Weird Things Christians Do: Say Creeds

I can’t think of any other time in my day to day life that I stand up with a whole bunch of other people and read out loud a large slab of text. Not since primary school anyway. But when the guy leading the service at church tells us it’s time to say the creed, that’s what happens. Why do we do that? Every other time we stand up together at least there’s music playing for some Christian Karaoke.

The creeds were written by Christians in the early days of Christianity. The point was to get the core message of Christianity into one statement. If you said you agreed with what the creed said, then you were agreeing with the main message of the Christian faith. Say two Christians were having a conversation:
Christian 1: “Do you believe everything in the Nicene Creed?”
Christian 2: “Yes. Do you?”
Christian 1: “Yes I do! Awesome!”
And then they’d give each other a Christian high-five. (Disclaimer: there may not have been any high-fives involved. But there should have been.)

When we stand up at church and say the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed, what we’re doing is boldly proclaiming that we believe in the core message of the Christian faith. That we’re part of a long tradition, stretching back hundreds of years, of Christians who have stood up for their faith and said these words. Beginning with “I believe”.