I Believe...
February 23, 2010
The Apostle’s Creed begins with the words “I believe …”, and then repeats those words twice: “I believe in God …I believe in Jesus Christ … I believe in the Holy Spirit.” The creed is an important part of worship for many Christians.But what does that mean, to believe? The most common understanding today is that it means to give mental assent to a certain set of beliefs, or a series of propositions. This is how a large part of the church in North America today understands this word. To believe means to agree with the truth of a set of doctrines. To be a Christian, you have to believe 1) that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God (even though that proposition was only formulated in the 1870’s); 2) in the Virgin Birth; 3) that Jesus died because of us; 4) that Jesus rose bodily after his death to heaven; and 5) that Jesus is God.
In this understanding, belief becomes a litmus test. If you believe these things, you’re a true Christian. If you don’t, then (as one website puts it) “those who disagree with any of the above doctrines are not Christians at all. Rather, they are true heretics.”
I guess I stand condemned. However, this isn’t the Bible’s understanding of belief, or faith. This meaning of the word is quite new in human history. Faith is not a head trip. It is about so much more than giving mental assent to a set of statements.
In her new book “The Case for God”, Karen Armstrong has a helpful overview of the word “believe”. The New Testament, written in Greek, uses the noun “pistis” or the verb “pisteuo”, which means “trust, loyalty, commitment, engagement”. Jesus wasn’t asking anyone to “believe” in anything. He was asking for commitment. He invited people to walk in the way he was walking. Jesus wanted disciples who got involved, who would be engaged in his mission —to feed the hungry, set the oppressed free, clothe the naked, care for the “least of these my brothers”. He invited people to trust God deeply and radically. He called us to follow, to spread the good news of God’s love to everyone, even the prostitutes and tax collectors and losers. He called people to live with compassion and radical freedom.
About the year 400, St. Jerome translated the New Testament into Latin. Pistis became “fides” which means “loyalty”. For the verb form, Jerome used “credo”, which means “I give my heart”. 1000 years later, when the Bible was translated into English, they used the word “belief”. In King James English, however, belief meant “trust in God” or “to be loyal”. It had to do with walking in the way of Jesus. It meant “I give my heart to…”; “I commit my loyalty to …”; “I give my allegiance to …” In old English, the word “believe” is closely tied to the word “belove”. To believe is to give your heart to one whom you love.
Then about 300 years ago, when the scientific method became the dominant way of viewing the world, scientists and philosophers began to use the word believe in a different way. It was no longer a matter of commitment and following. To believe now meant to give “intellectual assent”.
300 years may seem like a long time ago, but in the grand sweep of history it really isn’t. For 1700 years, “to believe” meant to make a commitment to living with God’s compassion. All of a sudden, in a brief moment, our understanding of scripture was changed … because the meaning of an English word was changed.
Lent is a season to declare, “I believe”. I give my heart to God. I recommit to walking in the way of Jesus. I renew my loyalty to living compassionately and justly. We renew our baptismal vows, and give our hearts to God again. We renew our love affair with God.
The word Lent comes from an old English word meaning “spring”. Lent is like spring — the season of renewal and life bursting from the cold ground of winter. It’s the season of the greening of the soul, pruned with repentance, fertilized with discipline, reoriented to the light that floods our souls. Lent is for growing our souls. Lent is for clearing our vision so we can participate more fully in healing the world. In Lent, we journey to the heart of our faith, and at the same time journey towards our deepest selves.
I believe. I give my heart. I renew my loyalty. That’s the work, and the gift, of Lent. Not a head trip. A renewal of the heart. A transformation of our lives.
Posted by Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt
The church celebrated Ash Wednesday two days ago. It’s an important day for Christians. In worship, our foreheads were marked with ashes in the sign of the cross. The ashes are a sign of mortality and repentance. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of self–reflection and penitence, a time of preparation for the gift of resurrection which we celebrate at Easter.
I am committed to dialogue. For that reason, when I write about positions with which I disagree in this blog, I try to be as fair as I can be. While I cannot be completely free (since I can’t eliminate my own bias), I still wish to represent others’ opinions as impartially as I can.
A new term has entered the Christian vocabulary in the last decade or so. It describes people who are coming to Christianity for the first time. They are called “seekers”. They have no Christian memory. They have no church background. They have little or no experience with the church, other than the occasional wedding or funeral. They truly are, in the best sense of the word, “seekers”. They are looking for something that will help them make sense of their lives.
A new way of being Christian is emerging. The old ways of speaking about our faith no longer seem adequate to many. The old words, like formulae which no longer work, have worn out their welcome. It’s time to seek new ways to speak faithfully of God’s presence in the world. So we work to discern new words, a new language, a new way.
I’ve been in my current parish now longer than I’ve been in any other parish. I’ve been one of those ministers/priests who has generally moved every five years or so. I’m thrilled to be staying here. This parish has been a wonderfully vibrant part of my life.
January 25 is the date the church celebrates the festival of the Conversion of St. Paul. The story is narrated by the same author as the gospel of Luke in Acts 9. Paul, or as he was originally known, Saul, was a faithful Jew. There was a new Jewish sect about. They claimed that the Messiah had come. They even went so far as to claim that it was Jesus who was the Messiah.
Some days, I’m embarrassed to call myself a Christian. Not because I’m embarrassed about Jesus Christ. Not because the gospel is a fraud. Not because I believe that the central claim of Christian faith is be a community of people committed to justice and peace in the world.
My first parish was in a small town in north–western Ontario. In 1984, as part of the celebration of the church’s 50th anniversary, we asked former ministers to reflect on their years in the parish. One in particular caught my eye. He wrote that during his time in the early 1960’s, whenever there was a wedding at the church, the Catholic priest would sit outside the church in his car, to make sure that none of his Catholic parishioners darkened the doorway of the Presbyterian Church.
How do we read the Bible?
As a priest serving an Anglican church in BC, Canada, I seek to integrate faith with all of life, taking the 21st century seriously as the context for my reflections. I invite you on a journey of seeking ever new ways of proclaiming and understanding good news in this new time, sharing thoughts about scripture, liturgy, theology, music, drama, popular culture and other matters.
