if we're going to put it in the hymnal, to leave out "and the
Son," and sometimes I just take a deep breath at that point when I'm saying the Creed.
Eddie Rester 33:34
Next time we use the Nicene Creed, I'm going to watch you, Ted, just make sure how you're
saying it. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 33:40
What about... What grounds the claim that Christ, not just Christ is Lord, but that, you know
what are the scriptural groundings for this idea that the Spirit is also the Lord and giver of life?
Ted Campbell 33:55
It's a political claim. You know, the word is "kyrios," and kyrios is what they used to describe
the Emperor. And I think it was a way of saying there is no human government that we can, in
the end, submit to. Yes, we have to submit to governments and be good citizens as we can, as
Paul says in Romans. But on the other hand, there is no kyrios but Christ.
Ted Campbell 34:20
This is what the German theologians who opposed Hitler finally came to, and what they called
the Barmen Declaration. They just had to come out and say, there is no Fuhrer but Jesus Christ,
that you can't go that far with a political leader. And I think to call the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit "kyrios," the Lord, is a way of saying there's an absoluteness to God's rule that
doesn't apply to any human authority.
Eddie Rester 34:52
I think that it bears saying that before the church kind of became more integrated into the
Roman world, there was a lot of suspicion of Christians because of what you're talking about.
There are some recorded history, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on that, of purges of the
Roman army when people became Christian because they weren't sure if they would actually
follow what the Emperor wanted, or what the ruler of that set of Centurions would want, simply
because of that proclamation of who their Lord was.
Ted Campbell 35:32
Yes, one of the issues for early Christians was that if you entered the Roman military and
certain other professions, you were expected to participate in Roman religious ceremonies in
which you honored the Emperor. And the way you did that was you took a pinch of incense and
put that in the burner in front of the image of the emperor that indicated you were you were
referencing them as Lord, and most of the Christians refused to do that. They simply could not
give that degree of devotion to any person, anything other than God.
Chris McAlilly 36:12
What about the...
Ted Campbell 36:14
Jews, too. But Jews had been given an exception to that rule.
Chris McAlilly 36:19
So, you know, I think one of the things that you sometimes hear is, I mean, we started the
conversation talking about some of the political, er, the theological or metaphysical claims of
the Creed, and we kind of, then, you know, talked about how the Creed has its basis in
Scripture. And there were creedal statements that preceded the fourth century, and the work
that was done at the Nicene, the Council of Nicaea. They're also thinking through the lens, I
mean, there's the political dimension. I wonder if you could just kind of talk us through that.
Ted Campbell 36:50
Yes, that's true, and it's, I think that's undeniably true that when the council met, Constantine,
the Emperor, still had not been baptized as a Christian. In fact, he was not baptized until he
was on his deathbed. But he saw Christianity for the first time as a kind of a glue that could
hold the empire together. And yet, as soon as he becomes fully emperor--that means there had
been co-emperors up to this point--but when he becomes the sole emperor, suddenly he's
presented with this huge division within Christianity.
Ted Campbell 37:29
So I think, like a lot of politicians, Constantine's real interest here is to say, in a sense, I don't
care what you agree to, but you just agree on something, so that we can put the empire
together. Now, what stands against that is he actually had fairly Arian leanings. His advisors
were Arians, and he was baptized in on his deathbed by one of the Arian leaders. So you can
make a case there that he had more, maybe more theological integrity than we'd give him
credit for, but still, my sense of it is he really wants unity in the empire, and he doesn't want
the church to be a dividing factor.
Eddie Rester 38:12
We've talked about Arius, and talk about what happened to Arius, post Nicaea.
Ted Campbell 38:24
Gosh, what happened to him? He was excommunicated by most of the churches. So... I don't
know. What...
Eddie Rester 38:36
Yeah, I think what I vaguely remember is that he really was kind of pushed out. I mean, the
Church, in its early centuries didn't have a lot of grace for heretics or people they branded as
non-Orthodox, and so I think you're right. I think he got pushed out, excommunicated, but I
don't think it was as harsh for him, as it was for others who had papers burned, families chased
away, and all that. But I could be wrong... Somebody out there listening...
