The Early Church and Naperville

In our adult class on Sunday I am teaching a class on the early church – centering on the early church councils, asking how did we as a church get this way? This past week the topic was the First Council of Constantinople in 381 CE. I know it has the great possibility of being a snoozer but it has been fun. Partly because the material has been engaging with people like Maximus the Cynic (a truly great name) populating the stories.

One question has repeatedly risen, where do our beliefs come from? The popular and quick answer is the Bible, but when challenged to find those places in the Bible that support these fundamental beliefs they are a little fuzzy. Where in the Bible do we find the verses that support the incarnation or the concept of the Trinity and how the members in the Godhead interact with one another? Or if our members find the verses will they connect them in the manner which gives rise to what we have believed for thousands of years? What happens of they connect the dots and come up a heresy? How do they know what orthodox and what is not unless there is structure which guides them?

One such structure has been the creeds. Our church is very familiar with the Apostles Creed, not so much with the Nicene Creed and the pretty much clueless with the rest of them. This week we examine the Athanasian Creed which covered two pages. It is interesting to the class that the creeds keep getting longer. The shortest for them has been the Apostle’s. The others seem to be clarifying what the Apostle’s creed meant. They are reactions to the issues of the day. One member of the class said it reminded them of a personnel manual, you only change something when there has been a problem. The church has often been reactionary rather than pioneering in its theological development.

So we talk about Arianism or Gnosticism or Modalism, and how the creeds clarified beliefs to prevent heresies from cropping up. We talk about where do our beliefs come from and how do we support what we it is we believe? How is it we have consistency of faith from one church to another and from one region to another? And they are beginning to see that our faith requires the larger body to hold out what it is were believe, to guard against some of the doctrines that are cooked up in the mind of an individual. C. Michael Patton has a post on the exegtical process and that the esse ntial question is not what does the Bible say to you, but what does Bible say? While doctrine may have its limits, it does give us a framework and grounding to understand what it is we belief together.

I am not sure how long this class will last but as it does it has been a fascinating conversation in what believe and how got to where we are at this point in time.