On the Creed

Of late, many within the evangelical Protestant world have been calling for some form of ressourcement, renewed attention to the early church’s creeds, theologians, liturgies, and practices. Michael Bird’s What Christians Ought To Believe is one of the best of the lot.

Bird, a New Testament scholar at Ridley College, Melbourne, doesn’t assume much prior knowledge of the creed, of creedalism, or of the Christian faith. He explains where the creeds came from, what they’re used for, and rebuts anti-creedal forms of Christianity before working carefully through each clause of the Apostles’ Creed.

Bird addresses not only the usual questions that the creed addresses, but also brings the discussion up to date with excurses on creation (his treatment is not convincing to this old fundamentalist), the masculinity of the Triune names, Jesus’s message of the kingdom, the virgin birth, and other contemporary debates. He is a lively, often amusing, writer.

Bird’s treatment is culturally sensitive throughout, but his title captures the essentially counter-cultural thrust of the creeds: Who is Michael Bird—or the Catholic Church for that matter—to tell us what we ought to believe? What hath belief to do with oughts? If evangelical ressourcement does nothing more than recapture the goodness of the church’s teaching authority, it will have done a very good work.