Ted Campbell 39:09
No, well, that makes sense, but I wouldn't want this to be part of the recording. But Eddie, it
makes sense because at this point, the Empire itself is not Christian. I mean...
Eddie Rester 39:23
Right.
Ted Campbell 39:23
Students very often come to my classes with this idea that Constantine makes the empire
Christian. Well, he doesn't. He allows toleration, and that's, in my view, a very, very good thing,
but he wants, he seems to want, deep down toleration that has a sort of agreement that's
going to help the state remain together, you know.
Chris McAlilly 39:46
I do think that, I mean, Arius kind of comes in and out of favor depending on who's, you know,
who he's around and who's in power. I mean, there's the bishop that I vaguely remember
supporting him was Eusebius, but I, you know, and so he found a place to be, even in quote,
exile.
Chris McAlilly 40:08
I think that there... I think as I understand the conversation that's emerged over the last 50
years among folks that are really interested in these questions around trinitarian theology that
emerged out of the fourth century is that there are these deeper tensions, that are not... I
mean, you can tell the story as, like, this person was in, this person out. Arius, you know, is the
heretic, and Athanasius is the Orthodox hero. But the real story is much more complex than
that, and these tensions are very much embedded in certain Christian cultures. And it's even
embedded in the Scripture, as we try to tease out, you know, what does it mean to claim, at
the same time, that Jesus is both divine and human?
Chris McAlilly 40:52
And those are really, really important theological questions, even if the motivations of the
emperor was just, you know, to try to keep the peace. And so I think sometimes... I guess my
point in kind of bringing up the political dimension is to say, yes, there is a political dimension,
and the motivations of actors in a political environment are never completely clean.
Ted Campbell 41:16
Do you think so?
Chris McAlilly 41:18
But that also doesn't... Sometimes people will use that, that...
Ted Campbell 41:24
Yes, to say that politics is bad.
Chris McAlilly 41:26
To say all creeds are bad. This creed is bad. It needs to be thrown out. I just don't think that
that... I mean, I... How do you maintain faith in a creed, even if it has the mud of human politics
on it? Like, how do you make that work in your mind, you know, as you think about your own
kind of convictions? And why would you continue to stay committed to a creed, even if that's a
part of its origin?
Ted Campbell 41:53
Yeah, that's a really good question, and I struggle with that, because I'm very uncomfortable in
political situations. So I have been to two General Conferences, and I would swear that by the
end of the second when I heard the voice of God saying, "Ted Campbell, this is not good for your
spiritual health." It just... Just something about it is just icky. It drives me crazy, and I'm
better in front of my students or talking about what I know and so forth.
Ted Campbell 42:29
And yet, as you say, Christopher, there's no getting around this. You know, don't look at what
goes into the soup, or the gumbo, or whatever it is, you know, that you that you make. And so
for me, it comes down to a personal decision that I'm just not cut out for the kind of arguments
and so forth that come out of groups that deliberate and make decisions on behalf of the
church. But that means that I have to accept that, to some extent, as a Christian, I've got to
say, because I'm not called to be part of that big process, I can feed information and help
people and lay out the issues, but I'm not going to be part of those big decisions. Does that
make sense?
Ted Campbell 42:29
But you're right. Churches always have political processes, not even the ones that say they're
congregational and so forth. There's no doubt about it. Second Baptist Church in Houston right
now is torn up because the pastor wanted the congregation to vote to say that the
congregation itself no longer would have any power on critical decisions. Well, that's, as you
know, that's a complete contradiction of Baptist ecclesiology and church practice and so forth.
This guy wants to be a bishop or a Pope or something like that.
Chris McAlilly 43:55
It does.
Ted Campbell 43:57
I'm not trying to get away from it because you're absolutely...
Chris McAlilly 44:03
No, I think it's fine. So then if, you know, politics is something that you kind of hold your nose in
those environments, why stay committed to a creed that was produced through a political
process?
Ted Campbell 44:15
Yeah, yeah. And the answer is, I think--I do have an answer for that, the Creed is authoritative,
not because a Council of Bishops agreed upon it. There were hundreds of councils, very few of
them are recorded as having any authority. But it's what we call reception, that is to say, it's
not just that bishops got together and made a decision, but churches, over a period of decades
and years and centuries, said yes, after all, we consent to that. And I would say that's the real
authority of councils that lies more in the real reception of the teaching than in one bishop, or
even a group of bishops that decides upon that.
Chris McAlilly 45:07
Yeah. So one of the things I learned as I was doing some research on this, as I was thinking
about it, there's a writer named Lewis Ayers who writes a lot of the fourth century, either
Anglican, maybe Roman Catholic theologian, historical theologian. And one of the things that
he said is that after Nicaea there was council after council after council.
Ted Campbell 45:30
There was.
Chris McAlilly 45:31
And each time they just, they reaffirmed. In 381, in Constantinople, you have this kind of
augmentation of the Creed, you know, affirming the Spirit is Lord and Giver of Life. But after
that, there's this affirmation, reaffirmation, reaffirmation at every council for seven straight
councils. And then there was a debate in the seventh council about whether, because it's such
a biblical number, about whether there should be any more councils, you know, because it was
seven forward from Nicaea. And I kind of wish they had just decided no more councils. But
nevertheless, it's in the reception, in the reaffirmation of the Creed, that this authoritative
dimension of it takes hold. That makes good sense to me. I appreciate that perspective.
Ted Campbell 46:20
It's funny, but there was some early development in the Evangelical Church and the United
Brethren in Christ, in both of their histories, they both came to the points where they said, all
right, we've got a doctrinal statement, and now we're going to change it this one last time. And
then we're going to forbid any further changes to it. And then 20 or 30 years later, they come
back and alter it, because they've got to change something about it. So, so yeah.
Ted Campbell 46:50
But to me, it's not just councils that continually affirm something. It's worship. It's the fact that
that Creed is used in worship over and over and over, through the centuries, and ordinary
Christians have sat there and said those words over and over. To me, that's partly what gives it
great authority.
Chris McAlilly 47:11
And it's not only the word "said," it's also the word "sung," you know. I mean I think about the
settings of the Creed to music. Both Martin Luther does this, Bach does this, and it becomes
part of the, ah, not just something that said, that gives you kind of guardrails or grammar for
thinking about what you can and can't say about God, but it becomes the kind of thing that
kind of leads you up in the direction of worship, reorienting you and pointing you towards God.
Sorry, Eddie, I jumped in front of you.
Eddie Rester 47:43
No, I just, this has been great for me. And Ted, I appreciate you taking some time to talk about
this with us. Sometimes people think that the creeds are just these dusty old things that we
have to muddle our way through in worship. And yet, what you reminded us of is that they exist
for a powerful reason: to draw us together and to point us forward, as we worship, as we
profess our faith, as we hold together in unity. So I just appreciate you spending some time
with us today. Thank you.
Ted Campbell 48:14
Let me say one more thing, and I'm going to give a little pause before this and then try to say
it, so you can edit it in wherever you want, if you want to. CS Lewis once said that creeds are
not God, obviously, but creeds are like a road map put together by people, maybe hundreds
and thousands of people, who knew the way to God, and kind of, I'm paraphrasing, but knew
the pitfalls on the way to worship God and to be saved through Christ, and that's why they're
useful for us, because they are the roadmap that's been followed in the past.
Chris McAlilly 48:58
I think that's a great place to set it down.
Ted Campbell 49:01
And that's my opinion.
Chris McAlilly 49:02
Yeah, no, I think that's a great place to set it down, Ted. Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for being with us.
Ted Campbell 49:06
Yeah, thank you.
Chris McAlilly 49:07
Really appreciate the conversation.
Eddie Rester 49:09
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Chris McAlilly 49:17
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